In this fiery theoretical tour de force Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant offer an
overview of life and death under capitalism and argue for a new global left politics aimed at
severing the ties between capital and one of its primary tools: health. Written by co-hosts of
the hit ¿Death Panel¿ podcast and longtime disability justice and healthcare activists
Adler-Bolton and Vierkant Health Communism first examines how capital has instrumentalized
health disability madness and illness to create a class seen as ¿surplus ¿ regarded as a
fiscal and social burden. Demarcating the healthy from the surplus the worker from the ¿unfit¿
to work the authors argue serves not only to undermine solidarity but to mark whole
populations for extraction by the industries that have emerged to manage and contain this
¿surplus¿ population. Health Communism then looks to the grave threat capital poses to global
public health and at the rare movements around the world that have successfully challenged the
extractive economy of health. Ultimately Adler-Bolton and Vierkant argue we will not succeed
in defeating capitalism until we sever health from capital. To do this will require a radical
new politics of solidarity that centers the surplus built on an understanding that we must not
base the value of human life on one’s willingness or ability to be productive within the
current political economy. Capital it turns out only fears health.
