Capital and the Ecology of Disease

Abstract

In this article, the authors describe the impact of global capitalism on emergence and spread of diseases. Furthermore, they emphasize the insufficiency of the medical model fixed on the individual health, which functions within the framework of market economy, in addressing the issue of infectious diseases. Con-trary to this failed model, the authors argue for socialized medicine as the proper response to contemporary health crises and they provide a historical reconstruction of this approach.