replies to Rakesh, Wojtek, Charles, Chris Anarchism /Marxism debates

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Wed Aug 25 09:10:51 PDT 1999


Charles Brown wrote:


>I bet they don't keep life expectancy stats by class, huh ? That
>might beget a revolution.

No, they don't. Vicente Navarro has argued that the racial gaps in health indicators are actually capturing "class" differences, which begs the question of why race should be an influence on class in the first place. There was a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in the early 1990s showing that even after controlling for income - yeah, I know that's a highly imperfect proxy for class - black health indicators were worse than white. One can only speculate on why, but it must have something to do with the fact that the hidden injuries of race supplement those of class.

Doug



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