Right to Healthcare

The Monsters Within: Capital, Cancer, and Crisis

This paper critiques Marx’s use of the vampire as a metaphor for capital, by suggesting that cancer offers political economists a more appropriate lexicon to describe capitalism’s exploitative and destructive nature. This argument, however, is not limited to a metaphorical narrative. While cancer, similar to dead labor, drains the vitality of living labor, it is also a real disease that is investigated using innovative science to find a cure and treatments designed to improve the quality of life of cancer patients. One of the most promising advances in cancer research comes from the ability to compare the healthy human genome to those undergoing the mutations that produce cancer cells. Genetics’ mapping of cancer’s pathologies is critical to understanding why, how and what treatments are effective. Using the Cancer Atlas as a model, this paper outlines how political economy can apply the imaging technology of geographic information systems to identify patterns in the spread of capitalism’s social and environmental mutations. In addition, these tools also afford an opportunity to investigate the health benefits of institutions and organizations animated by mutual aid and cooperation, rather than rational optimization and efficient production. From this comparative examination, illustrated by maps and described by oncology’s vocabulary, a wider discussion of production, value, and social change becomes more accessible to all those who desire a healthy society with sustainable prosperity available to all.