Transcript The history of disability - University of Winchester

The Marxist perspective
 ‘Men make their own history, but they do not make it
just as they please; they do not make it under
circumstances chosen by themselves …’
 (Marx, 1852/1950: 154)
 At Marx's grave, Engels asserted that his friend’s great
discovery was that “mankind must first of all eat, drink,
have shelter and clothing, and therefore work before it
can pursue politics, science, art, religion etc.” (Engels,
1883/1972: 603)
Capitalism and inequality
 The capitalist economic system is predicated upon
unequal relationships between:
the bourgeoisie (the ruling class), who own the
means of production (the materials we need to
produce, factories, machines, etc.)
and the proletariat (the working classes), who
work the means of production.
To understand the oppression of the
disabled is to understand:
(1) The changing economic contribution of the
disabled
(2) Surplus army of labour
(3) The disability industry
(1) The changing economic contribution
of the disabled
 Disablement is caused by an oppressive relations of
power between those who own, and those who work,
the means of production, the field, the factory, etc.
(UPIAS 1976; Abberley 1987, 1996).
 People not deemed as economically useful to the
furtherance of capitalism – who are not vital members
of the proletariat - are kept out of the way, segregated.
‘The operation of the labour market in the nineteenth
century effectively depressed handicapped people of
all kinds to the bottom of the market’.
 (Morris, 1969: 9)
When the disabled can contribute to the
economic system they live under they are less
excluded, less oppressed:
‘By the 1890's, the population of Britain was
increasingly urban and the employment of the
majority was industrial, rather than rural. The
blind and the deaf growing up in slowly changing
scattered rural communities had more easily
been absorbed into the work and life of those
societies without the need for special provision.
… The environment of an industrial society was
however different.’
 (Topliss, 1979, p. 11)
(2) The surplus army of labour: Who
gains from disablement?
 In times of boom or need capitalism must have a
surplus army of labour, e.g. The Second World War
 Abberley, (1987, p.10):
‘the main and consistent beneficiary must be
identified as the present social order, or more
accurately, capitalism’.
(3) The disability industry
 ‘The production of the category disability is no
different from the production of motor cars or
hamburgers. Each has an industry … Each has a
workforce which has a vested interest in producing
their product in particular ways and exerting as
much control over the process of production as
possible’.
(Oliver, 1999: 2)
(1) The Marxist perspective is overly
deterministic
 Barton and Tomlinson (1984, p.65): the post war
approach to educating children diagnosed as
‘having special needs’ is motivated by ‘benevolent
humanitarianism’ which in practice translates as,
‘doing good to individual children’.
(2) It overlooks attitudes and culture
 The ‘social construction of disability’
 Disability is about culture and attitudes
(Shakespeare, 1994).
 It overlooks ‘labels and their consequences’ (Booth,
1985)
Disability and liberation: Two perspective
 Marxist
 Humanist
 Change the economic
system

 Disabled people to
take control of their
lives – disability
services for the
disabled, by the
disabled
 Change attitudes and
culture
 Ensure that services
for disabled people
are empowering and
inclusive
References
 Abberley, P. (1987) The concept of oppression and the
development of a social theory of disability, Disability,
Handicap and Society, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 5-19.
 Abberley, P. (1996) Work, Utopia and impairment,
Disability & Society: Emerging Issues and Insights, In: L.
Barton (Ed.) (London: Addison Wesley Longman Limited)
 Barton, L. and Tomlinson, S. (Eds) (1984) Special
Education and Social Interests (Beckenham, Croom
Helm).
 Booth, T. (1985) Labels and their consequences, In: D.
Lane & B. Stratford (Eds) Current Approaches to Down’s
Syndrome (London: Holt, Rinehart & Winston)
 Engels, F. (1883/1972) Speech at the Graveside of Karl
Marx, in Robert C. Tucker (Ed) The Marx Engels Reader
(W.W. Norton, New York)
 Marx, K. (1852/1950) On Tradition, Personality, and
Class-Forces, in S. Hook (Ed.) Marx-Engels: Selected
Works Vol. 1 (Moscow: Foreign Language Publishing
House)
 Morris, P. (1969) Put Away (London: Routledge)
 Oliver, M. (1999) Capitalism, disability and ideology: A
materialist critique of the Normalization principle, in:, R. J.
Flynn & R. A. Lemay (Eds) A Quarter-Century of
Normalization and Social Role Valorization: Evolution and
Impact (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press)
 Shakespeare, T. (1999) Art and lies? Representations of
disability on film, In M. Corker & S. French (Eds) Disability
Discourse (Philadelphia: Open University Press)
 Topliss, E. (1979) Provision for the disabled (Oxford:
Blackwell)
 UPIAS. (1976) Fundamental Principles of Disability. Union
of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation: London