Critical Analysis of Pathologies of Power by Paul Farmer - Book Report/Review Example

 Pathologies of Power Introduction Pathologies of Power is written by Paul Farmer who is an anthropologist and a physician. Farmer is a twenty years experienced physician who worked in Peru, Haiti, and Russia. In his book, he uses the stories of life of many underprivileged people in an effort to interrogate the understanding of human rights. He argues in his book that the most essential struggle for human rights in this era is to promote economic and social rights of the poorest in the world. To strengthen his argument, he used the eyewitness accounts of Russian prisoners and Haitian villagers to analyze the structural violence at a broader scale through lived experiences. His major arguments are against the conventional human rights thinking and the economic and political injustice, while on the other hand he develops an understanding and outline for the illness and sufferings of the powerless. Farmer uses his experience and disciplines of anthropology and medicine to question the horrors of global public health, as it is called. He shows in his book that the social and economic forces that ignite risks for violations of human rights also give rise to diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV. He carries out a research about the way gender inequality and racism in US has embodied as death and disease. His exceptional collection of case studies show the fate of billions of nobodies in this world, who comprise of the world’s silent majority, that have inadequate or no healthcare reach (Farmer, 2005, p. 49). Farmer a raises questions in this book as he asks why the health facilities are not available to all humans irrespective of their gender, locale, race, or ability to pay; why basic healthcare is not considered a fundamental right; why do millions in Russian prisons die of infectious diseases to which successful treatments have already been found? In the first part of the book, Farmer has explained the lived experiences of the people in Russia, Haiti, and Chiapas. He explains the problems of landlessness, starvation, malnutrition, cultural disruption, and other social problems that are the consequences of poverty. Farmer also believes that deadly diseases and poor health are linked to economic and political structures, and thus considered as structural violence. The structural violence is present in the local and global economic and political structure, and Farmer has provided a demonstration of how this structural violence causes increased health problems and suffering for these poor people (Farmer, 2005, p. 10). I believe Farmer has effectively explained the concept of structural violence and its relation to poverty and health problems in regard to the separate places he mentioned and their political and economic policies. In the part II of the book, Farmer develops a moral argument which relates to the health care as a fundamental human right. He develops the argument in reference to the history of the liberation theology and international politics. He also frequently addresses the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to argue that healthcare right is often absent from foreign policies. Since Farmer has a deep understanding of the medical care, its market approach, and the effect that it has on the health of the poor, he is critical about the purposes and importance of medicine. Furthermore, he also critically talks about cultural relativism as he knows it is a dominant issue in medical ethics. He argues that cultural relativism is what leads to the lack of advocacy of poor from doctors (Beyrer, 2002, p. 249). Farmer has also talked from the globalism perspective arguing that the poverty of the world is dependent on the exploitation of the global capitalism. Farmer has criticized globalism in its role to intensify the suffering and sickness of the poor but Farmer fails to consider that the unlimited quest for economic growth and technological domination have also had devastating impacts on the health of the people. These issues may be called the modern problems for which there is a need for modern cures. Farmer is seen solving the problems rose from globalism on the traditional societies but how can modern diseases be prevented in regard to modern medicine. Farmer has presented arguments and medical solutions but has failed to challenge the modernization that causes most of the problems and presenting sustainable local solutions for local communities (Pogge, 2005, p. 201). This is one area where the author fails to connect with the reader as I felt that he left an open end with a lot of questions unanswered. I felt that the author has discussed the universal standards but has ignored the local communities and their local standards, which are equally important. Farmer has set an approach towards the universal health standards, universal methods of attaining them, and universal human rights to create a globalized model for medical care. There are several problems with universal standards that are not addressed by Farmer in his book. Universal standards do not take into account the local preferences ad conditions, they disallow localities to choose and adopt their own standards that are appropriate to their circumstances, it increases the external dependence, and it pushes the local standards downwards. If the nation or community is self-reliant, the scope for community flexibility will increase (Stulac, 2006, p. 45). I would suggest that Farmer’s approach was rather a medical dependency. Using this approach, Farmer has caused many readers to stay in a blurred vision about the human rights, local implementation, and political and economic issues. This is because I believe the book focused on the medical perspective which may not be easy for a general reader to understand. At some points, it seemed as if Farmer disconnected with the readers and went on with his medical knowledge. Farmer has focused on a moral system along with critiquing structural violence and the position of healthcare as a basic human right. The focus is on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and how it is rather a hollow proclamation to which most of the people don’t have access. According to Farmer, the declarations of the UN are failing greatly in ensuring the adaption of these human rights. There are many aspects that Farmer has failed to acknowledge. These include the technologies and medicine that relies upon the destructive practices such as natural resources exploitation, animal research, and testing on animals (Farmer, 2004, p. 34). He focuses on the failure of medical facilities and drugs to the poor who are caught with deadly diseases but yet fail to analyze the economics of healthcare. Even though Farmer believes and argues that healthcare facilities should be provided to all despite their inability to pay for them, he fails to acknowledge that the wealth that is used to generate advanced medicine and doctors training is accumulated through political domination of the First World nations. This is why First World countries provide medicines and doctors to poor countries (Farmer, 2005, p. 6). Farmer has expressed his knowledge and analysis skills beautifully through this book. He is a gifted person with an intellect which is over the line and this is evident from the research and analysis that he carried out. The best part about this book is the fusion of universal human rights and medical ethics to health. He grabs the attention of his readers through the examples of experiences and discussion of human rights. Thus, this book has many positive parts which are almost equal to the lacking factors, making it a book which can be too good for some, or too confusing. However, this book is not only an illustration of abuse or negativity. Along with the disturbing examples presented in the book, there is an optimism that is present in the book which focuses that new social and medical technologies have the power to develop and form a more sophisticated sense of social justice. In his conclusion, he suggests that if new technologies are not adopted, we will all be guilty of being unable to manage social inequality. He also pleas in the end of the book to focus on human rights and their importance in the global public health, and consider the critical issues of world’s poor and their proximity to suffering and surfeit (Castro, 2004, p. 166). However, I believe that this book has an immense effect on the reader and might even cause a headache because of the disturbing realities and stories that are shared. This book is impactful and powerful with a powerful approach towards poverty, medical problems, and human rights. In a general context, I believe this book could do much better. Even though it has received immense critical acclaim for the approach and content, but somehow it failed to fulfill my expectations. Farmer is a great writer but as mentioned in the above discussion he has failed to express many solutions and issues related to the subject. He has a great command over his subject but when it comes to human rights, local standards, economics, and politics, he fails to address some of the major issues such as the economics surrounding healthcare for Third World countries; he simply says they deserve them as their right but fails to define how they can get them in regard to the world economy and politics. I believe Farmer has missed a few things that could be added to the discussion to make it stronger. Overall, the book was impactful mainly because of the case studies used which were emotional and real. I learnt a lot about Third World country lives and global public healthcare as I read through the book. References Farmer P. (2005). Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights and the new war on the poor. University of California Press Beyrer C. (2002). Human rights, politics, and reviews of research ethics. Elsevier Pogge T. (2005). Human rights and global health: a research program. John Wiley & Sons Stulac S. (2006). Structural Violence and clinical medicine. PLOS Medicine Farmer P. (2004). Rethinking medical ethics: a view from below. John Wiley & Sons Castro A. (2004). Health and economic development. Springer Read More