Wow! eBook
The Health of Nations: Towards a New Political Economy
Author(s): Gavin Mooney (Author)
- Publisher: Zed Books
- Publication Date: 12 April 2012
- Edition: 1st
- Language: English
- Print length: 224 pages
- ISBN-10: 1780320604
- ISBN-13: 9781780320601
Book Description
Mooney analyses how power is exercised both in health-care systems and in society more generally. In doing so, it reveals how too many vested interests hinder efficient and equitable policies to promote healthy populations, while too little is done to address the social determinants of health. Instead, Mooney argues, health services and health policy more generally should be returned to the communities they serve.
Taking in a broad range of international case studies – from the UK to the US, South Africa to Cuba – this provocative book places issues of power and politics in health care systems centre stage, making a compelling case for the need to re-evaluate how we approach health care globally.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Many social scientists and activists have long felt extremely frustrated by a paradigm which links health care closely to the market – a market that is supposed to be free of corporate power. Mooney’s book shows what can be achieved even under the power of big corporations that dominate the pharmaceutical industry worldwide, as well as under the neoliberal ideology adopted by many governments, some of which profess to be leftist. While exposing the misdeeds of big corporations and their clientelistic governments, Mooney’s book indicates how much can be achieved by, first, promoting communitarianism in a principled and rational way and, second, listening to the concerns of the people being served by health care, not just hospital managers or those in the medical profession. –Amiya Bagchi, Institute of Development Studies Kolkata
