Capitalism and Impairments

Capitalism and the social oppression of people with

impairments

Bob Williams-FindlayDisability Equality &

Human Rights Trainer

The Birth of the Disabled People’s Movement

• The late 1960s saw May ’68, the rise of both the Civil Rights and Women’s Movements

• The Independent Living Movement grew out of the US Disability Rights MovementDisability Rights Movement, which began in the early 1970s. The IL Movement works at replacing the special education and rehabilitation experts’ concepts of integration, normalization and rehabilitation with a new paradigm developed by disabled people themselves.


• The Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation was founded in 1972 and disbanded in 1990. It nevertheless lay the basis for the UK Movement

• It was started by Paul Hunt when he wrote a letter to the Guardian inviting disabled people to join with him to form a group to tackle disability.


• UPIAS became the first disability liberation group in the UK, and one of the first in the world, and certainly the most advanced in the world.

• What it had to offer disabled people was an analysis of disability - fairly basic, but an analysis of disability in which they presented a new concept. They presented disability as a social relationship in which disabled people were oppressed. And in doing this they were overturning the concept of disability as basically a biologically determined condition.

Over the years many disabled people have

campaigned for “justice”, “equal rights” and

“an end to discrimination”.

What is meant by ‘Disability’?

• The 1970s saw some disabled people question why they were placed in ‘special places’ and viewed as ‘burdens on society’

• They argued that the way people viewed ‘disability’ had led to the exclusion and segregation of those with significant impairments.

What is meant by ‘Disability’?

• Disabled activists and academics began to develop a historical materialist analysis of people with impairments’ social relationships within given societies.

• Thus the meanings given to ‘disability’ are “historically specific”.

Historical Background

• Once upon a time ‘disability’ was seen as an ‘act of God’ – a punishment for the parents or the person’s ‘sin’ in this or a former life.

• Just prior to the Industrial Revolution the focus shifted from spiritual to physical well-being and this finally resulted in the development of a medical classification system under capitalism.


• By the middle of the nineteenth century British society had felt the impact of the Industrial Revolution. The harsh realities it produced created economic and social upheavals which brought about, in turn, moral panics around the fear of illness, disease and depravity. Social reformers sought to replace chaos with control - contours around what was considered ‘normal’ were drawn and those groups thought to be polluting society - outside ‘normality’ - were withdrawn from the public gaze.


• The increased usage of institutionalisation, the birth of the eugenics movement and the proliferation of charities contributed towards ‘cleansing’ society of its mad and hapless cripples. Non-conformity was unacceptable and those people deemed incapable of keeping standards associated with ‘normal activities’ - productive and reproductive - had to be ‘taken care of’ in more senses than one.


• The First World War cemented the view that ‘disability’ was a “personal tragedy” – based on the notion that the loss of bodily function also means a break with ‘able-bodied normality’

• Hence, the less a person functions like a ‘normal person’, the more disabled they were ‘adjudged’ to be

Models of DisabilityModels of Disability

• Individual modelIndividual model (sometimes called ‘the (sometimes called ‘the Medical Model’) – tends to view “disability” Medical Model’) – tends to view “disability” as either a personal tragedy or a failure to as either a personal tragedy or a failure to be “normal”be “normal”

• Social modelSocial model – sees ‘disability’ as the – sees ‘disability’ as the negative outcome resulting from systems, negative outcome resulting from systems, structures and attitudes within society (i.e. structures and attitudes within society (i.e. disabling barriers)disabling barriers)

Models of DisabilityModels of Disability

• Individual Model of Disability legitimises how Individual Model of Disability legitimises how capitalist society socially constructs and capitalist society socially constructs and creates disability.creates disability.

• Social construction around dominant Social construction around dominant ideologies such as individualism and ideologies such as individualism and normalitynormality

• Social creation – the systematic failure to Social creation – the systematic failure to address disabling barriers and institutional address disabling barriers and institutional discrimination e.g. exploitative social discrimination e.g. exploitative social relations in the labour marketrelations in the labour market

Individual Model of DisabilityIndividual Model of Disability

The Disabled Person

“Can’t…” walk, talk, see, hear, work, climb stairs, read written info,

speak, etc.

Is passive or dependant“confined” to awheelchair,

“housebound”, etc.

Is a burdenneeds care, help,services; takes anddoesn’t give…

Is sick or illwaiting for a cure,confusion betweenillness and disability

Object of pity or sorrowrecipient of charity, has “special” needs which don’t get met by mainstream services or funding, etc.

Disability as Tragedy

• If a wheelchair user is unable to access a building because it has steps – the reason is their inability to walk

• If a Deaf person is unable to follow a conversation – the reason is their inability to hear

• If a person with learning difficulties gets lost – the reason is their lack of ability to understand directions


• The model sees disability as being the degree to which a person fails to conform to the expected and accepted ‘norms’ linked to daily functional activities

• Disability is located ‘within’ the individual and therefore ‘blames’ their impairment for any social disadvantage they encounter


• Maintains that ‘disability’ should be cured through medicine and treatment. But what are the implications of this approach if the person’s situation cannot be altered this way?

• Leads to actions to “end the ‘suffering’” or placing disabled people into ‘special’ provisions due to their ‘special’ needs


• Individual model of disability maintains the view is that disabled people need to fit into society. It justifies a cycle of exclusion and dependency due to common attitudes and prejudices as well as inappropriate practices.

ConsequencesConsequences

• Disabled people have faced segregation, Disabled people have faced segregation, isolation, invisibility & discriminationisolation, invisibility & discrimination

• Location of the ‘problem’ within the Location of the ‘problem’ within the individual – “a person individual – “a person with with a disability”a disability”

• Created institutional discriminationCreated institutional discrimination

Definitions

• The ICIDH was replaced in 2001 by the International Classification on Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) which, attempts to look at the impact of the environment, both physical and attitudinal, in disabling people living with impairments.

Social Model Definitions of Disability

• Impairment: an injury, illness or inherited condition that causes or likely to cause a loss or difference in the way the body and mind works.

• Disability: the loss or limitation of opportunities to take part in the general life of the community on an equal level with others due to physical and social barriers.

The Social Model of Disability

• Within this model disability is seen as a socially created issue. An individual with an impairment will not be disabled by society, if their social environment acknowledges, removes or reduces the disabling barriers they encounter. This includes accepting their impairment and the social consequences of living with an impairment.

Social Model

• The social model offers an alternative understanding of disability

• Disability is viewed as the outcome of ‘negative interactions’ that takes place between the impaired individual and their social environment – each side, (the impairment / environment) has an influence on the ‘interactions’

Social Model

• We refer to ‘negative interactions’ as being the cause of disabling barriers at the micro level of society.

• Disabling barriers can be:

– negative attitudes towards disabled people– policies, practices and customs – the natural or built environment

Social Model of DisabilitySocial Model of Disability

The Disabling World

Inaccessible physicalenvironments including buildings,

transport, poor design, etc.

Information not inaccessible formatse.g. plain language, Braille, tape, large print, disk, accessible website, etc.

Communicationbarrierse.g. few sign languageInterpreters, no induction(hearing) loops oralternatives totelephones, assuming everyone communicates in the same way

Prejudicee.g. attitudes, stereotyping, assumptions, etc.

Discriminatione.g. inflexible or unfair systems in organisations

Social Model

• If a wheelchair user is unable to access a building because it has steps – the reason is the failure to provide a ramp or lift

• If a Deaf person is unable to follow a conversation – the reason is the non-consideration of their communication needs

• If a person with learning difficulties gets lost – the reason is the fact the directions they were given clearly didn’t meet their needs

The Politics of Disability

• The social model sees disability as being imposed on top of people who have impairments. Disability is viewed as the oppressive social relationships people with impairments experience. People with impairments are disabled by the structures, attitudes and culture found in specific societies.


Therefore:

“For me disabled people are defined in terms of three criteria;

(i) they have an impairment;(ii) they experience oppression as a

consequence; and (iii) they identify themselves as a

disabled person.”


• Using the generic term does not mean that I do not recognise differences in experience within the group but that in exploring this we should start from the ways oppression differentially impacts on different groups of people rather than with differences in experience among individuals with different impairments.

Mike Oliver from Capitalism, disability and ideology: A materialist critique of the Normalization principle (1999)

Disability Terminology

The term “people with disabilities” generallyrefers to people with impairments who areviewed as having the “inability to perform‘normal’ tasks” (sic). It is an oppressive socialconstruct.

Disabled people are seen as people with characteristics or impairments that lead to thembeing disabled by the way society is organised. Itis political identity for the Disabled People’sMovement.


Through the British Council of Disabled People (BCODP) and the Independent Living Movement the self-organisation of disabled people gathered pace during the 1980s.

It was the same year as a “Rights Not Charity” march took place. Private Members’ Bills seeking legislation came and went. Research commissioned by BCODP on the nature of discrimination in Britain and acted as a turning point.


Both MPs and the public began to take more

notice and in 1992 a new umbrella

organisation, Rights Now was established to

promote a Civil Rights bill. The outrage at

the first defeat of this bill, forced the

Government to produce its own legislation

which became the Disability Discrimination

Act 1995.


The passing of the DDA did lead to a surge in awareness about “disability discrimination” among those who came to know about the Act’s existence, however, the nature of the Act itself made it unlikely to impact on the structures of society where institutional discrimination takes place.


Demos reported:

“....despite all the apparent progress that has been made since the original BCODP report was launched, the underlying reality is that disabled people continue to face the same barriers that they have always faced and that ‘disablism remains rife throughout Britain’.”


The Labour Party under Smith were listening to disabled people and agreed to bring in new social model based legislation when elected. This changed under Blair:

• Token changes – tinkered with DDA• Ignored disabled people’s groups• Launched witch hunt against disabled

people on benefits via Purnell and Freud


• I would argue New Labour helped to demobilize the Disabled People’s Movement – a social movement.

• The Movement became fractured, de-politicized and isolated – not too unlike the Left!


Many of the policies adopted by the CONDEM Government originate with New Labour = Freud, an ex-merchant banker,swapping sides to become a Lord and lead the attack. The attack is simply starker and more hard hitting thanLabour planned. It is about restructuring the State not the myth of “UK Debt”.

The Cuts and Disabled People

• Using Tory press to stigmatise disabled people in a style similar to the Nazis

• Forcing disabled people who are also ill to enter a labour market that discriminates against them – suicides have already occurred.

• The cuts in “social care” and the restructuring of NHS will leave many ‘at risk’.


• The welfare reform will remove a quarter of disabled claimants out of benefits altogether and make it harder to claim.

• Will individualise and medicalise the assessment process – ESA, PIP, etc

• Housing Benefit and ILF changes will lead to institutional rather than independent living


• CONDEM cuts attack disabled people’s human rights and violate UN Convention on Rights of Disabled Persons

• Disabled People Against Cuts is the radical voice of disabled people from within the old Disabled People’s Movement

Talking about the Left

• The Left’s understanding of the politics of disability is extremely poor

• Ernest Mandel one of the few non-disabled Marxists to even engage with the issue

• Many of the Left’s theories, policies and practices exclude disabled people and are therefore, albeit unintentionally, colluding in the social oppression of disabled people

• Disabled people are part of the anti-capitalist struggle –

Nothing About Us, Without Us!

Capitalism and Impairments

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