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Episode 188: How Capital Repackages Substandard Products for the Poor as "Increasing Access"

Added 2023-09-13 16:21:04 +0000 UTC

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"COVAX and World Bank to Accelerate Vaccine Access for Developing Countries," trumpets a World Bank press release. "How AI Is Making Healthcare More Affordable And Accessible," announces Forbes magazine. "How technology is helping improve financial inclusion around the world," reports CNBC.

It's a linguistic frame that appears regularly in media, PR, and policymaking. Those who can't afford the top-tier forms of basic necessities like housing or physical and mental healthcare, we're told, can have "access" to less expensive, lower-quality versions. Enter bottom-rung ACA marketplace plans, less effective COVID vaccines, homeless people living in train containers, scammy cryptocurrency apps, and clunky chatbot "therapists." After all, they're better than the alternative: having no healthcare, housing, or income at all.

But why must having nothing at all be the only alternative? Why isn't it possible to ensure high-quality essentials for everyone? And how does media's repackaging of substandard necessities as "increasing access" and fostering "inclusion" serve to make the barbarism of austerity politics seem palatable, even benevolent?

On this episode, our season seven premiere, we'll examine the trope of framing subpar material essentials as forms of "inclusion" for the poor or "increasing access" to important life saving and sustaining needs, exploring how media simply accept, rather than challenge, the manufactured austerity that allows this cruel stratification in the first place.

Our guest is writer, artist and pod host Beatrice Adler-Bolton.

Guest

Beatrice Adler-Bolton is a writer, artist & co-host of the Death Panel podcast about the political economy of health. She is the co-author - with her podcast co-host Artie Vierkant - of Health Communism: A Surplus Manifesto, which was published by Verso Books last year.

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Show Notes

Throwing the Poor Crumbs Isn’t “Increasing Access”

Adam Johnson | April 12, 203 | The Column

The Line Must Be Drawn Here

Adam Johnson | March 24, 203 | The Column

Predatory Inclusion

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor | Fall 2019 | n+1

Care for All

Charlie Markbreiter, Beatrice Adler-Bolton & Artie Vierkant | October 20, 2022 | Bookforum

Google’s medical AI chatbot is already being tested in hospitals

Wes Davis | July 8, 2023 | The Verge

An Eating Disorder Chatbot Is Suspended for Giving Harmful Advice

Amanda Hoover | June 2, 203 | Wired

Therapy by chatbot? The promise and challenges in using AI for mental health

Yuki Noguchi | January 19, 2023 | NPR

The boring journey of Matt Yglesias

Dan Zak | January 11, 2023 | The Washington Post

How technology is helping improve financial inclusion around the world

Carmen Reinicke | March 11, 2022 | CNBC

No matter what Sanders says, there’s no Medicare-for-all without tradeoffs

Editorial Board | May 4, 2019 | The Washington Post

You can’t have it all — even with Medicare-for-all

Editorial Board | January 31, 2019 | The Washington Post

The cosmically huge ‘if’ of Medicare for all

Editorial Board | August 12, 2018 | The Washington Post

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Transcript

For a full transcript of this episode, go here. You can find transcripts of past episodes and News Briefs here.

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