One billion people around the world live with some form of disability, making up around 15% of the global population. The total number is rising fast, due both to chronic health conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and mental illness, and to wars, civil wars and environmental catastrophes – all manifestations in different ways of the devastating crisis of capitalism, which together have resulted in millions of people being maimed and rendered “unfit” for work.
What is a disability? The very conception of disability is a product of capitalism. People unable to do the very demanding heavy manual work which was a feature of early capitalist economies were denigrated and devalued. Yet in earlier forms of human society there was far greater acceptance of the range and variety of human abilities.
Under capitalism, people with disabilities suffer special discrimination, finding themselves both excluded from and exploited by the labour market. In Britain, for instance, where 20% of the population are classified as “disabled”, the employment rate for the disabled is 53.7% compared to 82% for the non-disabled.
Religious and capitalist philosophy has always favoured charity over state intervention as a means of supporting people unable to earn wages. It is the pressure of public opinion which has forced capitalist governments to provide support for people who can’t work. Yet neoliberal politics still seeks to portray people on benefits as “scroungers”.
It is time society took disability issues and disabled people seriously. It is society which needs to change – not the disabled. The time is now to make this happen! How can the labour movement help to promote the rights of people with disabilities?
The discussion will be led by
Katy McCafferty (disability officer, Labour International)
Keith Gray (disability officer, Labour Party of Northern Ireland)