Fatigue Is Profoundly Anti-capitalistic
Why Long Covid & Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Are So Threatening To The Status Quo
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Capitalism Relies On The Myth Of Hard Work
The reality of capitalism is that profit is extracted through paying laborers less than they produce with the value added by their work.
But the myth that capitalism uses to function is that the harder you work the more money you “deserve” and will make.
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All Disability Challenges Meritocracy & Capitalism
Capitalism uses the assumption is that how hard you work is the primary determinant of success. Yet at the same time, it is commonplace to tell disabled people that their disability “just means you have to work twice as hard to get ahead.”
Any sort of disability, or other form of marginalization, places people at a disadvantage and changes the ratio of hard work to success. Thus all disability challenges capitalism. For this reason, disabled people are pushed to make themselves smaller and invisible. The mere reminder of our existence challenges the foundational beliefs of our current economic system.
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Fatigue Is Profoundly Anti-Capitalistic
While all disability challenges capitalism, fatigue poses an especially high bar. While you can argue that someone with chronic pain or with a spinal cord injury just needs to work harder but could still push through to achieve success, fatigue is defined by the inability to push through.
If you accept that people with fatigue are real and are not just “lazy,” you are accepting that there are people who cannot succeed under capitalism.
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When Rest Is Best
Furthermore, for patients with long covid and myalgic encephalomyelitis, the core symptom of post-exertional neuroimmune exhaustion means that not only is resting necessary because of fatigue it is productive and necessary for health.
Capitalism simply cannot function in a world where workers value rest and health over work. The most central exploited resource in capitalism is human labor. People with fatigue and post-exertional symptoms, regardless of politics, are forced to refuse this exploitation.
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Long Covid And Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Are Political Problems
There is a reason Myalgic Encephalomyelitis was renamed “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,” why Long Covid patients have been immediately labeled malingerers and lazy. Why the NIH has spent millions of dollars to make absolutely no progress on Long Covid diagnostics? Why curing ME has been put on hold since the 80s.
While curing ME and Long Covid would be good for capitalism by returning workers to the workforce, diagnosing us correctly is a catastrophic threat. Medical advances are never purely scientific. They require political will and funding. The first step to treatment is accurate diagnosis. But accurate diagnosis would legitimize these diseases and legitimize people's resistance to exploiting labor over rest and health.
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Medicine Is A Capitalist Tool
Medical technology is an incredible thing. Medical researchers and innovative doctors have made some of the most essential quality of life improvements for humanity. Most doctors do not do what they do for profit, they do it to help people.
But, just because individual doctors' motives are good, doesn’t mean they are not still influenced and shaped by the system they are trained to work within.
Under capitalism, doctors' goals are to return people to work and minimize the caregiving they need. The goal of treating pain is to increase functionality. The goal of surgery is to return to work. The goal of preventing progression of chronic disease or developing mobility aids is to reduce caregiver hours. This is taught through measuring outcomes in terms of “functionality” and “dignity” (where needing help is seen as less dignified, when in reality it is not receiving needed help that lacks dignity).
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Health Beyond Medicine
Chronic illness treatment, pain management, rest, community support, adequate caregiving, all of these are a huge part of health and providing someone with true dignity and functionality.
Yet because they work against increasing the exploitation of labor, they are deeply problematic to capitalism and undervalued. Don’t let your body fight off that infection with a (within safe limits) fever. Take a Tylenol and get back to work today!
For patients with Long Covid and ME rest and care are the two most important healthcare interventions. Yet they are something that medicine does nothing at all to address. Indeed, many practitioners use the need for continued rest to argue against providing palliative care. This is a direct illustration of how any treatment that does not increase labor exploitation is devalued. (With the exception often being if the patient or their insurance can be exploited as a consumer of palliative medications or treatments)
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The Need For Political Resistance In Research
Because ME and Long Covid are so profoundly anti-capitalistic I believe it is simply wrong to assume that we can achieve research and cures for people with ME only by advocating for more funding.
We must advocate for unbiased research. For money to go to organizations that prioritize diagnosis and the biomedical legitimacy of the illness. Because governments, if left to their own devices, will do everything in their power to psychologize and delegitimize this illness.
The PACE trial is the largest dual blind trial ever conducted in relation to ME. It is also the most disastrous thing to happen to ME patients. Far worse than just the neglect, it turned medicine into abuse.
So more funding does not equal more progress. Quality matters. Patient voices matter. Funder priorities and ulterior motives matter.
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The Need For Political Advocacy Beyond Research
Furthermore, we cannot simply wait for research to save us. Even if a diagnostic test is found shortly, even if a cure were found, it would not change the fact that fatigue is profoundly anti-capitalistic. It would not change the fact that our current system will not want to support laborers in what is seen as willful resistance to the exploitation of labor, even if it is done with no politics or even choices involved.
The most marginalized people will still be shut out of diagnosis. Still be shut out of receiving help. We must build our own mutual aid networks and advocate for broadscale policies like universal basic income that provide for everyone. We must remind ourselves that “lazy” is a label simply incompatible with the human spirit. That if people are not doing what they love there is almost always a reason why and we must believe that.
We must fight for the right to rest. Because for those of us with fatigue, long covid and ME it is not a fight we get to choose. Regardless of your politics you are already fighting it.
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MyalgicEncephalomyelitis and Long Covid are political because chronic fatigue is political.
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Existance is resistance for those living with ME / CFS and Long Covid. It doesn't matter if you do not politically care about anti-capitalism if you simply believe in your right to live this goes against the capitalist world we live in.
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In the long run, it would economically huge to cure MECFS which has an estimated economic burden of 36-51 Billion dollars per year in the USA alone.*
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But capitalism cannot think long-term and in the short-term it would be financially devestating for governments to aknowledge and then be forced to support the over 20 million people worldwide with ME and up to 180 million with long covid.*
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To cure our disease requires preliminary research that validates our symptoms, experiences, and pathology. Studies that look at disability and funding for diagnostic testing all based on strong diagnostic criteria, are key to ever understanding this illness.
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Validating the experiences of people with fatigue, validating status as disabled chronically ill and sick is political. Therefore, preliminary research is political.
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More funding for poorly conducted studies that focus on psychosomatic treatment or graded excercise therapy is not helpful and can be actively harmful.
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It is not only a matter of securing funding for these illnesses, it is a matter of political will to support the millions missing and millions more with these illnesses.
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Studies must be:
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Focused on explaining what happens in the bodies of pwME and the pathology behind it.
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Inclusive of or focused on the most severe patients with the most obvious pathology.
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Done with understanding of post exertional neuroimmune exhaustion (PENE) and Post Exertional Malaise (PEM) and proper diagnostic criteria.
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Done with informed consent of the dangers of crashing and exertion or excercise.
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Designed with patient input and feedback.
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All of this requires not just funding and scientists but political will. The Personalls Political and this is extremely true in the case of Disability Justice and Energy Limiting Illnesses.
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*Source: Open Medicine Foundation 2023
