Social power is necessary for human health.

[Hannah Bell]

Physician and author Susan Rosenthal reached this conclusion after decades of research, observation, and activism.

In POWER and Powerlessness, she explains that most people lack the healthy, fulfilling lives they deserve because they are kept divided and powerless, and they mistakenly accept this state of affairs as natural or self-inflicted.

Written for a popular audience, POWER and Powerlessness asks, then answers, four basic questions:

What’s going on?

How did this happen?

Why do we put up with it?

What will it take?

Original, hopeful, impeccably researched, this book explains:

Why human health depends on strong social bonds.

How capitalism disrupts social bonds by dividing humanity into classes.

How disrupted social bonds form the link between individual and social problems.

How the medical system manages human misery instead of ending it.

The key obstacles to social change.

How the working class can organize itself to transform powerlessness into the power to change the world.


Reviews

Howard Zinn, author, A People’s History of the United States

"I think you’ve written something powerful and important. And I like your style, clear, approachable. I hope it will be widely circulated."


Free audio here:

http://susanrosenthal.com/audio-books-power-and-powerlessness

[boobooday]

1. The nod from Zinn makes me want to read it! n/t

[cali]

2. human misery can't be ended.

it's absurd to think that it can be.

[blindpig]

4. Spoken like a true shill for Capital.

It is an ill view of humanity, propagated by, of and for a ruling class in order to make their deprivations appear to be 'natural law'.

Ended absolutely, well, mebbe not. But surely it can be brought to a state of rarity instead of a common state of humanity.

[cali]

5. no. spoken like someone who knows that human misery is part of

the human experience, the human condition. You must think that all buddhists are simply shills for capitalism. How profoundly stupid and dogma bound of you, darling. And no, human misery can't be ended until humanity itself ends. Human misery, my friend, is hardly relegated to any particular political or economic system.

[blindpig]

8. If you substitute religious dogma for practical politics, then yes.

As I previously said misery can be massively mitigated by changing our social/economic environment. Else, why engage in politics at all?

What was that about 'opium of the masses'?

I am not your 'darling'.

[varelse]

6. Not if you can help it, right?

:eyes:

[cali]

9. yes, yes. I'm just bang up on causing human misery.

That's why I* spent over 20 years in human services, busting my ass for some of the most disenfranchised people you can imagine.

dog, I hate stupid.

[varelse]

11. I hear you can get therapy for that self hatred thing

:P

[LatteLibertine]

3. No human misery can not be ended

and some callously exacerbate it. Life is not fair and that doesn't absolve us from trying to make it so.

This nation does not practice capitalism, it has been in the grip of corporatism for some time.

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

10% of our population holds 70% of our wealth. Some may be believe that 90% of the population only have 30% of the wealth because they are all lazy and stupid. I am not one of those people.

[Cetacea]

7. Despite smoking and eating fatty foods, residents of an Italian village...

outlived all other groups of "health conscious" people studied. The conclusion drawn was that the longer life spans were the result of being part of a very tightly bonded community.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

10. This would explain why so many of those old farts

in industry and politics live to a ripe old age. Power and great health care.

[bobbolink]

12. Sounds like an important book... thanks for bringing it to our attention.

Sounds like it ranks right up there with Empathy Gap!