Capitalist relations and state policy : the development of the mode of health maintenance in contemporary Britain, 1948-89 : a case study

• Main Author: Dikeos, Konstantinos G.
• Published: University of Edinburgh 1992
• Subjects: 320.01
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.649551

The Thesis is based on the hypothesis that the policies of the capitalist state and the form of state itself derive from inherent needs and contradictions of capitalist production and class struggles. In order to test this hypothesis the Thesis examines the 'Mode of Health Maintenance' (MHM) a term used to decribe the set of policies that contribute to the restoration of health, as a process of maintaining the productive capacity of the workforce in the United Kingdom. Health maintenance is provided through a combination of the state's National Health Service (NHS) and the health care providing provident associations which we call Private Health Insurance Companies (PHIC). The Thesis questions the importance of the changes in the MHM from 1948 to 1989 period with particular emphasis on the 1979-89 period. It assesses the potential undermining of the functional-reproductive contribution of the National Health Service or their contribution to the construction of the 'post-fordist' society and the relationship between both the changes and their analysis can give to our theoretical premises. In the pursuit of an answer to the question, the Thesis relates the development of the NHS to the levels of morbidity and absence from the workplace due to health reasons, and to the development and expansion of the PHIC. Additionally the Thesis examines the relation between the development of the PHIC and the so called transition to a 'post-fordist' society. As a methodological approach, the Thesis is an analysis in line with Miliband's study of the relation between theoretical analysis and applied research, using the Mode of Health Maintenance as a case study.