xxiv, 212 pages ; 24 cm

The growing use of pseudo-medical arguments to justify certain policies in the name of "public health" results in what critic Thomas Szasz terms pharmacracy, an insidious tendency that is eroding our personal liberties while distorting our approach to both health care & politics. Annotation. Exposes and examines the hidden threats to liberty and the rule of law posed by "pharmacracy"--The emerging alliance of the government and the health-care system. Annotation. Szasz (emeritus, psychiatry, State University of New York Upstate Medical University) explores the development of a "pharmacracy" as the natural outgrowth of the tendency to medicalize social problems, deviance, and disruptive behavior. He describes the relationships between medical and political authority, between increased government control and increased funding for health care, and between the medicalization of individual behavior and the avoidance of personal responsibility

Includes bibliographical references (pages 167-201) and index

Introduction: What counts as a disease? -- Medicine: from gnostic healing to empirical science -- Scientific medicine: disease -- Clinical medicine: diagnosis -- Certifying medicine: disability -- Psychiatric medicine: disorder -- Philosophical medicine: critique or ratification? -- Political medicine: the therapeutic state -- Epilogue

plus-circle Add Review

comment

Reviews