Applying Anarchist Principles to Healthcare

Applying Anarchist Principles to Healthcare

My work on revisioning healthcare has consistently emphasized the sacred-profane dialectic, hermeneutic approaches to medicine, and the necessity of transforming hierarchical medical structures. This article demonstrates how these concepts find their natural political expression in anarchist philosophy. Through extensive analysis of anarchist intellectual history—from Proudhon through the Spanish Revolution—I show that the structural transformations my framework requires align most closely with anarchist principles of mutual aid, anti-coercion, decentralization, and horizontal organization. My critiques of mechanistic medicine, Cartesian dualism, and hierarchical authority in healthcare are not merely philosophical but demand the political reorganization that anarchism provides. By wedding my theological and phenomenological insights to anarchist praxis, we can envision medicine organized around sacred presence, interpretive engagement, and genuine healing relationships rather than institutional power and profit extraction.