Sylvia Ruhl, Brisbane
The assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was immediately met with praise and jubilation the world over. Bullet casings left behind were engraved with the words “Deny”, “Defend”, and “Depose”; a reference to the tactics of health insurance firms in denying patients claims, left no room for doubt that this was a retaliation for these practices that have killed, frankly, an unknowable number of people.
As of the time of writing over a week on, it is still not possible to avoid coming across some on social media who assert that this masterfully executed attack has to some extent alleviated America’s healthcare crisis. While in the immediate aftermath one insurance company or another may have reversed some decision to reduce their customers’ coverage, this assassination was ultimately pointless. The weapon of the proletariat and the means that will bring it to rule is its democratic outlook, and its status as a heterogeneous, mobile, and disciplined class. To attack individual capitalists in the words of Trotsky, “belittles the role of the masses” by reducing the agent of revolution to a gun in the hand of the rogue.
Revolution has not come any nearer because of this attack, Thompson was immediately replaced, and UnitedHealthcare continues to gouge millions of sick and dying Americans. The only change that will outlast this initial excitement is a tightening of police repression on the working class. The assassin has only succeeded in turning himself into a folk hero.
The question from here is what way forward? To address the most immediate point, any campaign to free Luigi Mangione, be he innocent or guilty, should be supported by all radicals. While assassinations are not a tactic we should endorse, his actions are clearly an impassioned response to the social murder perpetuated by health insurance firms. This is how Communists should characterise the nature of the assassination, in addition to it being the futile praxis of an individualised, and non-organised actor.
Secondly, and more importantly, we need to continue the long, hard work of organising and raising the consciousness of workers in the healthcare and insurance industries. The strongest tool of the working class is its ability to stop production, and we need to find out how to make use of this industry-wide to put forward demands calling for the introduction of universal healthcare, and for the nationalisation of the insurance industry and privately-run hospitals and clinics. The scope of this campaign must also expand towards global proletarian liberation, such as through carrying out industrial action in response to corporate attacks on countries in the Global South that illegally produce patented medication (should they eventually choose to do so). What also needs to be figured out through debate and critique is how the infrastructure and workforce of the health insurance industry can be re-oriented from hindering healthcare access, to facilitating it.
Struggling for these demands will invite unabated opposition from whole sections of the bourgeoisie that can only be overcome by an all-working class movement. Lone-actor heroes will never stop the plunder by insurance firms. If we want to fight disease and fight capitalism, we need to fight together.
Further reading
Why Marxists Oppose Individual Terrorism by Leon Trotsky
PARTISAN! 