Socialism and pharmacists...

[Cheung Mo]

In the ideal Marxist society, people would work because they have the ability to do the work and find the work in question to be fulfilling.

If we accept that a Marxist society consists of human beings who will have a variety of different social and cultural norms, what would we do about a socially conservative pharmacist who loves the work, has the proper educational background, and is generally competent at their job but considers contraception, abortion, and euthansia to be immoral?

Would such a pharmacist be forced to abandon their choice of career? Would the state (in a centralised and heavily bureaucratic Marxist society) or the commune/collective/cooperative (in a decentralised and more libertarian/anarchistic Marxist society) be within its bounds to force such a pharmacist to stop working?

Frankly, I feel disgusted when socially conservative pharmacists in the U.S. are given the option to refuse to fulfill prescriptions, but I am not sure how to channel my disgust into a Marxist analysis of the situation (perhaps because I cannot distance myself enough from my secularism and my extreme social liberalism to analyse the situation logically).

[Brownfist]

Well I think that we need to see how the socially conservative pharmacist is discursively produced. The socially conservative pharmacist is intrinsic to a discourse of social conservatism that helps reproduce itself. So the socially conservative pharmacist is produced by the social text, which is in turn produced by the socially conservative pharmacist. So, a Marxist revolution would create a rupture in this discourse and replace it with another discourse in which socially conservative pharmacists are not produced/producers. Althusser would argue that the socially conservative pharmacist is the ideological product of the ideological state apparatus which in turn represent/reproduce bourgeois ideology.

[redstar2000]

In other words, Cheung Mo, how could a guy like you describe exist in a communist society?

It would be as anachronistic as a pharmacist today who refused to fill prescriptions for anyone who could not show a pedigree of "nobility".

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[Cheung Mo]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24 2006, 12:05 PM
In other words, Cheung Mo, how could a guy like you describe exist in a communist society?

It would be as anachronistic as a pharmacist today who refused to fill prescriptions for anyone who could not show a pedigree of "nobility".

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I disagree that such a person would not exist in a communist society: They would exist, but they would (thankfully) be a very small minority.

[Delirium]

I dont think that we need pharmacists control the use of contraceptives at all. I is well within people capabilities to self regulate when it comes to most medicines.