Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/253655 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Citation: 
[Journal:] Review of Capital as Power [Volume:] 2 [Issue:] 2 [Publisher:] Forum on Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism [Place:] s.l. [Year:] 2022 [Pages:] 17-45
Publisher: 
Forum on Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism, s.l.
Abstract: 
* Winner of the 2022 RECASP First Essay Prize * Proponents of private healthcare often claim that the private sector is more ‘efficient’ at delivering healthcare services. This paper tests the privatization thesis in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a large sample of countries, I investigate how healthcare privatization affects the correlation between COVID-19 death rates and healthcare spending (as a share of GDP). In countries with healthcare that is mostly public, I find no correlation. However, in countries with significant healthcare privatization, I find that greater healthcare spending was associated with more COVID-19 deaths. This result is consistent with the theory of ‘capital as power’, which argues that to earn profits, the private sector seeks to strategically limit the provision of social goods.
Subjects: 
capital as power
COVID-19
health
profit
sabotage
JEL: 
P16
I1
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc-nd Logo
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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