This article presents a critique of recent radical interpretations of medicine and provides an alternative explanation of such interpretations. It analyzes 1) the articulation of medical practices, knowledge, and institutions within specific modes of production and social formations; 2) the dual functions of medicine within capitalist relations of production; 3) the reproduction of power within medicine; and 4) the meaning of capitalist, socialist, and communist medicine. The political practice derived from these analyses is also elaborated.
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