An answer to “Questions without answers”

Anti-critique of a leftist book review of

The Dutch and German Communist Left (1900-1968)

In Vol. 1#2 (Try-out issue, May 2017) of this Digest, we briefly presented this elaborate work of political history in its first English translation, that has appeared with Brill (Leiden/Boston) in 2016. This was followed by the introduction of a review on Libcom titled “Council communism or councilism? – The period of transition”.

Since, we have had occasion to present its 3rd, revised Edition in French (June 2018) in Vol. 2#4 (August- September 2018) and on pages of this blog, in a more extensive way.

Unfortunately, serious reviews of this important work, in either language, and notably by adherents of the communist Left, or of proletarian internationalism in a broad sense, are very rare. When we discovered a rather extensive review of the English edition in a bourgeois left-wing, Trotskyist, periodical appearing in the Netherlands, our curiosity was raised. What follows is the result of a considerate examination.

Freedom, Equality and Solidarity in the Dutch Health Care System

An Essay by Fredo Corvo

According to a critical commentary in this review, an article by ‘Nuevo Curso’ apropos of the self-chosen death of Noa Pothoven (a severely traumatized Dutch youngster) suggests that “‘(state) assisted suicide and euthanasia’ would be routinely practiced in the Netherlands by way of a cynical reply of the bourgeoisie and its state to a degradation of the country’s health service, to the extent of constituting ‘a real mass crime’ committed against the ‘damaged and unproductive’ and the elderly in particular”. (¹)

The following essay takes up the challenge that “a debate among those who adhere to the cause of proletarian emancipation should also take into account that certain moral dilemmas based on the development of medical science and technology, demographic developments like increases in life expectancy, and changing patterns of need for cure and care, will not somehow be automatically resolved after a proletarian revolution, but will have to be taken up by the proletarians collectively under qualitatively different conditions.” (Ibid.)

From a layman’s point of view, this essay examines qualitative developments in medical care in the field of technology, medical ethics and budget cuts. However, in order to analyze the financial results of measures taken by the Dutch state for each medical condition, the expertise of a medical economist would be required.

 

‘Nuevo Curso’ apropos of a failure of ‘youth care’ in the Netherlands

The following presents an article by ‘Nuevo Curso’ apropos of the tragic suicide of a youngster, that was immediately subjected to an international media campaign on “state sponsored euthanasia” in the Netherlands. Our commentary shows how easily one can fall into hawking a rant, when not observing minimal standards of verification. In a separate topic article we present the results of a first examination of official mortality statistics in this country by medical end-of-life decisions over the period 1995 – 2015.