Postscript: The Wind is Blowing

Abstract

There is a sense in which this book can be read both pessimistically and optimistically. The argument suggests that the dominant view of disability as an individual, basic, medical problem is created by the productive forces, material conditions and social relations of capitalism. The chances of transcending these forces, conditions and relations are therefore intrinsically bound up with the possibilities of capitalism itself being transcended. These possibilities do not appear to be likely to materialise in the foreseeable future, for, even allowing the idea of post-capitalist society, such a society appears more as an extension of capitalist forces, conditions and relations than as a transition on the road to socialism.