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Richard M Carpiano and colleagues provide a useful summary of anti-vaccine activism in the USA. Their policy prescriptions are sensible but are likely to fall short because they fail to confront a fundamental feature of anti-vaccine activism. Anti-vaccine activism is one of numerous right-wing initiatives defending free market fundamentalism.
The anti-vaccine movement is, in part, a cynical effort to use fear to defend the interests of the wealthy. In societies where political power and legitimacy derive from voting, appeals to the irrational are necessary for conservatives to be competitive in elections. For the American right, the need for irrational appeals is acute because of the failure of Reaganomics. Rather than the promised broad increase in prosperity, the neoliberal era brought economic stagnation and increased inequality for most Americans. To maintain power, American conservatives amplified their appeals to bigotry and pursued dishonest efforts to discredit almost any broadly beneficial application of state power.
The anti-vaccine movement is part of a major effort to shield the privileged position and power of the wealthy from democratic interventions. As pointed out decades ago by Antonio Gramsci, ruling class efforts to maintain ideological and political hegemony are a characteristic feature of developed capitalism. Just as anti-vaccine movements are part of a broad front of right-wing activism, successful defence of vaccination requires a broad response. Defence of vaccination will only be successful in the context of vigorous defence of democratic institutions and explicit advocacy of using state power in the public interest.
I declare no competing interests.
