‘The evils are uncontrolled’: Marx’s Capital as a form of witnessing for child public health

Karl Marx was one of the three founders of modern Sociology, along with Max Weber and Emile Durkheim. In this short article I examine his magnum opus, Capital1 as an important, if underrecognized, work of Public Health. Capital is increasingly being recognized as a work of the humanities/social sciences with important lessons for the health professions2. It is a literary as well as a Sociological masterpiece. Its profound influence on the world stemmed at least in part from its literary power, from its horrific descriptions of workers being destroyed and exploited by capitalist entities. Marx noted in Capital that ‘political economy was studied…with the greatest success by medic[s]’. More particularly, I think that he felt that it was studied with the greatest success by health professionals with a strong Public Health ethos.