Background

When discussing disability, poverty (as depicted in Part Two) and neglect it is important to note that most people acquire their impairments (to varying degrees and in different forms) through poverty, pollution, violence, accident, war and ageing. Tragically, the World Health Organisation in its World Report on Disability (2011) pointed out that the biggest cause of impairment/disability was poverty. And poverty, when it is analysed in depth, is usually the result of government failure, ineptitude, immorality and/or criminality. It is also essential to acknowledge that contemporary understandings and attitudes towards disability have been shaped by the onset of capitalism (which is inherently criminogenic) and its associated ideologies of individualism, liberal utilitarianism, industrialisation (specifically waged labour) and the medicalisation of social life. As a result, the injustice of ‘disableism’ (in all its discriminatory forms) is endemic to most, if not all, ‘developed’ contemporary societies. And to compound issues, disabled people are the excessive victims of poverty, immoral crimes and criminality as a direct consequence of this prevailing discrimination.

Without a shadow of doubt, the on-going passive or deliberate neglect of governments across the globe to fully address the social determinants and inequities of health and disablement has led to a growth in the number of disabled people in most countries. Moreover, corporate-governmental immorality/criminality is especially evident when governments and self-interested politicians blame disablement, the cost of disability and social support networks for the innumerable economic crises that have ‘dogged’ societies since the mid-nineteenth century. Disturbingly, all these economic crises have been politically portrayed as the fault of welfare policies for the unemployed, the poor and disabled people who have supposedly imposed unreasonable and unaffordable costs on society, despite not being the only recipients of welfare or even being the biggest ‘drain’ on government finances.

Ultimately, the overarching consequence of this ‘blaming’ has been a consistent failure to enact meaningful policies which produce and maintain a fully accessible infrastructure relating to public buildings, housing and support systems that will accommodate all sections of society, including people with impairments, those suffering from long-term ill-health and, of course, elderly people.