Capitalists want your blood and maybe your kidney and liver, too

Stephen Millies

September 16, 2024

Malcolm X famously said, “show me a capitalist and I’ll show you a bloodsucker.” That’s literally true for U.S. capitalism.

 

People wait in line outside CSL Plasma on May 25, 2021, in Brownsville, Texas. 

The United States exported $37 billion worth of blood last year, making it the country’s ninth-largest export. That’s $9 billion more than what Uncle Sam got from selling 48 million metric tons of soybeans.

The Economist–an 181-year-old mouthpiece of the British and U.S. financial aristocracy–thinks that’s great and wants to increase the bloodsucking.

Back in 1846, The Economist blamed the Irish themselves for the famine that killed a million Irish people, declaring it was “brought on by their own wickedness and folly.”

The same magazine notes with approval that since 2020–that is, since the COVID-19 pandemic began–400 more of the bloodsucking plasma centers have opened across the United States.

That’s in addition to the 805 plasma centers already operating in 2019. It’s another sign of the growing poverty of the U.S. working class.

These 1,200 or so Dracula establishments are not set up in Beverly Hills or other fancy neighborhoods. Poor and working people go there to sell their blood because they desperately need money.

The Economist pooh-poohs any health concerns for the poor folks who are economically compelled to sell their blood:

    Some feel uncomfortable that poorer people are allowed to open their veins. But plasma, which is mainly water, is quickly replaced by the body. Health checks exclude the truly unwell and frequent donation seems safe (although more research could be done in that area).

Nothing to worry about here, although the magazine admits that “more research could be done in that area.” People are allowed in the U.S. to sell their plasma twice a week. That couldn’t have helped the donor’s immune systems during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly seniors.

Are body parts next?

What the Economist ignores is that ghettos, barrios, Indigenous communities, and poorer white neighborhoods are filled with plasma centers. In 2019, 43 of these blood-sucking enterprises were located near the Mexican border.

Border Patrol pigs lock up Mexican and other immigrant children in cages. But Mexicans can use a B1/B2 visa to sell their blood in the U.S.

In many cases, they do so to buy food. That’s what colonialism looks like. The U.S. government stole half of Mexico in 1848 to expand slavery.

Health care requires blood and blood products. Millions of people donate blood often during blood drives organized by community organizations including unions.

What we’re discussing here is how capitalist corporations exploit poor people who may be endangering their health because they are forced to sell their blood.

One of these companies, CSL Behring, had sales of over $9 billion in 2023. Behring operates more than 300 plasma centers.

Right behind CSL Behring is Takeda Pharmaceuticals, which has over 200 of the bloodsucking establishments.

It’s not just blood that’s needed. Thousands of patients are on waiting lists for kidneys and livers.

There’s already an illegal underground market for body parts in the United States. According to the “free market” principles of the Economist, people should be able to sell their body parts for the best price.

Of course, nobody would do so unless they desperately needed the money for themselves or their loved ones. The prospect of a legal market for body parts is reminiscent of Jonathan Swift’s 295-year-old “Modest Proposal” for selling Irish children to be eaten.

Swift’s famous satire was written to expose the misery caused by English colonialism. The market for kidneys and livers is real. Bood exports are another sign of how decayed the U.S. economy has become and how oppressed the U.S. working class is.