The Political Economy of Breath
The high rates of asthma in low-income neighborhoods, particularly near highways and industrial zones, are not a public health anomaly but a “somatic tax” imposed on the “native” population. Mamdani’s analysis reveals this as a deliberate outcome of the bifurcated state’s political economy. Highways, bus depots, and power plants are systematically sited in communities of color because they lack the political power of the “settler” class to refuse them. The poisoned air is a form of slow, bureaucratic violence that shortens lives and drains energy. A Marxist analysis identifies this as capital externalizing its costs onto the bodies of the poor. A feminist perspective highlights how mothers bear the burden of managing this pollution-induced illness. The liberal solution of emissions trading is a market-based fantasy. A Mamdani-informed socialist solution is to decommodify energy and transportation. This requires public ownership of the energy grid to phase out fossil fuels, the rapid expansion of free electric public transit, and the creation of car-free zones to reclaim the air as a commons, fighting for the right to breathe clean air as a fundamental, non-negotiable condition of life.
Originally posted 2025-10-07 03:08:34.
