This essay is reproduced here as it appeared in the print edition of the original Science for the People magazine. These web-formatted archives are preserved complete with typographical errors and available for reference and educational and activist use. Scanned PDFs of the back issues can be browsed by headline at...
Archive - November 2019
Impetigo is a skin disease caused by streptococci bacteria inducing boil-like pustules on the face, legs and other exposed parts of the body, which may itch, bum and bleed. It spreads rapidly, persists unless treated and leads to multiple infection in families. With certain strains of streptococci, impetigo can lead...
Weather is often used as a catch-all explanation by government and business to explain rising food prices. For example, last spring it was said that meat prices rose because of monsoons, floods, droughts, hurricanes... not a word about the profit rate of agribusiness or collusion of the government with big-time grain...
Several questions are raised by the Chile article. First, to what extent can special groups like doctors be expected to divorce themselves from their associations with the dominant class and work for significant change? The article suggests that when it comes to a choice between class interests and change, most...
When our editorial collective began to work on this issue, we decided not to organize it around a single topic. We wanted an issue that would be of broad interest, and hope we have suceeded. To us the most important themes of this magazine are women's issues and the hidden faces of health care. These two topics are...
When we first came together to discuss the focus of this issue, our feeling was that, of late, the magazine had been pretty theoretical. We wanted our issue to be more of a political tool, to focus on the strategy and tactics of people's daily struggles. We particularly wanted practical articles, articles on political...
It all started at a January meeting, when one of our members came up with a rather bizarre suggestion. "Since the magazine coordinating committee was thinking about moving the magazine collective to chapters outside of Boston, why couldn't we do an issue?" "What?" we gasped. "I said, why don't we do the magazine?"...
When our Editorial Collective was formed it appeared from our backgrounds, the topic of the magazine, and the general good rapport of the group that most of us had come to the group more as "people" than as "scientists." Our expectations were that working for a political magazine might add to our own political...
Each issue of Science for the People is prepared by a collective, assembled from volunteers by a committee made up of the collectives of the past calendar year. A collective carries out all editorial, production, and distribution functions for one issue. The following is a distillation of the actual practice of the...