Navigating Societal Perceptions of Public Support

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The chapter explores the stigma around accepting public support in the US, linking it to issues of race, individual merit, and societal reluctance to share resources. It discusses the influence of racial capitalism and deep-seated racism on attitudes towards social safety nets, illustrating with a story of a man criticized on a crowdfunding platform for lacking access to healthcare. The conversation delves into global crowdfunding for healthcare in market-driven systems, showcasing examples from various countries and examining the impact of US healthcare models on international healthcare practices.

Paris Marx is joined by Nora Kenworthy to discuss how people rely on GoFundMe to access healthcare and the further inequities that adds to an already deeply unequal healthcare system.

Nora Kenworthy is the author of Crowded Out: The True Costs of Crowdfunding Healthcare and an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing and Health Studies at the University of Washington Bothell.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham. Transcripts are by Brigitte Pawliw-Fry.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Nora is doing an online event with the Debt Collective on June 13.
GoFundMe bought many of its competitors through the 2010s.
In 2020, GoFundMe posted in a campaign it set up in response to Covid: “We’re in a growth industry: pain.”

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