this post was submitted on 12 May 2025
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Not exactly what you asked, but...
I think that in an anarchist society, much of the "medicine" mindset would fade away. An anarchist society would have no human supremacists, so people would not eat animals or use them for medical experiments. This alone would prevent a great deal of ill health. While certain drugs can be useful in emergency situations (like opium for pain relief during and after surgery), most if not all of these emergency "medicines" can be found in some form in the plant kingdom and do not require complex manufacturing processes. Modern medicine and "better living through chemistry" is really quite a recent concept, and the pharmaceuticals of today are no more necessary for health than anything that the snake oil salesmen were selling 200 years ago. The current medical industry is one of the largest and most profitable capitalist enterprises in the world, with a huge financial incentive to keep people sick. (I recommend the documentary They're Trying To Kill Us which explores how the medical industry, fast-food industry, and government are interconnected in oppressing people.) Take away the profit motive, and 99.9% of "medicine" in the world would disappear, and we'd all be better off as a result.
there are lots of things that pharma companies do which are abusive, but the existence of treatments is rarely one of them. Herbal medicine is cool but inconsistent, relying on inconsistent medicinal dosing will kill people. Other comments point out the question is more "how to do industry" than anything else. And no 99.9% of medicine disappearing will in fact kill people.
This is not something you want to speculate on, the point is that in an anarchist society, biochemical engineers, doctors, researchers, would be figuring out methods to make and produce useful medicine. Dont go all primitivist on it because it's a complex problem that capitalism leeches from parasitically.
I am not advocating for the use of herbal medicine nor for anarcho-primitivism.