Social Justice in Healthcare Essay

What do you think the world would look like if our favorite food was not at our fingertips? There is no supermarket, no stores, no farms… we would have to put in a lot of work, just to eat every day. Food is used essentially for the nourishment of our bodies for nutritional value. However, during the nineteenth century, the British Empire had a hidden meaning between food and power, in other words, the food was not at their fingertips. For instance, in the nineteenth century, the tea trade and tea production played a very important and fundamental role in British rule (McMichael pg. 21). Tea was an essential commodity of trade during the nineteenth century. It was Britain’s favorite food, but they needed to get it from India or China. Britain had developed a hot beverage taste and was much in need of tea and coffee. Britain had developed tastes and preferences towards tea, and they had to use all the available tactics and their power to get the commodity.

The British government encouraged tea drinking because of the government's revenue to obtain and gain from the tea taxes. The Britain government used its power and levied taxes on its subjects to get money for tea importation. Between 1720 and 1750, the Britain government imported tea from East India companies to isles within their territories. To import tea, coffee, and other commodities, the British government imposed high taxes on the citizens, which in turn they used for the tea importation (McMichael pg. 22). Also, the British government established tea factories within their territory and enslaved people to work in the factories. This brought a lot of discussion and definition about the relationship between food and power. In that case, therefore, the British government is known to have used its power to get food, that is, tea from East India. The British government encouraged tea drinking because of the revenue the government used to obtain and gain from the tea taxes.

European countries had great sugar plantations, which were covered by sugar cane fields. This was one of the major parts of the economy in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Most of the Caribbean islands were covered by sugar cane fields, and mills were also established for refining the sugar cane crop. Slaves provided the most common labor until when chattel slavery was abolished (Inikori pg. 143). During the transatlantic slave trade, the Americans were sold to white people and forced to go and work in the sugar cane farms and plantations. During the mid-nineteenth century, there was human trade across the Atlantic Ocean where the white people used to buy Africans across the Atlantic Ocean and take them to the sugarcane plantations to provide manual labor. The trade of slaves across the Atlantic Ocean was one of the largest long-distance trade movements of the people in history.

This slave trade helped the sugar production in the European countries since the slaves who were captured in the trade used to be taken to provide labor in the sugar plantations. The connection between the trans-Atlantic trade of slaves and sugar production was that the African slaves who were sold during the trans-Atlantic slave trade were taken to the sugar cane plantations on the island of the Caribbean to provide manual labor (Inikori pg. 147). Europeans enjoyed their sugar which forced them to engage in the inhuman slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean. The conditions for enslaved people on sugar plantations in the islands of the Caribbean were especially brutal. The Europeans were driven by the profits they made from the sugar plantations, and the owners of the farms saw enslaved labor as a less expensive way for sugar production.

From the great labor provided by the enslaved Africans, the sugar processing industries in Europe and the United States developed. This led to the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution was a transition to the new manufacturing processes in Europe and the United States. The growth of sugar production led to innovation and growth of the technology of sugar processing and manufacturing (Inikori pg. 154). The Industrial Revolution emerged in Great Britain, and many of the technologies originated from Britain. Therefore, the sugar plantations, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the industrial revolutions had close connections for all the activities that depended on each other. The slaves obtained during the trans-Atlantic trade were taken to the sugar cane plantation for the provision of manual labor. This contributed to the growth of the sugar plantations and hence the industrial revolutions.

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Define Social Justice

Social justice believes that every individual in society deserves equal chances for political, social, and economic opportunities and rights. It refers to a political and philosophical theory that focuses on the concepts of fairness in relations between individual citizens in society and equal access to wealth, opportunities, and social privileges in a society (Novak, pg. 11). However, practicing social justice has been an issue in many countries. Although social workers are struggling to open the doors for everyone and, in most cases, those in much need and make sure they have access to the top opportunities, it has been hard to achieve 100%.

In America, social justice historically and in theory implied that everyone in the community should have equal chances to access good health, wealth, justice, well-being, privileges, and other opportunities regardless of their political, legal, and economic factors. America has tried to firmly proclaim the idea of equality and freedom of human rights. The concepts of social justice emerged in the 19th century during the industrial revolution in America (Novak, pg. 12). There were great disparities in wealth and social standing among the population, hence the social justice' call. The main idea behind social justice in America was to ensure that access to the resources put into account equity, diversity, equal participation, and preservation of human rights. Social justice in the 19th century during the Industrial Revolution was meant to promote egalitarian communities and reduce the overexploitation of marginalized communities through fairness.

What Connections Can You Find Between Social Justice and Social Determinants of Health?

Social justice is meant to provide policy goals of practicing fairness to all people. This includes the improvement and equal access to health facilities by every individual without discrimination. Hence, social justice is meant to improve the public health and general well-being of the human being (Davis, pg. 424). Social determinants of health include housing, good healthcare services, employment provision, education as well as income to the population and, most significantly, the marginalized, disadvantaged communities.

Social justice is also viewed as providing the same services to people. It considers that everyone in the community deserves equal opportunities and rights to education, good health, and employment. Social justice assures everyone in the community has the highest level of health, and hence it addresses social determinants of health and equity of all individuals (Davis, pg. 428). According to the WHO, a social determinant of health has been defined as the conditions in which people are born, grow live, and age and also the basic fundamental drivers of these conditions. However, the term social determent, in most cases, evokes factors such as health-related features including workability, areas of recreation, and also equal accessibility of healthful foods, which has a significant influence on health-related behaviors.

Furthermore, the healthy outcome ranges in socioeconomic factors such as wealth, income, and education. All these concepts of social determinants try to explain social justice and fairness of resources. For example, for the healthy outcome of socioeconomic factors, social justice must cheap in to ensure that there is equality and fairness in distributing and offering such factors (Davis, pg. 429). Actually, beyond health care, the social determinant's role is to promote health and health equity, which in turn is the major subject in social justice that harmonizes fairness and equal distribution of resources to all people without discrimination.