Content area
Full Text
Expanded and revised edition
Richard M. Titmuss, edited by Ann Oakley and John Ashton
The New Press, New York; 1997
360 pp. US$ 30.00 ISBN 1-56584-403-3
Richard Titmuss's The Gift Relationship was first published in 1971. During the 1960s there was active campaigning for a market-based blood donation system and Titmuss, a professor of social administration at the London School of Economics, was profoundly opposed to this approach. In his 1966 Fabian lecture, "Choice and the Welfare State," he decried any consideration of medical care as a commodity to be bought and sold. In so doing he was one of the first to clearly define the battle lines that still divide those who consider health care to be a commodity and those who believe it should be considered and managed as a service. "If blood is morally sanctioned as something to be bought and sold, what ultimately is the justification for not promoting individualistic private markets in other component areas of medical care, and in education, social security, welfare services etc., etc.?" He continued: "Where are the lines to be drawn ... if human blood is to be legitimated as a consumption good?" Where indeed? It is not difficult to guess where Titmuss would stand at this moment as Canadians decide whether to proceed with privatization of their health care services.