Abstract

HAIDAR, Victoria. Health and productivity?: On the development of an "economic" analytics of the relationship between work and health (Argentina, 1900-1955). Salud colectiva [online]. 2013, vol.9, n.2, pp.195-214. ISSN 1851-8265.

This article seeks to demonstrate that the economic rationalization in health that characterizes the present, although possessing unique features, is inscribed within a longer historical process. Between 1900 and 1955, an "economic analytics" of the relationship between health and work was developed in Argentina, structured around the following focal points: reflections on the "price of a man"; thought that framed social medicine within the "human economy" program; the discourse of healthful and efficient living; the calculations of factory doctors and the conformation of an economic and utilitarian discourse within occupational medicine; and, finally, debates on productivity. These five central concepts define the emergence of a particular problematization regarding worker health and, in turn, raise questions about the relationship between capitalism, liberalism and biopower in occidental societies.

Keywords : Occupational Health; Economics; History; Argentina.

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