Grief, Love, and the Brutal Calculus of Care Under Capitalism

by: Jason O'Neal

We speak often of systemic failures, of the large-scale injustices that shape our world. Today, I would like to begin with a more intimate kind of loss: the recent passing of a beloved asthmatic cat, a furry family member and companion of over thirteen years. His absence leaves a quiet space and a familiar ache—the pain of losing a being whose love was unconditional and a steady comfort in an unstable world.

This grief is personal, but the structures that surrounded his life, care, and death are deeply political. His story is a stark microcosm of the brutal choices forced upon us by a system that commodifies every strand of care and prioritizes profit over well-being.

From the start, his asthma required vigilant management. A difficult episode last summer led to a vet visit with x-rays and new prescriptions, a bill quickly approaching five hundred dollars—a sum that echoes the reality that more than half of our neighbors cannot afford a $1,000 emergency. To afford his life-sustaining inhaler medications, we navigated the grotesque inequalities of capitalist pharmaceutical markets. The same vials priced here in the U.S sold for $350 each, now were more than $200 in post-tariff Canada. Fortunately, two vials were secured for less than $70 total across the southern border, a necessary evasion of U.S. price-gouging. Our care was forced into the shadows of a global pricing scheme that treats health as a vehicle for extraction.

When a more severe crisis hit, the full, horrifying machinery of for-profit “care” was laid bare. The emergency animal hospital, after stabilizing him in an oxygen tank, presented a potential treatment plan with a price tag of up to seventeen thousand dollars. Faced with an impossible sum, we chose a more modest intervention—a $1,300 procedure to drain fluid from his chest—hoping to buy time and clarity. What followed was a labyrinth of inaccessible specialists, agonizing triage, and the cold reality of rationed care. We were left to monitor him at home with an oxygen box, clinging to hope as he continued to show spirit, even as his body struggled.

Throughout this ordeal, the clinic’s follow-up calls were not to check on his condition, but to pursue an additional $500 for blood tests, a final invoice awaiting his last breath. The “finance options” posters on the emergency hospital’s private room walls underscored the chilling reality: our panic and his suffering were just another revenue stream. This is the same logic that leaves over 100 million Americans with medical debt, where private equity firms, insurance executives, and shareholders profit by denying human beings procedures, where the health of a parent or a child is bartered on a balance sheet.

His entire life was framed by this system. The food we could afford in leaner times was the industrial waste of a monopolized agricultural complex, where a handful of corporations control the supply, creating an illusion of choice from the same destructive, monoculture model. It is a direct parallel to the corporate-controlled human food system that contributes to public health crises and hunger, only to sell us expensive pharmaceutical “cures.” From the distribution of basic necessities to the warehousing of vacant homes alongside sprawling homelessness, a single question screams for an answer: Who set this up, and who benefits?

The answer is plain. Look at who is getting rich. Look at who controls the production, the pricing, the patents, and the politicians. They have commodified our deepest bonds—to our planet, to our communities, and to our families which includes animal loved ones. The pain of making a life-or-death decision based not on medicine, but on finance, is a wound inflicted by capitalism on millions, whether they are grieving a pet or a human family member.

We are left with grief, and with a clear-eyed rage. This pain is not an accident; it is a product. It is the result of a world where every need, every fear, and every ounce of love is assigned a market value and exploited for gain.

Our old asthmatic friend deserved a life and a death defined by dignity and care, not by financial triage. So does every working-class family facing a medical emergency. So does every elder, every chronically ill person, and every child whose future is mortgaged for profit.

This bitter experience is a stark lesson in solidarity. The same forces that price-gouge life-saving pet medication are denying insulin to diabetics. The same corporations that sell us unhealthy food also lobby against worker protections and environmental regulation.

We must channel our collective grief and anger into fighting for a world where the ability to care for one another is the highest societal principle, not a line item on a corporate ledger. We demand decommodified healthcare for all, living wages, and democratic control over the resources that sustain life.

The memory of our furry family member compels me to act. Let us build a world where no one has to calculate the cost of a loved one’s breath. We must replace this broken system with one rooted in care, community, and collective liberation.

The quality of all our lives depends on it!

Rest in Peace, Rocky