Structural and Direct Violence

Abstract

In comparing these two types of violence only one aspect of structural violence will be discussed here: that which kills, although slowly, and undramatically from the point of view of direct violence. It should be kept in mind that there are very many other very different types of structural violence. In order to compare violence that kills slowly and violence that kills quickly, violence that is anonymous and violence that has an author, there has to be a common unit. Direct violence is usually measured in number of deaths. One could approach structural violence in the same way, looking at e.g. the number of avoidable deaths that occur because medical and sanitary resources are concentrated in the upper classes. One problem of deaths, however, is that they occur at different ages, and we feel that the loss involved is greater in (he death of a child than in that of an adult. A more appropriate measure would therefore be the numnber of years lost, which we shall use to measure both direct and structural violence. In evaluating the amount of direct or structural violence we compare the real world not with an ideal world in an abstract sense, but with a potential world. Death as such is unavoidable, but we would consider all war-deaths as potentially avoidable, and a great number of deaths from illnesses and accidents as caused by the existing distribution of wealth and power. In most countries, that is, the average level of health could be raised through a redistribution of present resources. There is an avoidable deprivation of life, measured in lost man-years. If a society has the resources medical, organizational, financial to give an average life expectancy of c years to its members, then the question is whether the average life expectancy of social groups is correlated with social position, so dilat the lower the social position, the lower thelife expectancy. In other words, we assume that life expectancy, L, is a function of social position, S, the latter defined as ranging from O to 1: