ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the dehumanising of vulnerable people by the powerful, and shows that how a toxicity may develop in the care relationship, leading to the potential for abuse and the silencing of dissent. It looks at the ways that the management of care may also itself become abusive, by developing a defensive insensitivity to the pain of others. The dynamics of power and vulnerability are first of all about the denial and then the acceptance of death and dying as crucial to our understanding of ourselves in relation to others. The toxicity at the edge of a system can be understood as information about the system itself in relation to its environment. If the distribution of power in society favours the fantasy of omnipotence at the top and impotence at the bottom, then the failure of that omnipotent myth and the resultant economic failures leaves those most disadvantaged to face disproportionately the costs of austerity.
