Cancer is Capitalist Violence Anthropology Against Oncology Resource Type: Article Published: 2013 Its been two decades since the publication of Martha Balshams landmark study, Cancer in the Community: Class and Medical Authority (1993). Balshem, a hospital-based anthropologist, documented how a Philadelphia lay community rejected medical advice to stop smoking, eat fruits and vegetables and schedule regular screening tests. The working class community of Tannerstown (a pseudonym) instead blamed air pollution from highway traffic and nearby chemical plants, as well as fate, for their cancers.