Is Capitalism Making Us Sick?

it’s not just individuals making individual choices that make them ill. Socially and politically, we’re promoting policies, regulations and lifestyles that are making people ill to such a degree that stress, trauma and anxiety are being woven through and through the social fabric.

The current economic system is bringing out the worst in us.

The ‘mental health plague’ in capitalist societies would suggest that, instead of being the only social system that works, capitalism is inherently dysfunctional, and that the cost of it appearing to work is very high.

That ‘individual responsibility’ idea is present in so many messages from awareness campaigns: the idea that it is our duty to reach out to loved ones and services for help; the suggestion that mental health support should come in the form of a ‘service’ at all; the emphasis on individual tools like therapy, meds, self-help, mindfulness and apps to

it’s not just individuals making individual choices that make them ill. Socially and politically, we’re promoting policies, regulations and lifestyles that are making people ill to such a degree that stress, trauma and anxiety are being woven through and through the social fabric. Indeed there is a strong case to say that stress, anxiety and depres

our troubles are driven by one or all of these factors: Biology and the expansion of the human population A culture of domination and exploitation Rapacious capitalism and the blind pursuit of profit Runaway technological development Shortsighted individual psychology, driven by Paleolithic impulses