Forum Post: The Mass Psychology of Capitalism

http://www.chartist.org.uk/articles/econsoc/sept02lee.html

The Mass Psychology of Capitalism

[...snip...] "[T]he indicators of disintegration and social pathology are everywhere. Rates of clinical depression have increased considerably since 1950. In America a survey of over 18,000 adults found that a person born between 1945 and 1955 was between three and ten times more likely to suffer a major depression before the age of 34 than a person born between 1905 and 1914. Another American study involving 19,000 people found that 20% of the total US population suffer from a mental illness (as defined by the psychiatric bible The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) during any given 12 months and that 32% will suffer at some point during their lifetime. Rates of suicide have increased since 1950 - they have trebled in the UK since 1970. Crimes against the person have risen in the UK from 6,000 in 1950, to 239,000 in 1996. Alcohol and substance misuse have increased exponentially."

http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/35/2/252

Is modern Western culture a health hazard?

Richard Eckersley National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, The Australian National University, ACT 0200, Australia. [...snip...] "The cultures of societies are underestimated determinants of their population health and well-being. This is as true of modern Western culture, including its defining qualities of materialism and individualism, as it is of other cultures. This paper draws on evidence from a range of disciplines to argue that materialism and individualism are detrimental to health and well-being through their impacts on psychosocial factors such as personal control and social support." [...snip...] "Marmot and Wilkinson,7 in noting the relationship between income inequality and social affiliation, suggest there is a culture of inequality' that is more aggressive, less connected, more violent and less trusting." [...snip...] "The psychological and sociological literatures suggest powerful effects of culture on psychological well-being. Take materialism, by which I mean attaching importance or priority to money and possessions (and so broadly equate here with consumerism), and which underpins consumption-based economies. Many psychological studies have shown that materialism is associated, not with happiness, but with dissatisfaction, depression, anxiety, anger, isolation, and alienation.13,20 Human needs for security and safety, competence and self-worth, connectedness to others, and autonomy and authenticity are relatively unsatisfied when materialistic values predominate." [...snip...] "Modern Western culture undermines, even reverses, universal values and time-tested wisdom.12,13 The result is not so much a collapse of personal morality, but a loss of moral clarity: a heightened moral ambivalence and ambiguity, a tension or dissonance between our professed values and lifestyles, and a deepening cynicism about social institutions. Without appropriate cultural reinforcement, we find it harder to do what we believe to begood'; it takes more effort. And, conversely, it becomes easier to justify or rationalize bad behaviour. There are positive (reinforcing) feedbacks in the process: anti-social values weaken personal and social ties, which, in turn, reduce the hold' of a moral code on individuals because these ties give the code itsleverage'; they are a source of `moral fibre'.