Are you trying to explain that suicide or drug overdoses have as a common cause the failure of a economical system?
I don't want to get involved in a debate in the accessibility of guns but opiates are more necessary than you think, they are helpful to people struggling with a lot of pain, and I am not agree with the fact that I am depressed or have suicidal risk because I live in a savage capitalist country.

Mental health is more complex. Neoliberalism could be a factor, as you explained. But not the main cause. I doubt (a lot) if removing such system the people would feel better.

Statistics show that the death rate for all possible causes has declined in the US for the period 1916 to 2023. What have you to say about that.

I consider the US of A an experiment in Democracy. Study it carefully - its ups and downs (statistics) - wait and watch! How long till it becomes an autocracy or theocracy?

Statistics show that the death rate for all possible causes has declined in the US for the period 1916 to 2023. — Agent Smith

Really? Fewer people are dying? What's happening to them instead then?

Statistics show — Agent Smith

Show those statistics.

Statistics show that 97% of claims prefaced by 'Statistics show' are a steaming pile of male bovine excrement. The other 3% already show their statistics.

In other news, we are entering a post mass-production economy. It used to be that the masses were necessary as both labour and consumer to produce from that cycle a surplus for the great and the good. Robotics and digital printing are ending the need for the working class. The sooner they slaughter each other in civil war, the better. The despair comes from the dawning awareness of this, encouraged by the great and the good such as Trump, actively inciting that despair and the resulting conflict.

The assembly line began long ago, making the artisan no longer needed and leaving the systemitizing to the managers. There will always be boxes to carry, buttons to push, cartons to fill, or whatever. Unemployment is at historic lows where we're unable to find people to bring the food from the kitchen out to the table.

Labor has always been expensive, so the trick has always been how to dumb down the tasks to increase the supply of those who can do it in order to decrease the costs of getting it done.

I've got nothing good to say about Trump, but placing on his shoulders the despair of the common worker gives him too much credit. Workers have been talking about uniting and overthrowing since the great manifesto. Unfortunately, many of those attempts didn't work out so well.

Whatever increase in despair there is, and I've not conceded it without first seeing the data, is probably quite complex and doesn't fit neatly into wherever our biases might lie (the economic system, civil rights violations, guns, drugs, single parent homes, poverty, bullying, etc), but is many of those for some, different from others, and who knows what else.

This isn't to say there aren't some standing on the ledge right now due to feelings of despondency created by skill obselesence and worker alienation, but there are probably more there due to a bad breakup or rejection by family or friends or those very specific things that leave us feeling helpless.

Both issues are a direct result of neoliberalism. — Mikie

Neoliberalism is, at best, an ideology. Ideologies in and of themselves do nothing. Even if some people claim to embrace an ideology, that does not mean that the things they do are caused by that ideology. In fact, ideologies often are nothing more than attempts to rationalize or legitimize what people want to do for altogether different reasons or motivations.

The same can be said even of much more concrete entities, like for example, a conservative party. A specific conservative party has an actual concrete extension. But that doesn't mean that the members of that party are extensions of the conservative ideology. So even if I claim, the phenomenon of anomie (which is what you are describing and which was studied extensively by Durkheim at the turn of the last century), even if I claim that is actually a product of the ever-increasing class and wealth gap caused by the ongoing controlling influences exerted by conservative governance, this likewise is a vast oversimplification of the true causes of social conditions.

There will always be boxes to carry, buttons to push, cartons to fill, or whatever. — Hanover

Of course there will; my grape peeler will always have a job, as long as his tone of voice is more pleasingly subservient than the robot grape peeler. But a chap needs a handful of servants these days, not an army. Even the army can be operated remotely by a few chaps in a bunker instead of all those expensive grunts. The working class is no longer needed, therefore it must cease to exist.

Show those statistics.

Statistics show that 97% of claims prefaced by 'Statistics show' are a steaming pile of male bovine excrement. The other 3% already show their statistics. — unenlightened

So you think the statistics is bull!? Did you know that your mayor's office uses statistics to run the city - that clean water you drink, the neatly arranged streets, the conveniently placed fire hydrant, the one-stop-shop next to your neighborhood, all statistics mon ami, all statistics.

As for the specific statistic I mentioned, it's odd that you didn't ask the OP to verify his very statistical claim. :cool:

:up:

So you think the statistics is bull!? — Agent Smith

No. I think the word 'statistics' used without any statistics or reference to statistics is bull. Hence my, by my own criterion, unbelievable comment.

No. I think the word 'statistics' used without any statistics or reference to statistics is bull. Hence my, by my own criterion, unbelievable comment — unenlightened

Fair! :up:

Are you trying to explain that suicide or drug overdoses have as a common cause the failure of a economical system? — javi2541997

Yes.

opiates are more necessary than you think, they are helpful to people struggling with a lot of pain — javi2541997

They are necessary in some circumstances. They were overprescribed for years, and for a simple reason: profit. Plenty of scholarship on the pharmaceutical industry and the opioid crisis, as you know.

I am not agree with the fact that I am depressed or have suicidal risk because I live in a savage capitalist country. — javi2541997

There are many factors -- but given the policies of the neoliberal era, it's no coincidence to me that despair is rampant. Those policies have killed unions, destroyed education, kept wages low, increased debt, kept working conditions more stressful and precarious, and eroded social safety nets -- while transferring wealth to the top 0.1%. If you're failing to see how these conditions, played out over 40 years, will undoubtedly lead to despair -- then, as I mentioned in the OP, you've failed the test. So to speak.

Mental health is more complex. Neoliberalism could be a factor, as you explained. But not the main cause. I doubt (a lot) if removing such system the people would feel better. — javi2541997

There's an easy way to check. Look at the policies of the last 40 years, then compare them to different policies in different eras. Or look at other countries.

For example, take guns. Other countries have despair as well, and mental health issues -- no doubt. They don't have close to the mass shootings that we do. There's a simple reason: the number and accessibility of guns. Period. What does this have to do with neoliberalism? Easy: it encourages less regulation and favors the rights of corporations, including gun manufacturers. So it doesn't matter that kids are being killed every day -- just as it doesn't matter that the environment is being destroyed. What matters is making money and destroying everything about government that doesn't support corporate greed.

Statistics show that the death rate for all possible causes has declined in the US for the period 1916 to 2023. What have you to say about that. — Agent Smith

Cite your source and I'll take a look.

Whatever increase in despair there is, and I've not conceded it without first seeing the data, is probably quite complex and doesn't fit neatly into wherever our biases might lie (the economic system, civil rights violations, guns, drugs, single parent homes, poverty, bullying, etc), but is many of those for some, different from others, and who knows what else. — Hanover

Yes, but this itself is a bias. It takes something obvious and wants to hide behind "it's complex."

No, it's not that complex. On the level of each individual, we can argue. On a mass level, it's obvious. It's obvious with opioids. It's obvious with guns. It's obvious with suicides. These are outcomes of our particular culture. You compare to other countries and even other eras within our culture and it's even more obvious.

Sweeping government policies have sweeping impacts on society. They trickle down to towns and cities across the country. If you decide to cut federal spending on education, there's less available to distribute to states, which means less quality and higher property taxes. You cut regulations on drilling, you have more pollution and more respiratory deaths. You cut gun control measures, you have more mass shootings. You allow big pharma to do whatever they like, you get the opioid crisis.

None of this is complicated. There's been a campaign to make it all mysterious and confusing. It isn't.

Neoliberalism is, at best, an ideology. — Pantagruel

No, it's not only an ideology. It's a set of real policies enacted by real people that have real impacts. It's not only an abstract, ethereal "something" floating around out there. It's tax cuts. It's deregulation. It's privatization. It's "free trade" agreements.

All of which have real world consequences.

As for the specific statistic I mentioned, it's odd that you didn't ask the OP to verify his very statistical claim. — Agent Smith

What "very statistical claim" would that be? I'd be happy to supply you data.

So where is your source? You've been asked by several people. Do you have a source or did you make it up?

The working class is no longer needed, therefore it must cease to exist. — unenlightened

Officially, it ceased to exist circa 1980, following a decade of decline. Politicians, even progressive ones, started appealing to "the middle class", in which they swept up everyone who wasn't filthy rich or dirt poor. (Our PM amended his version to "the middle class and those working hard to join it") the assumption being that nobody in the entire country wanted to be working class. (In the UK, the war on chavs started long before the infamous Thatcher....) Of course, this made the long siege against trade unions easier to disguise. It made defunding welfare and social services easier to justify. It made enacting yet another tax-cut for high earners a breeze: the middle class needs relief; entrepreneurship must be encouraged to create jobs.... bbbbbssss
(The upside - unions are making a comeback in both countries and even winning some victories. But that's another topic.)

Statistics are easy.
For one thing we know about the big Covid spike. 1,103,615
Aside from that anomaly:
Suicide
See where people got locked away from work and one another for a little while? It isn't always obvious whether a death is accidental or deliberate; suicides are often documented as accidental, to spare the family and the dead person's reputation, and sometimes deliberately covered up by next of kin for several reasons.
Homicide Bet you can relate the bars to contemporary news headlines.

More Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2020 than in any other year on record

Drug overdose deaths.


Drawing conclusions from them is more problematic. There is no doubt in my mind that economic insecurity is a major factor. There are less direct contributing aspects of the economic and political system (in the US, it's the same structure) Social malaise also manifests in polarization, alienation, isolation, loss of trust, undirected or misdirected anger, paranoia, skewed perception, disorientation, disillusionment, damaged self-regard, inability to plan or change - none of which are good for people.

No, it's not only an ideology. It's a set of real policies enacted by real people — Mikie

No doubt there are policies that could be described as neo-liberal in character. That doesn't mean they are being controlled by some underlying neo-liberal agenda. Rather people in various roles with various leanings are making certain types of decisions. One doesn't sign up to be a neo-liberal. It's a bucket term being used by people who aren't neo-liberals as a target for invective.

No doubt there are policies that could be described as neo-liberal in character. That doesn't mean they are being controlled by some underlying neo-liberal agenda. — Pantagruel

Except that no one has argued that anyone is being "controlled" by an "underlying" agenda. Neoliberalism is an ideology in part, but it's also a set of policies. That's what I'm referring to. Whether the people who carry out these policies "really believe," or describe themselves as neoliberal, or are "controlled" by these beliefs, or are true Christians, or believe in the Easter bunny -- who cares.

The neoliberal era is characterized by the polices enacted -- not beliefs. Who knows what these people really believe.

If you are attempting to blame a specific set of people for a broad range of social ills then I would say the validity of your characterization speaks for itself. Let me guess, you are not a neo-liberal?

edit: the more likely common denominator for the problems you cite is the cause of poverty, which is the mal-distribution of resources.

Both issues are a direct result of neoliberalism. — Mikie

Quite right. Because it saps all of our precious bodily fluids.

f you are attempting to blame a specific set of people for a broad range of social ills then I would say the validity of your characterization speaks for itself. Let me guess, you are not a neo-liberal? — Pantagruel

Neoliberalism is the set of policies mentioned, enacted over the last 40 years, with predictable results.

The people in government and business carrying out these policies are indeed to blame— whether they identify as neoliberal or not.

cause of poverty, which is the mal-distribution of resources. — Pantagruel

Which has been exacerbated during the neoliberal era, to the tune of roughly 50 trillion dollars.

Poverty is a result of policies. It doesn’t come out of nowhere. It isn’t the uncaused cause.

Because it saps all of our precious bodily fluids. — Ciceronianus

Okay— I was trying not to laugh, but that’s funny.

All I can say is that I hope I don’t sound like Jack D Ripper.

Neoliberalism is the set of policies mentioned, enacted over the last 40 years, with predictable results.

The people in government and business carrying out these policies are indeed to blame— whether they identify as neoliberal or not. — Mikie

Yep, neoliberalism underpins almost all economic and social policy in the West today and has since the days of Thatcher and Reagan. This deregulatory approach has not just changed economic systems it has become the lens - the foundational presupposition - through which meaning and value has been understood. Even the supposed Left (Hawke Keating in Australia; Blair and New Labour; Clinton in the US - were eager to support it.) The human being has become a consumer and MBA grads the high priests. If you're not making money or being 'productive' subject to a narrow definition, you're a non-citizen.

I think Tony Judt, who died in 2010, nailed this social change 15 years ago.

“Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of collective purpose. We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth. We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: Is it good Is it fair Is it just Is it right Will it help bring about a better society or a better world Those used to be the political questions even if they invited no easy answers. We must learn once again to pose them.

The materialistic and selfish quality of contemporary life is not inherent in the human condition. Much of what appears “natural” today dates from the 1980s: the obsession with wealth creation the cult of privatization and the private sector the growing disparities of rich and poor. And above all the rhetoric that accompanies these: uncritical admiration for unfettered markets disdain for the public sector the delusion of endless growth.

We cannot go on living like this. The little crash of 2008 was a reminder that unregulated capitalism is its own worst enemy: sooner or later it must fall prey to its own excesses and turn again to the state for rescue. But if we do no more than pick up the pieces and carry on as before we can look forward to greater upheavals in years to come.”

― Tony Judt, Ill Fares the Land

Note that no connection between “neoliberalism” and a single feeling of despair has been made, much less to any number of them—nor could it. So far, it appears the only instances of despair is found among its critics.

I guess it’s easy to attribute suicide, alcoholism, and drug addiction to economic conditions because one can avoid empirical analysis, which would take account of the expressed reasons for taking drugs, drinking alcohol, and committing suicide according to those who actually do it. An empirical analysis of “despair” might be useful here, too. Until then, the direct result thesis can be dismissed.

The idea of indirect culpability for these behaviours is just as specious. In order to push someone to addiction, alcoholism, or suicide, it’s safe to say one would have to actively interfere in his personal life, like a spouse, a bully, or tax man, which seems to me anathema to any species of liberalism. No doubt some self-proclaimed liberals do resort to such meddling and interventions. In recent years the government approach of actively interfering in the lives of people during a pandemic has proven itself culpable for indirectly pushing people to fear and despair, resulting in a compounding of the issue, but that wasn’t the policy of any one economic ideology, but of statism in general, where we sacrifice the freedoms of individuals to some notion of a common interest.

If the above connection isn’t being made, you’ve failed the test. — Mikie

no connection between “neoliberalism” and a single feeling of despair has been made, much less to any number of them—nor could it. — NOS4A2

Thanks for confirming what we already knew. Total fail.

Reread more Ayn Rand.

The materialistic and selfish quality of contemporary life is not inherent in the human condition. Much of what appears “natural” today dates from the 1980s: the obsession with wealth creation the cult of privatization and the private sector the growing disparities of rich and poor. And above all the rhetoric that accompanies these: uncritical admiration for unfettered markets disdain for the public sector the delusion of endless growth. — Tom Storm

:100:

Neoliberalism doesn't really come from Ayn Rand. The main originator was Hayek. If you're interested in labor unions, it's really worth looking at how powerful unions helped set the stage for the Neoliberal take over. It's a lesson in what not to do.

:yawn:

Wow

If you're interested in labor unions, it's really worth looking at how powerful unions helped set the stage for the Neoliberal take over. It's a lesson in what not to do. — frank

What?

Where is this line of thinking coming from?

The AFL-CIO made way for neoliberalism, how?

Prepare for a tweet-length, grossly misunderstood synopsis of a book.