Economics and Mental Health
By: Harnoor Nagra
The state of mental health in America is bleak. Nearly one in five adults have experienced mental illness within the past few years. Antidepressant use has increased by 65% over 15 years. Cases of adolescent mental illness increased by 52% between 2005 and 2017. Millennials are the first generation in recent history to have a shorter life expectancy than their predecessors, partially due to increased rates of suicide and mental illness. It seems that study after study is uncovering concerning statistics about mental health. However, the problem is that these statistics are often discussed in isolation, without regard to the larger cultural context. While mental health is a complex and multifaceted issue, the role that our increasingly capitalistic society plays in mental health often goes ignored.
The most obvious link between capitalism and mental health can be found in America’s for-profit healthcare system which leaves mental health resources as either incredibly scarce or completely unaffordable. In fact, four out of ten people who need mental health care in America don’t receive it while many of those who do are attended to by overbooked mental health professionals. The problems don’t stop there though. Interference by the pharmaceutical industry into the world of psychiatry has caused a clear change in the quality of mental health treatment. Over the past few decades, the pharmaceutical industry has pushed for mental disorders to be linked to chemical imbalances and other biological factors. And this has of course resulted in a more chemical based solution. More and more patients have been pushed into treating their mental distress with medication rather than other forms of therapy due to the direct influence of the pharmaceutical industry on clinical trials and individual psychiatrists. While medication is obviously important for some individuals, an entire medical system rooted in treating symptoms and not causes is simply not effective.
It’s not just the medical system, however. The past few decades have seen a notable decline in quality of life for the American middle class. Since the late 1970s wages have remained stagnant while the cost of living has skyrocketed. This has been coupled with a growing wealth disparity between the upper class and the rest of America. It seems that while the middle class has been struggling to survive, the rich have only been getting richer. It’s not hard to understand why poverty and mental illness are linked. As people’s financial futures look more and more uncertain, stress is a natural response and the stress of financial instability has been directly linked to depression and anxiety. This is especially true for some careers most affected by recent economic changes such as coal miners, taxi drivers, and the gig economy. Many of these groups have higher depression and suicide rates than the general population.
If stagnating wages weren’t bad enough, many Americans also find themselves saddled with debt. The cost of getting a college degree has only been getting steeper while the workforce becomes increasingly more exploited. A college degree has become the economic standard for working in an office, leading to a general decline in its economic value. At the same time an unregulated economy has resulted in jobs which pay less and don’t offer job security. This can be seen across the spectrum of jobs: a lack of tenure positions being given to professors, high turnover rate in the entertainment industry, corporate wage theft. At the same time, government support for union busting policies has led to trade workers holding less power to negotiate their wages and conditions. Worker exploitation in a handful of industries quickly spreads across the job market as employers try to increase profits. Over the past few decades the economic pendulum has been swinging towards fewer rights and lower wages for workers. This leads to increased stress and strain from work across the entire economy.
It may be clear to most people that employers exploit their employees, but it may come as a surprise that capitalism is making us lonelier. The idea of a “loneliness epidemic” has been a buzzword for about a decade now with many different root causes attributed to it. One of the major influences in the hyper-individualism encouraged by Capitalism. Capitalist economics focuses on individual achievement, pushing people to put the desire for individual glory like a raise or a promotion above their obligations to their family and community. Not only that, but the cutthroat modern office has caused noticeable declines in empathy for others, especially those in a lower social class. These factors mixed with messy schedules, forced overtime, and an obligation to be working even during your free time has let to a sharp decline in human connection.
Capitalism is a messy and tangled web. Its impacts on quality of life are far reaching and can’t be neatly listed out. However it is clear to see that the mental health epidemic in America is not coming out of nowhere. As the future under Capitalism begins to look more and more bleak, it is important to ask if what we consider disorders are really even disorders at all. In a world where it is getting harder and harder to succeed, perhaps some anxiety is warranted.
Sources:
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8145185/#:~:text=Other%20recent%20developments%20that%20can,illness%20(Hari%2C%202019).
- https://www.nami.org/mhstats#:~:text=21%25%20of%20U.S.%20adults%20experienced,represents%201%20in%2020%20adults.
- https://www.health.com/condition/depression/8-million-americans-psychological-distress
- https://monthlyreview.org/2019/01/01/capitalism-and-mental-health/
- https://www.cooperpointjournal.com/2020/03/05/shit-life-syndrome-mental-health-and-capitalist-decay/
- https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/millennial-burnout-the-first-generation-predicted-to-go-backwards-in-terms-of-life-expectancy-1.4362336
- https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/indicator/2016/07/capitalism-compassion
- https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2022-06-08/4-in-10-u-s-adults-who-need-mental-health-care-cant-get-it-survey
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