Today, Capitalism seems to be an unescapable state of things, a system far too big and complex to be even put into question. Yet many of the problems of our modern world, though, from the environmental crisis to social and economic inequalities, mental health crisis, seem to lead back to our current economic system.
The very heart and soul of the system is the idea that our economy exists to serve the wealthy, to allow them to extract limitless, maximum amounts from the rest of us, and from the planet. Protecting and growing their financial wealth,called “capital”is the aim of the whole system.
Capital is a world-wide relation between classes, based on the exploitation of wage labour and production for sale in order to realise profit. The constant search for outlets for its commodities calls forth ruthless competition between nation states for domination of the world market. And this competition demands that every national capital must expand or die. A capitalism that no longer seeks to penetrate the last corner of the planet and grow without limit cannot exist.
By the same token, capitalism is utterly incapable of cooperating on a global scale to respond to the ecological crisis, as the abject failure of all the various climate summits and protocols has already proved. The hunt for profit, which has nothing to do with human need, is at the root of the despoliation of nature and the gaping inequaliries we see in society and this has been true since capitalism began.
The origins of capitalism are complicated, and stretch back to the 16th century, when the British systems of power largely collapsed after the Black Death, a deadly plague that killed off up to 60% of Europe’s entire population. A newly formed class of merchants began to trade with foreign countries, and this newfound demand for exports hurt local economies and began to dictate overall production and pricing of goods. It also led to the spread of colonialism, slavery, and imperialism.
The death of feudalism ,a hierarchical system often seen as oppressive that kept poor people bonded to their masters’ land, which they farmed in exchange for a place to live and military protection, also left rural British peasants with no homes and no work, which eventually funneled them away from the countryside and into urban centers. These former farm workers then had to sell their labor in a newly competitive work environment in order to survive, while the state worked in concert with the new capitalists to establish a maximum wage and “clamp down on beggars.”
By the 18th century, England had converted into an industrial nation, and the dawn of the Industrial Revolution saw an explosion of manufacturing overtake the island. It is within those smoky factories and flammable textile mills that our modern idea of capitalism, and the opposition to it, began to fully flourish.
In 1776, Scottish economist Adam Smith published his treatise, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, which is regarded as the bedrock upon which modern capitalism stands. Though some of his specific ideas about value and labor differ from those of modern economists, Smith is often called “the father of capitalism.”
Capitalism has since continually pushed the idea of market fundamentalism, meaning that the market can solve all social, economic, and political problems. According to this idea, the market serves best when left unregulated. It promotes a cut-throat competition driven by self-interest. Believing that this kind of environment leads to innovation and economic growth, promoting overall welfare.
But left to its own devices, raw unmanaged capitalism produces some very unpleasant outcomes. Capitalism takes the position that “greed is good,” which its supporters say is a positive thing, greed drives profits and profits drive innovation and product development, which means there are more choices available for those who can afford them. Yett capitalism is, by it's very nature, is exploitative, and leads to a brutally divided society that tramples the working classes in favor of fattening the rich’s wallets.
While Capitalism encourages greed, let's try not to forget that greed is only good for capitalists qho are ,typically wealthy people who have a large amount of capital (money or other financial assets) invested in business, and who benefit from the system of capitalism by making increased profits and thereby adding to their wealth.
Many people believe that greed is the root of all evil, that it is anti-social and soul destroying, not to mention very bad for our communities, which rely on altruism, compassion and a generalized concern for others. Beleiving that Capitalism has become such an alienating system that makes people feel powerless, isolated, insecure, afraid, and demand the destruction of the system that they see as being a Plutocracy that is of the Corporations, by the Corporations, for the Corporations to screw the people over.
The benefits of capitalism are rarely equitably distributed. Wealth tends to accrue to a small % of the population and the very sick nature of capitalism causing inequality to keep increasing, causing traits like selfishness and makes people more acquisitive and materialistic. It provides us with an idea of success that rendered us as lonely and stressed creatures filled with self-doubt.
Norms of capitalist society also help enforce social isolation. Isolation which has become an epidemic.as more and more people become isolated from their friends, families, relationships, and even from their work.
This leads me to the subject of mental health which is probably the most ignored aspect of one’s health. Seeing the data of rising mental illness, it will not be suitable for us if we keep ignoring this impending epidemic and how capitalism helps create it. A subject so impoetant to address as globally, more than 264 million people suffer from depression. Over 8,00,000 people commit suicide every year, which is roughly one person every 40 seconds.
There is a significant correlation between social conditions and the mental health of persons. Mental illness is not a mere chemical imbalance in mind. We are a reflection of society. If we are healthy, it means the community is healthy and if we are sick, it means society is sick, and its root cause is capitalism. And there's nothing more depressing than capitalism. Multiple studies link capitalism's byproducts; inequality, job insecurity, and social alienation, to mental illness.
Most of society's mental health problems stem ultimately from financial insecurity and the alienation from one's own human essence having to working under the capitalist mode of production. Capitalism produces a society where wealth is equated with happiness. The more a person can consume, the happier they can be. In a quest to achieve this happiness, people feel alienated, sad, depressed, and anxious.
A capitalistic society continually asks us to be “productive” and condition us to feel bad and guilty for relaxing, or as they say, wasting time. This has led to the birth of a new problem known as Productivity Anxiety- a state in which a person feels anxious for not being “productive enough.”
We constantly compare ourselves with others and fear being “less productive” than them. Anything other than that, no matter how much it can be useful for oneself, is not productive. Society in Capitalism makes us believe that we are worth nothing more than our productivity.
Capitalism also uses manipulative tools like advertising ,marketing, entertainment and even so-called news. to control our minds, Millions around the world are employed to use their creativity to twist our feelings of love, desire, human solidarity and fairness into tools of manipulation,. so that ever more profits can flow into the hands of a tiny minority.
The market under Capitalism has failed to keep it’s the most significant promise. It was supposed to grant us freedom and emancipation; instead, it has delivered the opposite The vast majority of us who work for a living are daily asked to uncritically follow orders, to act as if we are machines, and limit our creativity to what profits our bosses.Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman has rightly remarked,” Never have we been so free. Never have we felt so powerless.”
So next time you feel sad, afraid, or anxious and feel at odds with this mad market-driven world where people with poor mental health are just treated as another market, it’s not because of a chemical imbalance in your mind most of the time, it is Capitalism.
Capitalism breaks our spirit by forcing us to claw our way through life as commodities and it's so logical that a society organized around the commodification of everything would produce a mental health crisis. It pits us against one another. It rips away our humanity. It destroys empathy. It destroys our sense of community. It destroys families.
The capitalist system not only prioritises profit over human health and wellbeing, it actively thrives on the extraction of corporate revenue from human malaise and torment. Just ask the pharmaceutical industry.
The formula is simple. Neoliberalism breeds psychological distress by working to obliterate solidarity, the very essence of humanity, while converting the right to physical and mental health care into an exclusive and costly endeavour, an arrangement that only aggravates mental health stressors for those of lesser socioeconomic means.
And while depression, anxiety and despair are completely rational reactions to an inhuman environment, and a world that capitalism is rapidly propelling towards ecological annihilation, drug companies have pushed pathologising psychological turmoil as an individual defect rather than a result of societal context.
Capitalism is also not a friend to democracy but ultimately its enemy. When pushed, capitalists choose capitalism over democracy. If people use democracy to weaken the power of capitalists the rich and powerful turn to various forms of fascism in order to keep their privileges. Rich people also use their money to dominate the elections that are supposed to give us all one, equal vote. Under capitalism those with the most money are entitled to the most goods and services as well as the most say in directing our governments and our economy.
As German Communist philosopher and economist Karl Marx, perhaps the most famous opponent of capitalism in history, who ironically enough helped to popularize the term , wrote in his book Capital, Volume 1: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production, “Just as man is governed, in religion, by the products of his own brain, so, in capitalist production, he is governed by the products of his own hand.” The essential anti-capitalist argument is that “the hallmark of capitalism is poverty in the midst of plenty.” forcing immense suffering and violence upon the laboring classes, the ruthless emphasis on profits over people, the proliferation of wage slavery, in which people have no choice but to sell their labor, which we see in every industry from fast food to corporate office work.
Marx also emphasized the system’s capacity to dehumanize workers, writing that capitalist methods of productivity “mutilate the labourer into a fragment of a man, degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine, destroy every remnant of charm in his work and turn it into a hated toil.” Today his words sound eerily current,
As the looming threat of automation and erosion of public health care puts more pressure on the working class, with many of us worrying that capitalism’s thirst for profit over everything else means that those who sell their labor will be worked to death.
Capitalism proclaims the virtue of naked self-interest, but self-interest without regard for morality, or common sense that leads to environmental degradation, colonialism, war and other forms of mass destruction, while a the same time , the arms industry, another pillar of capitalism, perpetuates its own vicious cycle of lucrative catastrophe, devastating communities as it wages war on human empathy.
In conclision capitalism has become so dominant that it is difficult to ever imagine a world in which its injustices and inequalities are not present. but the pervasive myth that capitalism is unchallengeable like it will outlive the human race and the earth itself,is based on fictions and the propaganda of capitalism itself. We don't have to settle for the status quo or to the direction that society seems to be taking us.
Remember Capitalism has never been static, never mind stable. It has collapsed into failure countless times, destroying lives, communities and entire nations before being bailed out by the sweat and callouses of the working class. In this way, it can be seen as a chronic condition, a system of destabilisation, collapse and rebirth that perpetually takes place, with each iteration slightly different, and often less stable than the last.
The UK is currently experiencing levels of inflation not seen since the 1980s; declining wages are going hand in hand with soaring fuel and food prices, and a large proportion of the population are unable to meet their basic needs. The popular narrative surrounding this ‘costs of living crisis’ links it with certain isolated ‘shocks’ – the War in Ukraine, the Covid-19 pandemic, Brexit etc – and suggests it can be managed, and overcome, via certain temporary measures, such as wage restraint, reduced public spending, and limited assistance to the most vulnerable. In fact, of course, this ‘costs of living’ crisis is deeply rooted in the much more generalised crisis of modern capitalism.
The nature of capitalism, serves a purpose other than to produce misery..We just need to stop bolstering it with meek lies based on flawed economic theory that it is an inherently superior and inviolable system, as there is an abundance of evidence to the contrary. As long as humanity ties itself to capitalism we are doomed. It’s a parasitic, dysfunctional and abusive system that has reached a dead end and must be abolished. A new fairer egalitarian society for the benefit of all in accordance with a set of collectively determined parameters; unlike under capitalism is required.
There is no easy way to do this, and we are currently a long way from the sort of consciousness and organisation needed to overthrow this system of inequality. However another kinder world devoid of capitalsm is possible, but we have to continually to fight for it. in all areas of our lives, putting people and the planet before profit. .
“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.” Ursula Le Guin.
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