Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism
by Anne Case and Angus Deaton, 2020.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, cloth, 264 pages.
Review by Thomas Hansen, Ph.D.
Case and Deaton are famous for having discovered the high number of fatalities associated with stressors of capitalism impacting white working class individuals. The deaths are from alcoholism, suicide, and drug overdose. The number of deaths is now is the hundreds of thousands – with the numbers climbing higher. People have not been focusing on this trend
and have been focused on the deaths of other demographics, unfortunately.
The numbers show it is overwhelmingly the white workers (not people of other races) who have lost their place in society – people coming from families where everyone works hard, people save money, people pay rent and buy houses and cars, and people can pass something on to their children. No longer can many of these workers find and keep the kind of job their parents had. The jobs they once knew are gone and the workers do not have skills technical enough to compete with college graduates. Many lower-skilled jobs have sent overseas where labor is much cheaper. The prices have skyrocketed on food, housing, and clothing.
Even the basics are out of reach when a person has little money to spend and cannot work enough to build up a reserve.
The people in this difficult situation come to the realization they simply cannot solve their problems. White working with little financial or educational ammunition to fall back on do not know how to achieve this. It is for most of them a fight with no weapons, a war the working class cannot win.
Because the white working class has been facing a depressed – and depressing – future for many years now, with little hope of success, death is winning. People in this group are killing themselves by drugging and drinking, and by committing suicide in a variety of ways.
The numbers of deaths are staggering – and they were increased greatly by the stress of the Great Recession, which experts say happened from December 2007 to June 2009 (Stanford
Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality, 2011). As these people have tried to work, tried to succeed, they met with resistance from an economy that no longer had a place for them.
Misery, pain, frustration, and despair plague them. Drinking, drugging, and a variety of suicide methods are used to help these individuals escape an economy in which they cannot
compete, cannot survive, cannot win.
That Case and Deaton have been able to determine the causes of these deaths, collect the data, report on the deaths, and establish recommendations on what has to happen to remedy such
depressing factors weighing on individuals affected by those stressors is incredible. Their reporting is straightforward and their research is solid.
The final chapter of the book, “What to Do?” provides some hope. What can people do? Citizens need to learn more about these deaths and more about the economy. People must vote to install new federal and local programs to help people who are struggling. Elected officials must make it a priority to create solutions. Like all bigger and more complex issues, this problem will require well-coordinated strategies and major funding. It will also require empathy.
by Anne Case and Angus Deaton, 2020.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, cloth, 264 pages.
Review by Thomas Hansen, Ph.D.
Case and Deaton are famous for having discovered the high number of fatalities associated with stressors of capitalism impacting white working class individuals. The deaths are from alcoholism, suicide, and drug overdose. The number of deaths is now is the hundreds of thousands – with the numbers climbing higher. People have not been focusing on this trend
and have been focused on the deaths of other demographics, unfortunately.
The numbers show it is overwhelmingly the white workers (not people of other races) who have lost their place in society – people coming from families where everyone works hard, people save money, people pay rent and buy houses and cars, and people can pass something on to their children. No longer can many of these workers find and keep the kind of job their parents had. The jobs they once knew are gone and the workers do not have skills technical enough to compete with college graduates. Many lower-skilled jobs have sent overseas where labor is much cheaper. The prices have skyrocketed on food, housing, and clothing.
Even the basics are out of reach when a person has little money to spend and cannot work enough to build up a reserve.
The people in this difficult situation come to the realization they simply cannot solve their problems. White working with little financial or educational ammunition to fall back on do not know how to achieve this. It is for most of them a fight with no weapons, a war the working class cannot win.
Because the white working class has been facing a depressed – and depressing – future for many years now, with little hope of success, death is winning. People in this group are killing themselves by drugging and drinking, and by committing suicide in a variety of ways.
The numbers of deaths are staggering – and they were increased greatly by the stress of the Great Recession, which experts say happened from December 2007 to June 2009 (Stanford
Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality, 2011). As these people have tried to work, tried to succeed, they met with resistance from an economy that no longer had a place for them.
Misery, pain, frustration, and despair plague them. Drinking, drugging, and a variety of suicide methods are used to help these individuals escape an economy in which they cannot
compete, cannot survive, cannot win.
That Case and Deaton have been able to determine the causes of these deaths, collect the data, report on the deaths, and establish recommendations on what has to happen to remedy such
depressing factors weighing on individuals affected by those stressors is incredible. Their reporting is straightforward and their research is solid.
The final chapter of the book, “What to Do?” provides some hope. What can people do? Citizens need to learn more about these deaths and more about the economy. People must vote to install new federal and local programs to help people who are struggling. Elected officials must make it a priority to create solutions. Like all bigger and more complex issues, this problem will require well-coordinated strategies and major funding. It will also require empathy.
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