Post by Admin on Aug 30, 2019 18:03:31 GMT
Madness of Capitalism
www.kboo.fm/media/60996-madness-capitalism
"Drawing in part on Rod Tweedy's piece in red pepper, 'A mad world: capitalism and the rise of mental illness,' Clayton Morgareidge traces some ways in which life in the capitalist world order makes us crazy.
“A recent article in the UK magazine red pepper by Rod Tweedy makes the claim that 'capitalism is a mental-illness generating system'. In the US, according to the Atlantic Monthly, over a 12 month period, 27% of adults in the US will experience some kind of mental health disorder, and of course that doesn't take into account the many that go unreported. Tweedy cites similar figures of rate in the UK and asks: 'what if it’s not we who are sick, but a system at odds with who we are as human beings?'
There is a great deal of misery that can be attributed to capitalism. First, capitalist ideology assumes that commodity civilization promotes happiness. The way we live revolves around getting and spending money on commodities that are sold on the basis that every desire can be fulfilled by buying, possessing, and constantly upgrading the right products and services. Our real desires have been hijacked, to be replaced by an insatiable craving – the lust for commodities, and of course for money, the commodity that is the key to all commodities. This vitiation of the human soul is the underlying source of our epidemic levels of mental illness, suicide, violence, depression, substance abuse and barely tolerable levels of bad behavior and misery.
The desire for money and what money can buy is a self-centered, individualistic desire. The real desire that is smothered under the flood of commodity culture is the fundamental desire to be in solidarity with others. We need to be recognized and loved by others for who we are, not for what we have, and we want to recognize and love others through caring and cooperative activity. These desires are overwhelmed by the need, in capitalist society, to compete with others for position and wealth.
The dominant economic agents in modern capitalist society are corporations, and as Joel Baken has pointed out (in his book The Corporation), the corporation is, by definition, “a pathological institution.” Its “legally defined mandate is to pursue, relentlessly and without exception its own self-interest regardless of the often harmful consequences it might cause to others.” “The diagnostic features of its default pathology are lack of empathy, pursuit of self-interest, grandiosity, shallow affect, aggression, and social indifference." - via the excellent KBOO Community Radio
www.kboo.fm/media/60996-madness-capitalism
"Drawing in part on Rod Tweedy's piece in red pepper, 'A mad world: capitalism and the rise of mental illness,' Clayton Morgareidge traces some ways in which life in the capitalist world order makes us crazy.
“A recent article in the UK magazine red pepper by Rod Tweedy makes the claim that 'capitalism is a mental-illness generating system'. In the US, according to the Atlantic Monthly, over a 12 month period, 27% of adults in the US will experience some kind of mental health disorder, and of course that doesn't take into account the many that go unreported. Tweedy cites similar figures of rate in the UK and asks: 'what if it’s not we who are sick, but a system at odds with who we are as human beings?'
There is a great deal of misery that can be attributed to capitalism. First, capitalist ideology assumes that commodity civilization promotes happiness. The way we live revolves around getting and spending money on commodities that are sold on the basis that every desire can be fulfilled by buying, possessing, and constantly upgrading the right products and services. Our real desires have been hijacked, to be replaced by an insatiable craving – the lust for commodities, and of course for money, the commodity that is the key to all commodities. This vitiation of the human soul is the underlying source of our epidemic levels of mental illness, suicide, violence, depression, substance abuse and barely tolerable levels of bad behavior and misery.
The desire for money and what money can buy is a self-centered, individualistic desire. The real desire that is smothered under the flood of commodity culture is the fundamental desire to be in solidarity with others. We need to be recognized and loved by others for who we are, not for what we have, and we want to recognize and love others through caring and cooperative activity. These desires are overwhelmed by the need, in capitalist society, to compete with others for position and wealth.
The dominant economic agents in modern capitalist society are corporations, and as Joel Baken has pointed out (in his book The Corporation), the corporation is, by definition, “a pathological institution.” Its “legally defined mandate is to pursue, relentlessly and without exception its own self-interest regardless of the often harmful consequences it might cause to others.” “The diagnostic features of its default pathology are lack of empathy, pursuit of self-interest, grandiosity, shallow affect, aggression, and social indifference." - via the excellent KBOO Community Radio