Serious people do believe capitalism causes mental illnesses. I’m one of them. So is Gabor Maté.

https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/gabor-mate-how-...

Edit: another good link with Gabor Maté talking about how capitalism harms our mental health.

https://patch.com/california/berkeley/ev--an-evening-with-dr...

What's the guy's point? Skimming the article, he's just saying that some people have more than others. And? So what? Is that supposed to be self evidently mentally distressing?

No, what’s distressing is that those at the bottom have nothing, and those just above the bottom are literally swimming for their lives, treading water and trying not to die.

Do you know what one of the animal models for depression is? It’s called the “behavioral despair test,” but it’s actually much crueler and more insidious than it sounds.

Put a mouse in an inescapable cylinder filled partly with water. The mouse will initially try to swim and escape, but eventually gives up. Remove the mouse after 15 minutes. Just 24 hours later, the procedure is repeated and the mouse gives up after less than 5 minutes. The mouse has become depressed.

These are the conditions that capitalism knowingly imposes on those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Living paycheck to paycheck just to keep a roof over one’s head, if one is lucky, is what it’s like for a huge swath of America.

And, this is, if not “by design,” working as intended!

Can you honestly tell me that a literal 24/7 struggle to survive isn’t “self evidently mentally distressing?” Because it sounds to me like a recipe for PTSD and depression.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioural_despair_test

"a literal 24/7 struggle to survive"

Doesn't this describe nearly all of human history, for the vast majority of humans who have ever lived? For far longer than capitalism was ever the basis for any kind of human society?

The thing is that it just doesn't have to be this way anymore. We'd all need to work somewhere around 8h a week to produce enough food, housing and energy to survive.

Instead we make up bullshit jobs and spend hundreds of billions of dollars to convince people people they should be unhappy with what they have, while structuring the necessities for life and social function around extractive institutions.

Actually many people believe it does not. Living off the land might have caused stress occasionally due to e.g. natural hazard but on average people may have been able to get by with relatively little effort: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society

Why does it have to be? We have plenty of resources. Everyone can have the bottom levels of Maslow’s hierarchy. Everyone!

Today is today, not “nearly all of human history.” Who cares about “nearly all of human history?”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

I think the point was that human history predates the recent increase in depression. Having unmet needs you need to work to fill is the baseline state of all animals, and the unending grind to fill them is what we are evolved to do.

People would still have plenty of unmet needs if the basic physiological and safety needs in Maslow's hierarchy are met. What kind of straw man are you trying to argue here? If anything, having those needs met makes it easier -- nay, possible -- to "grind" toward needs at upper levels of the heirarchy (not that I accept your contention that humans were "evolved" to "grind").

Who says the increase in depression is "recent?" The article itself mentions the strong upward trend since 1990. You know 1990 is 30 years ago now, right? (Not trying to be condescending here -- I genuinely forget this myself sometime.)

I'm not arguing any strawman.

I don't accept your non-acceptance of my contention.

I say 30 years is recent. Particularly given I was referring to evidence on a prehistoric timescale.

I hope that clears everything up for you. Totally not trying to be condescending either.

Then, what are you arguing? Why does it even actually matter if the increase in depression is recent, or not? What does that have to do with the fact that mere survival does not have to be a constant 24/7 struggle for anyone, really? And, what is your evidence we were "evolved" to do much of anything besides survive and breed? More importantly, who cares?

So the problem is poverty, not capitalism.

No. The problem is that capitalism creates wealth but in an unsustainable manner, and distributed very unevenly. This is pretty inherent in how capitalism works, because the way the free market works is that it responds to people voting with their dollars. This means that people with more dollars get more votes. So, guess who ends up with all the wealth?

This is a very simplified version of what goes on in a capitalist economy, but it can be made more rigorous using modern concepts of economics. The end result is still the same, though: a very few control an immense amount of wealth, while many have little, and some have none or nearly none.

Wrong link on that second one. Here's the right one: https://www.kindredmedia.org/2017/10/capitalism-makes-us-sic...

As my meditation teacher explained to me - consumer capitalism needs to make us feel unhappy all over again in order to sell us all the stuff. People content with their life do not need to buy stuff or experience to fill their inner void, they do not make good citizens of caplitalism.

We don't need to invoke "capitalism" to discuss the psychic distress involved in repetitive work schedules and, more generally, the expectations surrounding labor and wages, i.e. the modern economic system. The term contains too much, although I do personally agree with many critiques of capitalism.

Because life as a hunter gatherer just a few days away from starvation at any point was less stressful? Generations upon generations of farming was less repetitive?

I'm assuming you misread me, because I'm saying something to the effect of "reducing work hours and providing flexibility might be helpful for people, but the present social equilibria prevent that from happening, and mental health provides an excuse to avoid changing aspects of the economic system that have issues", and not some primitivist whatever.

Also, stress alone isn't the issue here at all.

> Generations upon generations of farming was less repetitive?

It was. Medieval serfs worked less than us.

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_w...

I don't think it's repetitive work or expectations surrounding labour that cause psychic distress, but worker alienation, which is one of my main gripe with capitalism.

I might be wrong here, but I feel that we can endure a repetitive work schedule and high expectations if we feel connected to the work and the fruit of our labour.

Feeling connected to work and the fruit of our labor is largely a matter of attitude. I've mopped floors for minimum wage and still took satisfaction in doing it well.

There is a matter of attitude and a matter of reality. Deluding yourself into feeling connected into meaningless work that will benefit no one but a few is just that, delusion.

Besides, worker alienation and alienation in general is way more than just taking satisfaction in doing things well, it's actually feeling connected to what you are doing and it's purpose, and feeling connected to the social relationships that enable your life instead of seeing them as impersonal exchanges of commodity on the market.

Strikes me that a lot of this is what people used to get from religion. I'm not religious myself, so definitely not trying to push it, but it does seem that there's a correlation between the rise in incidence of depression, feelings of disconnectedness, and lack of a sense if purpose that goes along with the decline in participation in organized religion.

Yeah capitalism was much more ruthless in the early days of the US yet there seems to have been less depression (of course due to different societal factors surrounding diagnosis this can't be said with certainty). Even looking more recently where we have better data - suicides continue to go up through the 2000s. Is the claim seriously that the US is more capitalistic or forces more work/less engaging work now than it did in the 80s and 90s? I find that hard to believe but would be interested in data that could inform the question either way.

Certainly bad financial situations are a risk factor for depression, and we should do more to address these issues so that people working full time jobs can actually make ends meet. But I do also worry that the push on the other side to continually cut back work hours will only make things worse. HN is a total bubble, most people without a career do not know what to do with themselves. Sustaining intrinsic motivation for long periods can be very difficult. Continuing a project without regular feedback can feel impossible. These are big reasons why doing a PhD can be a really tough experience. You might not think it matters if people are productive, but in the long run it is critical to the mental health of many that they feel productive. Work also generally keeps people on a routine schedule, forces some amount of social interaction, etc. These are important for a healthy life.

> Yeah capitalism was much more ruthless in the early days of the US yet there seems to have been less depression

What makes you think so? It is 100% honest question: what historical evidence makes you guess the rates of depression in early days of US?

As I mentioned the further back you go the harder it is to say anything definitive. But I do think it's telling that depression rates keep rising, and this isn't even just a 21st century phenomenon. There are epidemiological studies from the late 80s that read very similarly to the alarm raised now: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/37702...

Going further back, discussion of a link between modernity/depression is largely speculation, but it is a popular hypothesis and there are some studies that focus on suicide rates for a more data-driven approach. It is harder to find information on US numbers but Scandinavian countries are notorious for access to thorough epidemiological data: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2307/1389426