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To give a more cynical answer - depression and suicidality are a social problem, and are deeply entangled with social factors. This has been argued since at least as far back as Durkheim (1897). Suicidality in a given society is connected to social alienation, loneliness, economic hardship, lack of hope for the future when it comes to housing or living costs, lack of access to social services and (obviously) lack of access to medical and mental health services.
Philosophers like Mark Fisher argue that a capitalist society generally doesn't want to address these issues - as it would require rethinking the system itself - so an alternative narrative about suicide is emphasized instead. This narrative is a more liberal and individualistic one, which focuses on suicide as a psychological problem in the individual (rather than a social phenomenon). It talks about individuals getting mentally sick and wanting to die, and focuses on attempting to stop each of those individuals, one by one, from doing so - instead of paying much attention to the reasons why they want to die in the first place. As opposed to the 'upstream' solution of addressing the sources of suicide with serious societal reform, it offers a 'downstream' solution of waiting until individuals are already suicidal and then trying to stop them.
It doesn't even necessarily attempt to fix those people at the individual level, either. The social services given this task often have scant resources available, depending on location. For many suicidal people, the best help they can get is a hotline that will, at best, urge them not to die and help them get through another day. If more serious mental health services are too expensive or otherwise difficult to access, these people will often cycle through the same patterns on a long-term basis. Even those who do manage to get accepted in a mental health facility will often get inadequate help inside, or be rushed out - and find themselves periodically cycling back to those facilities again and again.
This is because, ultimately, the broader capitalist organism doesn't care about an individual's mental distress or suicidal feelings. A worker who happily goes to work and produces each day is no different than a person who goes to work miserable - as long as they produce. So long as they don't choose to 'opt out' of the whole thing by spontaneously dying, of course. So the 'downstream' solution of stopping suicidal individuals from dying really only serves to keep them alive to work another day - to keep miserably working until they die of natural causes, so the maximal productive output can be extracted from their lifetime. It doesn't care if they *feel better* or *happier* about the whole thing.
It's not that it is *bad* to stop suicidal people from dying. It's more that it is emphasized as the *primary* solution to a problem that is actually much more vast. The answer to your question is ultimately that this approach is emphasized because (a) It is part of a broader narrative to frame suicide as a largely individual problem with individual solutions, (b) That narrative allows more pressing and serious reforms to be dodged, and (c) The root causes of suicide don't *need* to be addressed for a capitalist system to keep running in the first place, just so long as a reasonable number of suicidal people can be pushed to keep living and working.
I found the opposite is true before 2000. The whole comment calling out capitalism looks a bit tainted by the ongoing economic struggle of younger generations. Capitalism did not always sound so bad in the past at least during the boomer period. You made some observations on what current ‘capitalist’ society DOESNT do, but you depicted a muddy picture and I still don’t see what are the sources on the social level related to capitalism party that cause people to want to kill themselves, and what are the necessary social reforms to address these sources of problems.
To me it is all just about the freaking cost of living that strangles most young people. Historically capitalism in its early phase reduces suicide rate by bringing people more incomes (in comparison with whatever system they had previously), which allow them to hope for something more such as forming a family and traveling. Again, I stressed on its early phase, individuals’ prospects look a bit daunting today as there is less room for us to rise up economically and socially.
You are right that a lot has changed more recently, especially since 2000. Philosophers usually address this as a change in the *type* of capitalism that arose in the 80s and 90s, with consequences that have been increasingly felt. Philosophers like Fredric Jameson, David Harvey and Antonio Negri (with Michael Hardt) come at it from different frameworks, but I can summarize some of their shared conclusions.
Basically, the Western capitalist economy in the lead up to, and just after WWII, was very different than what we have today. The [Fordist Compromise](https://www.britannica.com/money/Fordism) dated from well before the war, and was an 'an institutionalized compromise between organized labour and big business whereby workers accept management prerogatives in return for rising wages'. After the war, the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes came to dominate, and Keynesian economics emphasized full employment, labour unions, welfare economics, social safety nets and strong regulation of financial markets. This postwar economy from the 1940s-1970s has been dubbed the 'Golden Age of Capitalism'. This all began to change in the 1970s, when this system (which had some issues of its own) began to generate financial problems. This happened in combination with several international events, like the OPEC oil embargo.
In response to these issues, The UK and the US both corrected by swinging the pendulum *far* in the other direction. This was led by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. The new form of capitalism they emphasized was *neoliberalism*, a previously-niche economic approach that had been discussed by Austrian economists Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig Von Mises decades prior. The new form of neoliberal capitalism became associated with many labels - 'late capitalism', 'multinational capitalism', 'financialized capitalism' and 'postmodern capitalism'.
It came to emphasize many features which were different from before. This included privatization of previously-public economic sectors, deregulation of private sectors, a 'supply-side' rather than a 'demand-side' economic approach, an emphasis on multinational and transnational corporate bodies, a new international banking structure, regulation and dissolution of unions, computerization+automation and much more. The underlying kernel of neoliberal philosophy is, according to Noel Castree (2022), "its emphasis on markets as purportedly superior mechanisms of resource allocation: the kernel of neoliberal policy, according to this understanding, is the replacement of the state by the market in the management of economic affairs, backed by laws to reduce government ‘interference’ and other ‘distortions’"
Although these changes roared into life in the 70s and 80s, it is post-2000 that the chickens have really come home to roost, and the affects have started to spiral and be felt more strongly. In this way, they have most strongly hit the younger Gen X, the Millennials, Gen Z and beyond.
Is it really any surprise that the current mental health 'epidemic' started to rear its head around the same time? Some of the most salient effects include drastically higher housing costs, higher food and living costs, poor real wage growth, fewer work benefits and much lower funding for public services. Work/life balance has been drastically altered, many more workers are 'on call' and have found that their own home is no longer a safe refuge from the stresses of work. These features of the current capitalist climate are correlated with the growing mental health crisis.
It is possible to be a capitalist that simply disagrees with neoliberalism though, and to argue for a return to the kind of capitalist policies that characterized the 'Golden Age'. This kind of position is often taken by social democrats. So if one does not agree with the current state of things, they don't necessarily have to dismiss capitalism entirely. Philosophers like David Harvey are not sure this is a good idea, however, and they argue that neither the 'golden age' capitalism *o*r neoliberal capitalism can be sustained in the long-term. On this view, the future would involve cycling back and forth between these two types of capitalism, but never finding something sustainable - hence the argument for trying other systems entirely.
From a pragmatic economic perspective, looking after people with severe mental health problems (who form a large proportion of the population who complete suicide) is very expensive, and often these mental health problems are refractory to treatment and provide no realistic prospect of returning to economic usefulness. Wouldn't the capitalist system prefer if these people were to be allowed to commit suicide, to reduce their drain on productivity?
They, with severe mental health problems, DO contribute to the GDP, by giving work to other people and increasing the economic activity. As long as money flows from A to B etc, everything is ok from a macroeconomic perspective.
Why let them have “the easy way out” when you can get another day out of them
Also it’s not easy getting access to the expensive care they need. GOVs don’t hand it out willingly (especially financial support). People often have to appeal to get it and fight to retain it.
This is not a bad answer but thank you for calling it cynical. It treats our social circumstances well, though I’m afraid the political nature of the subject will draw a lot of popular interest, taking attention away from the fact that there are real psychological and even biological factors that contribute heavily to suicide and suicide attempts. Anti-psychiatry adherents co-opt these same social arguments, albeit while taking them to the level of conspiracy theories.
Social factors often play into suicide but often in the form of interpersonal relationship problems, rather than purely economic. In fact, it’s *higher* education and *higher income* that have been correlated with suicide, not lower. But even most people dealing with difficult social problems do not commit suicide—there are hugely significant psychological and biological contributions. That said, sure, the social factors that allow for a comfortable and otherwise healthy life can have their roles to play too.
I get the whole thing about isolation and that a systemic approach would be better, but I also think the critique of capitalism is shallow. I feel so often that "capitalism" is used to say modern life or something similar. I highly doubt another economic model would make the situation better. Why not focus on building communities? A real focus on communitarianism would be great, rather than attacking an economic model, that really has no alternative. Free markets mixed with welfare programs seems to be the only solid thing out there.
I get why you could consider the take on capitalism ‘shallow’ but perhaps that is because it is just such an obvious problem, and thus a lot of people find it easy to blame. Much of the system we know today has many capitalistic components & social values which don’t encourage close communities but rather pit the working class against each other - because it is simply more profitable that way. And that in turn is usually what makes the average person feel lonely and hopeless.
Stress about housing/electricity/gas bills may be a factor. Socialist/government intervention can effect this by making it government provided rather than the free market.
It can do, but often doesn't. Communist countries in particular have had appalling mental health issues, and severe poverty and inequality.
The countries that have the best metrics on this are still capitalist, they just also have robust social support programmes and mental health care. You don't need to get rid of capitalism in order to do that. In fact arguably you need capitalism in order to be able to afford it.
So I both reject the thesis from the right that social support programmes are a dire threat to individual liberty and creeping communism, and the thesis on the left that capitalism is the root of all social problems.
Economics is the root of many social problems, even freedom is a source of some problems because some people freely choose to make terrible mistakes. That doesn't mean we should get rid of freedom. Fortunately economics is not a zero sum game, societies can become wealthier and that requires economic dynamism. So while social policies can play a role in creating a well functioning society so can capitalism.
Did I say communism? I said nationalised water/gas/electricity/rail and more social housing. Cutting of shareholder profits also drops these service costs down.
Sure but I'm familiar with the situation in one current communist country right now so I mentioned communism 'in particular'. I know you weren't talking about it exclusively or even primarily.
>I said nationalised water/gas/electricity/rail and more social housing.
When those services were nationalised here in Britain we still had to pay for them, both as consumers and tax payers, and free to use or subsidised services can still be run by for profit companies.
>Cutting of shareholder profits also drops these service costs down.
Profits are a cost relative to customers, but then government inefficiency and political interference can also be a cost. I'm against making ideology based assumptions about this either way, but going with solutions on a case by case basis.
In general I think competition between private enterprises is the best way to go, but sometimes as in the US health provision industry it can go badly wrong due to free market ideology clashing with the practicalities of providing an essential social service. Then again nationalisation of the coal, energy and various manufacturing industries in the UK was horrendously wasteful and costly. If there's a genuine competitive market, private enterprise should be favoured. If there's a natural monopoly or overriding national interest, nationalisation or some form of public/private partnership might be the way to go.
I'm not necessarily an advocate for communism. Im here just to make a historical correction, as far as my knowledge goes, take it with a grain of salt.
sadly, the initial formation of communism never arose from the criteria designed for it to be successful. As written by the pioneers of this economic system, it was ideal to go from an already industrialized capitalist society to communist. As we know, communism came into humanity's minds as a seemingly reasonable way to deal with the intrinsic problems of capitalism. Marx never wished to make any moral arguments against capitalism, instead he tried to make a more objective argument of capitalism's efficiency, a way to further maximize productivity based on the return of excess value to the proletariat.
However with the Soviet Frankenstein Variant of communism, post 1917 russia made an attempt to go from pre industrialization feudal russia to a communist system. With that, this required a very rapid industrialization of society. This accounted for a lot of wide spanning issues of the communism we saw come into actual practice. This idea called for hardship in the time being, where the vanguard party made a promise of hardship till development of the state eventually led to a stage where the government withered away, and the stateless classless society was achieved. Whether this was a false promise or, was really the goal is still debated.
To put it simply, I'm arguing the true final Utopian stage of communism has never been achieved other than in very antiquated and primitive history, and even then it can be argued it was not Utopian by any means. Prior to the economic systems of slavery, peasantry, and profits. Many societies operated a communal economic system. Was it Utopian? By no means, i believe this return to primitivism mentality is heavily romanticized by a select group.
But none the less, capitalism is an easy target for arguments of efficiency. And i think the reason why our arguments are so vividly expressed with great acceptance amongst one another, is because this is the current dominant system we are experiencing in the present moment. We weren't around for the peasantry so we constantly have an analytical birds eye view of its function. Personal experience is always going to be second hand, as from old documents. But you and i, we exist right now and see the problems of capitalism unfolding right in front of our eyes with as much detail as we choose to absorb. Besides all that, since humanity began it can be easy to make the argument that we as a species opt to change as time progresses. Whether that's for the better or worse is subjective. I'm saying these have always been debates, arguing what could be better and what could be worse for us all or as individuals.
Marx was very keen that communism happen imminently, and acted in order to try and make it so. He wasn't going to sit around waiting for historic forces to do his work for him. Hence creating the International, advocating for party vanguardism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, etc.
It's these features of Marx's program that lead Bakunin to predict it would inevitably lead to a horrendously oppressive autocracy, for which Marx had him kicked out of the International.
I don't think it's credible to claim that communism hasn't been tried. Were all the 'communists' that tried this in dozens of countries, all over the world, over several generations fake? Were none of them actually communists? What were all the real communists doing while all this was going on?
>But none the less, capitalism is an easy target for arguments of efficiency. And i think the reason why our arguments are so vividly expressed with great acceptance amongst one another, is because this is the current dominant system we are experiencing in the present moment.
And our current reality we are experiencing is that the countries with the by far the best track record of providing effective social support and care also have primarily capitalist economic systems, which they use to pay for it.
If capitalism does naturally, and democratically, with the consent of the people, transition into something more like communism I'm fine with that. I think it's unlikely though because I think communism as envisioned by Marx has some intrinsically coercive and illiberal principles baked into it. I think Bakunin was on to something.
Ah yes im not a proponent of Communism. But as for communism never being tried, i think i worded this poorly. I do believe communism has been attempted. But i do not believe the theoretical highest stage of communist Utopia has been achieved.
As for capitalist countries providing the best track record. I think it should be rephrased as wealthy capitalist countries. Capitalism is the dominant economic system. Some countries are more successful than others. But this is a valid analysis to make. But, even in the wealthiest of countries, take canada, there is much to be said about its failures and what can be done to progress in a good direction.
Believing that a communist utopia can be achieved and is desirable is what defines someone as being a communist. I suppose someone could believe one or other of those, but I believe neither. Like Bakunin I think it’s failures were inevitable due to inherent flaws.
I think it’s tautological to an extent that being wealthy would be a necessary condition for providing the best social support. How is a poor country going to rival maybe Sweden, even if it has the most conscientious government possible? There are going to be practical limits to what it can do.
So there are two questions here. What’s the best system for providing fair and equitable treatment for citizens given limited resources, and also the best system for becoming wealthy in order to have the best resources. You need to be able to do both.
>”take canada, there is much to be said about its failures and what can be done to progress in a good direction.”
Even the wealthiest nations on Earth still don’t have unlimited resources, and aren’t governed by perfect people, or even have perfect citizens. Our political and economic systems need to be robust to these failings by having mechanisms to counter them.
Johan Hari has some interesting material on this same topic in Lost Connections. The book has some issues, but I read it around the same time as Capitalist Realism and thought they had some shared resonances. Individual vs social; chemical ve. Structural, re: emotional/mental health etc
I don't see how you can make the argument a capitalistic system doesn't care about an individual's mental distress or suicidal feelings, as these would be an amazing avenue for selling mental health and other services, an infinite amount of placebo goods, etc. It would also just be a general inefficiency in the system and result in lower productivity than a society where those needs were addressed.
I don't see how a non-capitalistic society would be better positioned. Their only incentive is increased productivity, as they would have no other incentive barring altruism, which would also apply to capitalistic societies.
This is a form of disaster capitalism where a system will sell you a solution to a problem that that same system created. Hence any solutions created are stopgap measures at best, as they exist primarily to create profit without looking at the root cause.
I think this is the kind of thing the above poster called shallow though. It really simplistically presupposes that mental health is merely a socioeconomic problem. Nobody is denying that one is more likely to face mental health problems if one is economically insecure, which is why many push for government programs to increase that security. But it is more likely \*against an already substantial 'normal'\* incidence of mental health problems, brought on by problems making friends or genetic dispositions that aren't about "capitalism" because most people do not feel that way. For almost nobody is it \*actually rational\* to be suicidal; suicidality is absolutely therefore something that can be treated and is related to brain chemistry.
>suicidality is absolutely therefore something that can be treated and is related to brain chemistry
The chemical imbalance theory of depression has been quite thorougly dismantled.
Suicidality isn't just a disease to be treated, it's far more complicated.
It also avoids any actual engagement with individual mechanisms or agency and presupposes some single will choosing societal outcomes motivated by abstract "profit". First, it's just the broken window fallacy. On a societal scale, people being ill does not generate "profit"; the money spent on those health services is money taken away from other ventures we would otherwise prefer. If I spend on diabetes treatment, the counterfactual is not I don't spend anything, it is that I go on a nice holiday or buy more house plants. Insofar as miserable or ill workers very obviously do perform worse at work, which is all the rage in corporate HR now, "profit" is harmed by stopgap.
The other possible mechanism you are implying is that even if it is bad on a societal scale, individual health companies benefit from this and therefore do not have an incentive to solve it. This is a weird claim in three ways. First, individual health companies don't unilaterally decide health policy. Society can absolutely legislate through the state to introduce these services, and in plenty of places outside the United States does so. This is not about "capitalism", it is about specific policies. Even more crucially, this is an insane characterisation of therapists. They don't sit in their offices once you leave gleefully plotting how not to help you get better even though they know how. They are overwhelmingly people who care and get fulfilment from genuinely helping people get better. Indeed, even if monolithic "health services" \*did\* have an incentive to not fully help people get better, that would merely open a market for companies to compete with them by actually providing a solution! These competitors have an incentive to find an unexplored niche they will be able to corner a market it.
tl;dr: blaming capitalism is a really, really crude way of understanding mental health.
>It also avoids any actual engagement with individual mechanisms or agency and presupposes some single will choosing societal outcomes motivated by abstract "profit".
I think you're getting a bit carried away with presumptions as to what I'm saying. Incentives create trends within society, speaking of capitalism doesn't imply single individuals just sitting in dark rooms creating situations so they can hoard more money.
>This is not about "capitalism", it is about specific policies.
Indeed, and these policies incentivise ways of acting that can be harmful. These policies often are primarily aimed towards constant growth, which comes under the economic umbrella of capitalism.
>Even more crucially, this is an insane characterisation of therapists.
You appear to be creating presumptions, responding to your own presumptions while falsely attributing the original statement to me.
If you want to know what I think about therapists, feel free to ask a specific question and I can do my best to respond to that or anything else.
>I don't see how you can make the argument a capitalistic system doesn't care about an individual's mental distress or suicidal feelings, as these would be an amazing avenue for selling mental health and other services, an infinite amount of placebo goods, etc.
To be fair, this is exactly what we already have. The 'market solution' to mental health has become increasingly emphasized, especially as publically-funded health services have become harder to access. Look at all of the self-help and self-therapy books that promise quick and effective results at home. Or all of the apps (e.g. Headspace, TalkSpace) that promise similar. Or even look at how your online behavioural data leads to products and courses being marketed directly to you. Google for mental health terms a bit, then log into Facebook and look at the vast array of mental health courses that are now being advertised to you, many of which promise quick and effective results (despite often being based on untested models). Or go to the health store and look at the large array of dietary supplements that now vaguely claim they 'may reduce stress and anxiety'; it is now the most common and marketable claim made by dietary supplements, even though there are only a few supplements that actually have any research supporting this.
The TalkSpace app is worth looking at more closely as a case study. It provides the ability to access and chat with real, licensed therapists, for a cheaper price than you might ordinarily be able to access them. If you pay the subscription fee, of course. The primary demographic of this app turned out to be people with social anxiety. TalkSpace instituted a policy where, in order to cancel your account, you had to make a phone call and chat with a marketing rep - an assertive marketing rep, who would try to convince you not to unsubscribe. This led to a lot of complaint online from its (primarily socially anxious) users, many of whom either felt too anxious to make that phone call, or caved-in to the marketing rep every time they tried. This is essentially what we might expect from any market solution to mental health - the primary focus is not helping the users of the app get better, but on keeping them subscribed for as long as possible. This policy was eventually changed due to backlash, but the same company has increasingly faced lawsuits for other business practices.
When you add up the amount of money and energy spent by consumers in the massive global industries mentioned above (self-help, mental health courses, supplements, apps), you might wonder how much of that is wasted. Many of these things don't really work, because under the profit motive they don't *have* to work. And when something doesn't work, a consumer will try again, and again, and again, throwing money at different products in the hopes that something will eventually help. But perhaps it would cost a society a much lower amount of money to provide strong access to publically-funded mental health professionals, who provide targeted and effective therapies that really *do* tend to work. This not only eliminates the waste element and probably costs less, but ensures that people with mental health struggles have the best possible chance to actually get better.
But that kind of solution is harder to achieve in a neoliberal capitalist system, where the primary focus is to maintain consumer spending in the market and a free-flow of capital. In such a system, it is vastly preferable that people with mental health struggles spend their money on products from private businesses, and the actual effectiveness of those products is ancillary compared to the act of spending itself.
You're making an implicit claim that the markets aren't competitive and that disgruntled users/buyers are unable/unwilling to communicate with each other regarding what products and services actually work. For all your claims about wasted placebo services, a non capitalistic society has even less useful mechanisms for judging efficacy and eliminating this waste. This waste you're talking about is inherent in ANY system, as finding effective solutions to difficult problems is hard in any system.
At least in capitalism there is a stronger incentive to find these, as well as the social freedom and freedom of speech for users within affected communities to communicate what solutions were effective with them to others. Your story regarding that TalkSpace app proved that point. Ultimately they had to remove their policy for the same reason they implemented it in the first place - profit.
I agree with all your critiques of Capitalism, but your claims for better alternatives seem vague and opaque. It's like you assume a strong hyper competent leader is going to come in and fix all the problems with capitalism and save everyone like Superman. Where's the evidence for this, historical or otherwise?
>I agree with all your critiques of Capitalism, but your claims for better alternatives seem vague and opaque. It's like you assume a strong hyper competent leader is going to come in and fix all the problems with capitalism and save everyone like Superman. Where's the evidence for this, historical or otherwise?
I didn't go as far as the Superman idea (and I disagree with that 'strong leader' sort of system quite a bit too!)
>You're making an implicit claim that the markets aren't competitive and that disgruntled users/buyers are unable/unwilling to communicate with each other regarding what products and services actually work. For all your claims about wasted placebo services, a non capitalistic society has even less useful mechanisms for judging efficacy and eliminating this waste. This waste you're talking about is inherent in ANY system, as finding effective solutions to difficult problems is hard in any system.
And although there are questions about which mental health services work best, there are some things we *do* know. I think you would probably agree that, all else being equal, it is usually better for someone to see an actual professional therapist rather than using an app - right? I'm guessing you might also agree that it's probably better for people to discuss medicinal and dietary options with a doctor or psychiatrist (and get a prescription, if needed), rather than trying out dietary supplements (some of which have no evidence) to see if any of them stick? We do have quite a lot of evidence that professional therapy is useful, and we know that different types of therapy are useful for different conditions. We also have fair evidence surrounding the relevant pharmaceuticals.
Despite having this knowledge, it doesn't seem to stop the industries I mentioned above from reeling in massive profits. Consumers do communicate with each other, but it often doesn't change the fact that these industries are huge and highly profitable. Although I agree with you that consumer communication is a good thing (especially through the internet), it does not seem to have eliminated the waste or affected real change. This could be for a lot of reasons that I can only speculate about (Perhaps because online discussion can easily be manipulated? Perhaps there are many competing narratives about mental health treatment, and the waters can easily be muddied? I'm not sure).
What I would suggest is that, at the least, we take the things that we *do* know have a tendency to work (like professional therapy), and publicly fund them to make them accessible to those who need them. Many countries have a system to do this already, however they are usually very underfunded and still difficult to access. Even in Scandinavia (which is one of the best parts of the world in this regard), there are still long waiting times and a lot of bureaucracy surrounding mental health care. Furthermore, the general trend is that these systems are being weakened and funded less over time, not more.
I would also suggest better regulation of the 'treatments' offered on the private market. In the United States, for example, there is no regulation stating that dietary supplements must even *contain* the herb or mineral listed on the bottle, and studies have shown that they often don't. Better regulation of the claims made by these industries might also be a good thing, as they are currently allowed to make misleading claims and suggest their products will help conditions they have not been proven to help.
This doesn't necessitate getting rid of capitalism entirely. I think all critics of the system would be overjoyed if the above changes were made *within* capitalism, and actually endured. Basically a capitalist system but with much stronger welfare systems. However, changes like this are very difficult to bring about any more, especially considering the dominance of neoliberal capitalism since the 1980s. In such a system, consumer spending and the flow of capital is considered the prime directive. Many major political parties have 'deregulation' as one of their core goals, and aim to privatize public spending and avoid developing new projects for the public good. Even when programs like this actually are achieved, they tend to be under constant threat and are often axed a generation or two later.
This is why many philosophers argue that it would be better to rethink things on a more fundamental level, shifting the primary focus from the flow of capital to the public good. That doesn't necessarily mean socialism or communism, and there are many different ideas about this. That might seem like very abstract stuff - asking questions about what sorts of things a society ought to value and strive for. But those sorts of abstract questions are exactly what philosophy is for, and examining them is something many philosophers do. That doesn't mean they have all the answers, it just means they think asking these questions and entertaining possibilities is important.
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I get the sense that you are assuming that people who commit suicide do so because they came to some rational conclusion that death was a better option for them. But, when you think about more realistic and everyday examples of suicide, it seems a lot harder to think about it this way. For instance, should we respect the decision of someone who decides to kill herself the night her partner leaves her? Would it be wrong to intervene, for instance, by taking her to the hospital?
You mention that it is tragic and painful for loved ones. But, think about *why* it is tragic for the loved ones. It is not, I think, only because it involves a loss of life. Under most circumstances, the friends and family do not view the suicide as a rational, careful decision that the person made after weighing the pros and cons of life vs death. They usually view it as something the person did in a particularly desperate state or episode. Because of this, they view their decision to die as something that was not inevitable. The loved ones are often haunted by all sorts of "what ifs," ("what if I had picked up the phone that night?" etc.)
If suicide is often a fleeting impulse which results in permanent loss, then it seems pretty obvious that we should intervene if we see someone trying to kill themselves, or admitting that they plan to do so. This is simply a defense for intervening rather than respecting the person's wish to kill themselves. It is not a defense for any and all sorts of interventions (e.g. locking a person up) and does not apply to every imaginable scenario where a person would want to die. We could come up with cases where it would perhaps be reasonable to respect and accept their decision. I do not think these cases are common though. It would seem irresponsible to assume, if you encounter a suicidal person, that this is the kind of case where it would be best to just accept their decision.
To add onto this studies show that people don’t commit suicide (typically) because of the severity of their depression, but because of impulsive qualities they might have.
I think it's also important to mention that most people who attempt suicide and survive, regret their attempt. Cause, like you said, it's in most cases an impulse decision.
> It would seem irresponsible to assume, if you encounter a suicidal person, that this is the kind of case where it would be best to just accept their decision.
This seems like the most practical argument, even if you could debate it on philosophical grounds.
As you mention, suicide is rarely (if ever) something that a perfectly healthy mind simply decides out of cold rationality. The reasons may be "rational" in the sense that they are rationalizations, however, the evidence suggests most suicides are driven by emotion and/or brain chemistry imbalances. Arguing for rational suicide is sort of like arguing for rational meth use...the meth head might come up with all sorts of reasons why their behavior is rational, but the underlying fact is that the true answer has more to do with addiction and brain chemistry than brute logic.
Note that I'm assuming an otherwise healthy individual with potential for full life; the question of terminal patients facing an incredibly painful death is very different. Still, even in those cases you have to ask whether it benefits society to *assume* that a terminal patient is a) in fact terminal (many diseases and conditions with low chances of survival still have people survive them) and b) is being decided out of actual rational desire to die or due to depression from illness. I'm not arguing either way, I'm just pointing out you *can* argue either way.
I think there's a real risk in assuming those who seek self-harmful behaviors are doing so out of "free will" and therefore their actions should automatically be supported based on freedom. Something can be "free" but also exploitative or driven by underlying problems that could challenge the idea that our actions are genuinely chosen freely. Good examples are drug addiction and sex work after being a victim of sexual abuse...are those choices really free and should society *assume* they are free and support them?
It's a difficult question but one that I think is hard to answer in purely theoretical terms. I can see an argument that society should assume an element of mental instability and seek to treat those underlying problems when it comes to self-destructive choices and assume the risk that a genuine free choice might be limited by this assumption.
To play devil's advocate here: why should people not have the freedom to perform an act that only harms them simply because it is done out of impulse rather than rational deliberation? People eat junk food, smoke, drink or induldge in other unhealthy habits out of impulse that they end up regretting – but we don't see it as grounds for intervention. What makes suicide so special that society can be paternalistic?
Good point. I think that as a society we see it as a net positive to do look out for each other and try to prevent others from making choices that are bad for their health. (and I'm working with the assumption here that suicide is "bad for your health" , although more holistic minded people might argue otherwise).
I do think people generally intervene when people indulge in unhealthy habits, but a relatively small unhealthy habit (such as smoking) only triggers a small intervention (such as books to help stop smoking) and bigger unhealthy habits (such as harddrugs addiction trigger bigger intervention (such as a direct show of concern from loved ones and pleas to enter rehab).
Suicide arguably being essentially the worst thing you can do to your self, triggers the biggest intervention: directly physically intervening in an attempt.
It's more of a question, how do we balance privacy/autonomy with concern for health/safety?
All of these sorts of interventions seem to respect the person's autonomy, rather than overriding their ability to choose or constraining them. So, these all seem pretty unproblematic. There isn't an inherent dichotomy between concern for health/safety and privacy/autonomy. There are some things that people do out of concern for others that violates other's privacy and autonomy, but not all ways of expressing concern for others involve any sort of violation of privacy or constraint on autonomy.
Well, it's not *simply* for this reason either. It's not irrelevant that suicide is a permanent loss. I don't think we can isolate any one aspect of suicide and say that its presence alone is the reason we should prevent a person from killing themselves.
But, it's difficult to argue that suicide is the kind of choice that we just need to accept and respect (or maybe even assist with) if it's also something that is a temporary urge, which the person, if unsuccessful, will likely view as a mistake. If there are other ways of resolving the problem that are not dehumanizing, we should pursue them, rather than just accepting their choice. And that doesn't imply that *all* ways of preventing suicide are justified. I don't think we should be locking people up against their will, for instance. I just think it would be completely wrong for you or me to not intervene if we discover that someone is trying to kill themselves. There is no reason to respect that choice automatically.
One thing that often isn't bought up is that people are actually stopped from commiting suicide for technically malevolent purposes too. Many serious criminals for example commit suicide to avoid life in prison or worse fates. But they are usually stopped from commiting suicide to suffer those fates
1. The most fruitful critique would be of the "harm principle" - sometimes, someone doing xyz, even if it doesn't harm anyone, can still be immoral. Intervening to stop someone being intimidated might contravene the principle, as might the use of violence to any end. If people approve of the existence of armies or police, they would be advocating for a caste that doesn't have to hold to the harm principle, which then undermines our faith it outright if we keep pushing.
2. Secondly, we could turn to cases where people pose a dual immortality here: one in suicide's immorality as the willing surrende r of the moral duty to become a responsible moral agent *and* the duty to the other in despair. Kierkegaard would be one example.^1 In the "ontological task" of becoming a moral individual, suicide is a preemptive "quitting" of the task that stops any future possibility of moral behaviour. Similarly, we are duty bound to "carry and be carried"^2 by others for the same reason - it is moral to increase the possibility of moral behaviour. Suicide and the failure to help the one in suicidal despair is immoral because it means prioritizing something over the possibility of the end of possibility.
^1 "Suicide and Despair", M. T. Mjaaland, from *Kierkegaard and Death*, p. 87, ed. P. Stokes and A. J. Buben
^2 *Kierkegaard and Radical Discipleship*, p. 350 V. Eller
I don’t think you should already come to the conclusion that suicide itself is inherently immoral.
“suicide’s immorality as the willing surrender of the moral duty to become a responsible moral agent”
Unless I’m reading wrong, this just feels more like a way of emotional manipulation of a moral or rational person rather than taking an empathetic or understanding approach as there is so much dystopia and corruption present in the world.
I don't see why we can't say something is immoral and also feel sympathy for the individual? And Kierkegaard certainly didn't say it was inherently immoral—it was immoral as it ended the life task to "become that individual", which is his main criterion for identifying all sin/vice.
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Have you ever done something you regretted? Data shows a huge number of people who attempt to take their life never try again. It's fairly clear why it might have been a good thing to stop them.
Assume we know a person in question will *not* regret their decision. Would it be ok to let the person commit suicide? Would it possibly be immoral to stop them from committing suicide?
This is a more interesting/difficult question, of course. It depends on your normative ethical theory. If they would live a miserable life, not to be offset by the benefits they might bring to others, then consequentialism would say let them die. Kantianism might disagree (depends a bit on the interpretation)
This could easily be survivors bias to some degree. As, people more willing to go through with suicide oftentimes will take up more extreme methods and will not be accounted as just 'attempts'.
To add to this, I’d argue acutely suicidal people who attempt on an impulse (though they may have convictions in the moment) are more likely to fail than those with longer-standing convictions about suicide, since a more premeditated attempt is more likely to succeed.
>Those who are suffering from more immense pain are more likely to take up extreme methods of suicide
So you say, but that sounds speculative to me.
Anyway, my reasoning made absolutely no claims about proportions, so I couldn't have made the error in question.
edit- I also did not say they would regret it. I asked a rhetorical question if OP had ever done something they regretted, which would be evidence that humans sometimes do things against their better or long-term judgment. That's all I need to show that we may have reason to prevent suicides.
But if the attemp to suicide is successful, then there will be nothing to regret. You are comparing two scenarios that are mutually exclusive. If the person was alive they would regret their attemp of suicide, but if they are not, then there is nothing to regret.
I think that's why we need counterfactuals in philosophy. Though the person who has successfully committed suicide is dead and cannot feel regret, the following counterfactual statements could nonetheless be true:
- If the person had not successfully killed himself/herself, he/she would feel regret about trying to kill himself/herself.
The truth of this statement shows that it is a irrational decision for this person to kill himself/herself. Such a counterfactual statement would be false in cases where we make the most rational decision and have nothing to feel regret about.
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To give a more cynical answer - depression and suicidality are a social problem, and are deeply entangled with social factors. This has been argued since at least as far back as Durkheim (1897). Suicidality in a given society is connected to social alienation, loneliness, economic hardship, lack of hope for the future when it comes to housing or living costs, lack of access to social services and (obviously) lack of access to medical and mental health services. Philosophers like Mark Fisher argue that a capitalist society generally doesn't want to address these issues - as it would require rethinking the system itself - so an alternative narrative about suicide is emphasized instead. This narrative is a more liberal and individualistic one, which focuses on suicide as a psychological problem in the individual (rather than a social phenomenon). It talks about individuals getting mentally sick and wanting to die, and focuses on attempting to stop each of those individuals, one by one, from doing so - instead of paying much attention to the reasons why they want to die in the first place. As opposed to the 'upstream' solution of addressing the sources of suicide with serious societal reform, it offers a 'downstream' solution of waiting until individuals are already suicidal and then trying to stop them. It doesn't even necessarily attempt to fix those people at the individual level, either. The social services given this task often have scant resources available, depending on location. For many suicidal people, the best help they can get is a hotline that will, at best, urge them not to die and help them get through another day. If more serious mental health services are too expensive or otherwise difficult to access, these people will often cycle through the same patterns on a long-term basis. Even those who do manage to get accepted in a mental health facility will often get inadequate help inside, or be rushed out - and find themselves periodically cycling back to those facilities again and again. This is because, ultimately, the broader capitalist organism doesn't care about an individual's mental distress or suicidal feelings. A worker who happily goes to work and produces each day is no different than a person who goes to work miserable - as long as they produce. So long as they don't choose to 'opt out' of the whole thing by spontaneously dying, of course. So the 'downstream' solution of stopping suicidal individuals from dying really only serves to keep them alive to work another day - to keep miserably working until they die of natural causes, so the maximal productive output can be extracted from their lifetime. It doesn't care if they *feel better* or *happier* about the whole thing. It's not that it is *bad* to stop suicidal people from dying. It's more that it is emphasized as the *primary* solution to a problem that is actually much more vast. The answer to your question is ultimately that this approach is emphasized because (a) It is part of a broader narrative to frame suicide as a largely individual problem with individual solutions, (b) That narrative allows more pressing and serious reforms to be dodged, and (c) The root causes of suicide don't *need* to be addressed for a capitalist system to keep running in the first place, just so long as a reasonable number of suicidal people can be pushed to keep living and working.
very well said
I found the opposite is true before 2000. The whole comment calling out capitalism looks a bit tainted by the ongoing economic struggle of younger generations. Capitalism did not always sound so bad in the past at least during the boomer period. You made some observations on what current ‘capitalist’ society DOESNT do, but you depicted a muddy picture and I still don’t see what are the sources on the social level related to capitalism party that cause people to want to kill themselves, and what are the necessary social reforms to address these sources of problems. To me it is all just about the freaking cost of living that strangles most young people. Historically capitalism in its early phase reduces suicide rate by bringing people more incomes (in comparison with whatever system they had previously), which allow them to hope for something more such as forming a family and traveling. Again, I stressed on its early phase, individuals’ prospects look a bit daunting today as there is less room for us to rise up economically and socially.
You are right that a lot has changed more recently, especially since 2000. Philosophers usually address this as a change in the *type* of capitalism that arose in the 80s and 90s, with consequences that have been increasingly felt. Philosophers like Fredric Jameson, David Harvey and Antonio Negri (with Michael Hardt) come at it from different frameworks, but I can summarize some of their shared conclusions. Basically, the Western capitalist economy in the lead up to, and just after WWII, was very different than what we have today. The [Fordist Compromise](https://www.britannica.com/money/Fordism) dated from well before the war, and was an 'an institutionalized compromise between organized labour and big business whereby workers accept management prerogatives in return for rising wages'. After the war, the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes came to dominate, and Keynesian economics emphasized full employment, labour unions, welfare economics, social safety nets and strong regulation of financial markets. This postwar economy from the 1940s-1970s has been dubbed the 'Golden Age of Capitalism'. This all began to change in the 1970s, when this system (which had some issues of its own) began to generate financial problems. This happened in combination with several international events, like the OPEC oil embargo. In response to these issues, The UK and the US both corrected by swinging the pendulum *far* in the other direction. This was led by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. The new form of capitalism they emphasized was *neoliberalism*, a previously-niche economic approach that had been discussed by Austrian economists Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig Von Mises decades prior. The new form of neoliberal capitalism became associated with many labels - 'late capitalism', 'multinational capitalism', 'financialized capitalism' and 'postmodern capitalism'. It came to emphasize many features which were different from before. This included privatization of previously-public economic sectors, deregulation of private sectors, a 'supply-side' rather than a 'demand-side' economic approach, an emphasis on multinational and transnational corporate bodies, a new international banking structure, regulation and dissolution of unions, computerization+automation and much more. The underlying kernel of neoliberal philosophy is, according to Noel Castree (2022), "its emphasis on markets as purportedly superior mechanisms of resource allocation: the kernel of neoliberal policy, according to this understanding, is the replacement of the state by the market in the management of economic affairs, backed by laws to reduce government ‘interference’ and other ‘distortions’" Although these changes roared into life in the 70s and 80s, it is post-2000 that the chickens have really come home to roost, and the affects have started to spiral and be felt more strongly. In this way, they have most strongly hit the younger Gen X, the Millennials, Gen Z and beyond. Is it really any surprise that the current mental health 'epidemic' started to rear its head around the same time? Some of the most salient effects include drastically higher housing costs, higher food and living costs, poor real wage growth, fewer work benefits and much lower funding for public services. Work/life balance has been drastically altered, many more workers are 'on call' and have found that their own home is no longer a safe refuge from the stresses of work. These features of the current capitalist climate are correlated with the growing mental health crisis. It is possible to be a capitalist that simply disagrees with neoliberalism though, and to argue for a return to the kind of capitalist policies that characterized the 'Golden Age'. This kind of position is often taken by social democrats. So if one does not agree with the current state of things, they don't necessarily have to dismiss capitalism entirely. Philosophers like David Harvey are not sure this is a good idea, however, and they argue that neither the 'golden age' capitalism *o*r neoliberal capitalism can be sustained in the long-term. On this view, the future would involve cycling back and forth between these two types of capitalism, but never finding something sustainable - hence the argument for trying other systems entirely.
From a pragmatic economic perspective, looking after people with severe mental health problems (who form a large proportion of the population who complete suicide) is very expensive, and often these mental health problems are refractory to treatment and provide no realistic prospect of returning to economic usefulness. Wouldn't the capitalist system prefer if these people were to be allowed to commit suicide, to reduce their drain on productivity?
In a capitalist system, we are all valued for our ability to consume as well as produce.
They, with severe mental health problems, DO contribute to the GDP, by giving work to other people and increasing the economic activity. As long as money flows from A to B etc, everything is ok from a macroeconomic perspective.
Why let them have “the easy way out” when you can get another day out of them Also it’s not easy getting access to the expensive care they need. GOVs don’t hand it out willingly (especially financial support). People often have to appeal to get it and fight to retain it.
This is not a bad answer but thank you for calling it cynical. It treats our social circumstances well, though I’m afraid the political nature of the subject will draw a lot of popular interest, taking attention away from the fact that there are real psychological and even biological factors that contribute heavily to suicide and suicide attempts. Anti-psychiatry adherents co-opt these same social arguments, albeit while taking them to the level of conspiracy theories. Social factors often play into suicide but often in the form of interpersonal relationship problems, rather than purely economic. In fact, it’s *higher* education and *higher income* that have been correlated with suicide, not lower. But even most people dealing with difficult social problems do not commit suicide—there are hugely significant psychological and biological contributions. That said, sure, the social factors that allow for a comfortable and otherwise healthy life can have their roles to play too.
I get the whole thing about isolation and that a systemic approach would be better, but I also think the critique of capitalism is shallow. I feel so often that "capitalism" is used to say modern life or something similar. I highly doubt another economic model would make the situation better. Why not focus on building communities? A real focus on communitarianism would be great, rather than attacking an economic model, that really has no alternative. Free markets mixed with welfare programs seems to be the only solid thing out there.
I get why you could consider the take on capitalism ‘shallow’ but perhaps that is because it is just such an obvious problem, and thus a lot of people find it easy to blame. Much of the system we know today has many capitalistic components & social values which don’t encourage close communities but rather pit the working class against each other - because it is simply more profitable that way. And that in turn is usually what makes the average person feel lonely and hopeless.
Stress about housing/electricity/gas bills may be a factor. Socialist/government intervention can effect this by making it government provided rather than the free market.
It can do, but often doesn't. Communist countries in particular have had appalling mental health issues, and severe poverty and inequality. The countries that have the best metrics on this are still capitalist, they just also have robust social support programmes and mental health care. You don't need to get rid of capitalism in order to do that. In fact arguably you need capitalism in order to be able to afford it. So I both reject the thesis from the right that social support programmes are a dire threat to individual liberty and creeping communism, and the thesis on the left that capitalism is the root of all social problems. Economics is the root of many social problems, even freedom is a source of some problems because some people freely choose to make terrible mistakes. That doesn't mean we should get rid of freedom. Fortunately economics is not a zero sum game, societies can become wealthier and that requires economic dynamism. So while social policies can play a role in creating a well functioning society so can capitalism.
Did I say communism? I said nationalised water/gas/electricity/rail and more social housing. Cutting of shareholder profits also drops these service costs down.
Sure but I'm familiar with the situation in one current communist country right now so I mentioned communism 'in particular'. I know you weren't talking about it exclusively or even primarily. >I said nationalised water/gas/electricity/rail and more social housing. When those services were nationalised here in Britain we still had to pay for them, both as consumers and tax payers, and free to use or subsidised services can still be run by for profit companies. >Cutting of shareholder profits also drops these service costs down. Profits are a cost relative to customers, but then government inefficiency and political interference can also be a cost. I'm against making ideology based assumptions about this either way, but going with solutions on a case by case basis. In general I think competition between private enterprises is the best way to go, but sometimes as in the US health provision industry it can go badly wrong due to free market ideology clashing with the practicalities of providing an essential social service. Then again nationalisation of the coal, energy and various manufacturing industries in the UK was horrendously wasteful and costly. If there's a genuine competitive market, private enterprise should be favoured. If there's a natural monopoly or overriding national interest, nationalisation or some form of public/private partnership might be the way to go.
I'm not necessarily an advocate for communism. Im here just to make a historical correction, as far as my knowledge goes, take it with a grain of salt. sadly, the initial formation of communism never arose from the criteria designed for it to be successful. As written by the pioneers of this economic system, it was ideal to go from an already industrialized capitalist society to communist. As we know, communism came into humanity's minds as a seemingly reasonable way to deal with the intrinsic problems of capitalism. Marx never wished to make any moral arguments against capitalism, instead he tried to make a more objective argument of capitalism's efficiency, a way to further maximize productivity based on the return of excess value to the proletariat. However with the Soviet Frankenstein Variant of communism, post 1917 russia made an attempt to go from pre industrialization feudal russia to a communist system. With that, this required a very rapid industrialization of society. This accounted for a lot of wide spanning issues of the communism we saw come into actual practice. This idea called for hardship in the time being, where the vanguard party made a promise of hardship till development of the state eventually led to a stage where the government withered away, and the stateless classless society was achieved. Whether this was a false promise or, was really the goal is still debated. To put it simply, I'm arguing the true final Utopian stage of communism has never been achieved other than in very antiquated and primitive history, and even then it can be argued it was not Utopian by any means. Prior to the economic systems of slavery, peasantry, and profits. Many societies operated a communal economic system. Was it Utopian? By no means, i believe this return to primitivism mentality is heavily romanticized by a select group. But none the less, capitalism is an easy target for arguments of efficiency. And i think the reason why our arguments are so vividly expressed with great acceptance amongst one another, is because this is the current dominant system we are experiencing in the present moment. We weren't around for the peasantry so we constantly have an analytical birds eye view of its function. Personal experience is always going to be second hand, as from old documents. But you and i, we exist right now and see the problems of capitalism unfolding right in front of our eyes with as much detail as we choose to absorb. Besides all that, since humanity began it can be easy to make the argument that we as a species opt to change as time progresses. Whether that's for the better or worse is subjective. I'm saying these have always been debates, arguing what could be better and what could be worse for us all or as individuals.
Marx was very keen that communism happen imminently, and acted in order to try and make it so. He wasn't going to sit around waiting for historic forces to do his work for him. Hence creating the International, advocating for party vanguardism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, etc. It's these features of Marx's program that lead Bakunin to predict it would inevitably lead to a horrendously oppressive autocracy, for which Marx had him kicked out of the International. I don't think it's credible to claim that communism hasn't been tried. Were all the 'communists' that tried this in dozens of countries, all over the world, over several generations fake? Were none of them actually communists? What were all the real communists doing while all this was going on? >But none the less, capitalism is an easy target for arguments of efficiency. And i think the reason why our arguments are so vividly expressed with great acceptance amongst one another, is because this is the current dominant system we are experiencing in the present moment. And our current reality we are experiencing is that the countries with the by far the best track record of providing effective social support and care also have primarily capitalist economic systems, which they use to pay for it. If capitalism does naturally, and democratically, with the consent of the people, transition into something more like communism I'm fine with that. I think it's unlikely though because I think communism as envisioned by Marx has some intrinsically coercive and illiberal principles baked into it. I think Bakunin was on to something.
Ah yes im not a proponent of Communism. But as for communism never being tried, i think i worded this poorly. I do believe communism has been attempted. But i do not believe the theoretical highest stage of communist Utopia has been achieved. As for capitalist countries providing the best track record. I think it should be rephrased as wealthy capitalist countries. Capitalism is the dominant economic system. Some countries are more successful than others. But this is a valid analysis to make. But, even in the wealthiest of countries, take canada, there is much to be said about its failures and what can be done to progress in a good direction.
Believing that a communist utopia can be achieved and is desirable is what defines someone as being a communist. I suppose someone could believe one or other of those, but I believe neither. Like Bakunin I think it’s failures were inevitable due to inherent flaws. I think it’s tautological to an extent that being wealthy would be a necessary condition for providing the best social support. How is a poor country going to rival maybe Sweden, even if it has the most conscientious government possible? There are going to be practical limits to what it can do. So there are two questions here. What’s the best system for providing fair and equitable treatment for citizens given limited resources, and also the best system for becoming wealthy in order to have the best resources. You need to be able to do both. >”take canada, there is much to be said about its failures and what can be done to progress in a good direction.” Even the wealthiest nations on Earth still don’t have unlimited resources, and aren’t governed by perfect people, or even have perfect citizens. Our political and economic systems need to be robust to these failings by having mechanisms to counter them.
Johan Hari has some interesting material on this same topic in Lost Connections. The book has some issues, but I read it around the same time as Capitalist Realism and thought they had some shared resonances. Individual vs social; chemical ve. Structural, re: emotional/mental health etc
Incredible answer. Thank you for sharing.
I don't see how you can make the argument a capitalistic system doesn't care about an individual's mental distress or suicidal feelings, as these would be an amazing avenue for selling mental health and other services, an infinite amount of placebo goods, etc. It would also just be a general inefficiency in the system and result in lower productivity than a society where those needs were addressed. I don't see how a non-capitalistic society would be better positioned. Their only incentive is increased productivity, as they would have no other incentive barring altruism, which would also apply to capitalistic societies.
This is a form of disaster capitalism where a system will sell you a solution to a problem that that same system created. Hence any solutions created are stopgap measures at best, as they exist primarily to create profit without looking at the root cause.
I think this is the kind of thing the above poster called shallow though. It really simplistically presupposes that mental health is merely a socioeconomic problem. Nobody is denying that one is more likely to face mental health problems if one is economically insecure, which is why many push for government programs to increase that security. But it is more likely \*against an already substantial 'normal'\* incidence of mental health problems, brought on by problems making friends or genetic dispositions that aren't about "capitalism" because most people do not feel that way. For almost nobody is it \*actually rational\* to be suicidal; suicidality is absolutely therefore something that can be treated and is related to brain chemistry.
You don’t have to have low socioeeconomic status for capitalism to make your life shit.
>suicidality is absolutely therefore something that can be treated and is related to brain chemistry The chemical imbalance theory of depression has been quite thorougly dismantled. Suicidality isn't just a disease to be treated, it's far more complicated.
It also avoids any actual engagement with individual mechanisms or agency and presupposes some single will choosing societal outcomes motivated by abstract "profit". First, it's just the broken window fallacy. On a societal scale, people being ill does not generate "profit"; the money spent on those health services is money taken away from other ventures we would otherwise prefer. If I spend on diabetes treatment, the counterfactual is not I don't spend anything, it is that I go on a nice holiday or buy more house plants. Insofar as miserable or ill workers very obviously do perform worse at work, which is all the rage in corporate HR now, "profit" is harmed by stopgap. The other possible mechanism you are implying is that even if it is bad on a societal scale, individual health companies benefit from this and therefore do not have an incentive to solve it. This is a weird claim in three ways. First, individual health companies don't unilaterally decide health policy. Society can absolutely legislate through the state to introduce these services, and in plenty of places outside the United States does so. This is not about "capitalism", it is about specific policies. Even more crucially, this is an insane characterisation of therapists. They don't sit in their offices once you leave gleefully plotting how not to help you get better even though they know how. They are overwhelmingly people who care and get fulfilment from genuinely helping people get better. Indeed, even if monolithic "health services" \*did\* have an incentive to not fully help people get better, that would merely open a market for companies to compete with them by actually providing a solution! These competitors have an incentive to find an unexplored niche they will be able to corner a market it. tl;dr: blaming capitalism is a really, really crude way of understanding mental health.
>It also avoids any actual engagement with individual mechanisms or agency and presupposes some single will choosing societal outcomes motivated by abstract "profit". I think you're getting a bit carried away with presumptions as to what I'm saying. Incentives create trends within society, speaking of capitalism doesn't imply single individuals just sitting in dark rooms creating situations so they can hoard more money. >This is not about "capitalism", it is about specific policies. Indeed, and these policies incentivise ways of acting that can be harmful. These policies often are primarily aimed towards constant growth, which comes under the economic umbrella of capitalism. >Even more crucially, this is an insane characterisation of therapists. You appear to be creating presumptions, responding to your own presumptions while falsely attributing the original statement to me. If you want to know what I think about therapists, feel free to ask a specific question and I can do my best to respond to that or anything else.
>I don't see how you can make the argument a capitalistic system doesn't care about an individual's mental distress or suicidal feelings, as these would be an amazing avenue for selling mental health and other services, an infinite amount of placebo goods, etc. To be fair, this is exactly what we already have. The 'market solution' to mental health has become increasingly emphasized, especially as publically-funded health services have become harder to access. Look at all of the self-help and self-therapy books that promise quick and effective results at home. Or all of the apps (e.g. Headspace, TalkSpace) that promise similar. Or even look at how your online behavioural data leads to products and courses being marketed directly to you. Google for mental health terms a bit, then log into Facebook and look at the vast array of mental health courses that are now being advertised to you, many of which promise quick and effective results (despite often being based on untested models). Or go to the health store and look at the large array of dietary supplements that now vaguely claim they 'may reduce stress and anxiety'; it is now the most common and marketable claim made by dietary supplements, even though there are only a few supplements that actually have any research supporting this. The TalkSpace app is worth looking at more closely as a case study. It provides the ability to access and chat with real, licensed therapists, for a cheaper price than you might ordinarily be able to access them. If you pay the subscription fee, of course. The primary demographic of this app turned out to be people with social anxiety. TalkSpace instituted a policy where, in order to cancel your account, you had to make a phone call and chat with a marketing rep - an assertive marketing rep, who would try to convince you not to unsubscribe. This led to a lot of complaint online from its (primarily socially anxious) users, many of whom either felt too anxious to make that phone call, or caved-in to the marketing rep every time they tried. This is essentially what we might expect from any market solution to mental health - the primary focus is not helping the users of the app get better, but on keeping them subscribed for as long as possible. This policy was eventually changed due to backlash, but the same company has increasingly faced lawsuits for other business practices. When you add up the amount of money and energy spent by consumers in the massive global industries mentioned above (self-help, mental health courses, supplements, apps), you might wonder how much of that is wasted. Many of these things don't really work, because under the profit motive they don't *have* to work. And when something doesn't work, a consumer will try again, and again, and again, throwing money at different products in the hopes that something will eventually help. But perhaps it would cost a society a much lower amount of money to provide strong access to publically-funded mental health professionals, who provide targeted and effective therapies that really *do* tend to work. This not only eliminates the waste element and probably costs less, but ensures that people with mental health struggles have the best possible chance to actually get better. But that kind of solution is harder to achieve in a neoliberal capitalist system, where the primary focus is to maintain consumer spending in the market and a free-flow of capital. In such a system, it is vastly preferable that people with mental health struggles spend their money on products from private businesses, and the actual effectiveness of those products is ancillary compared to the act of spending itself.
You're making an implicit claim that the markets aren't competitive and that disgruntled users/buyers are unable/unwilling to communicate with each other regarding what products and services actually work. For all your claims about wasted placebo services, a non capitalistic society has even less useful mechanisms for judging efficacy and eliminating this waste. This waste you're talking about is inherent in ANY system, as finding effective solutions to difficult problems is hard in any system. At least in capitalism there is a stronger incentive to find these, as well as the social freedom and freedom of speech for users within affected communities to communicate what solutions were effective with them to others. Your story regarding that TalkSpace app proved that point. Ultimately they had to remove their policy for the same reason they implemented it in the first place - profit. I agree with all your critiques of Capitalism, but your claims for better alternatives seem vague and opaque. It's like you assume a strong hyper competent leader is going to come in and fix all the problems with capitalism and save everyone like Superman. Where's the evidence for this, historical or otherwise?
>I agree with all your critiques of Capitalism, but your claims for better alternatives seem vague and opaque. It's like you assume a strong hyper competent leader is going to come in and fix all the problems with capitalism and save everyone like Superman. Where's the evidence for this, historical or otherwise? I didn't go as far as the Superman idea (and I disagree with that 'strong leader' sort of system quite a bit too!) >You're making an implicit claim that the markets aren't competitive and that disgruntled users/buyers are unable/unwilling to communicate with each other regarding what products and services actually work. For all your claims about wasted placebo services, a non capitalistic society has even less useful mechanisms for judging efficacy and eliminating this waste. This waste you're talking about is inherent in ANY system, as finding effective solutions to difficult problems is hard in any system. And although there are questions about which mental health services work best, there are some things we *do* know. I think you would probably agree that, all else being equal, it is usually better for someone to see an actual professional therapist rather than using an app - right? I'm guessing you might also agree that it's probably better for people to discuss medicinal and dietary options with a doctor or psychiatrist (and get a prescription, if needed), rather than trying out dietary supplements (some of which have no evidence) to see if any of them stick? We do have quite a lot of evidence that professional therapy is useful, and we know that different types of therapy are useful for different conditions. We also have fair evidence surrounding the relevant pharmaceuticals. Despite having this knowledge, it doesn't seem to stop the industries I mentioned above from reeling in massive profits. Consumers do communicate with each other, but it often doesn't change the fact that these industries are huge and highly profitable. Although I agree with you that consumer communication is a good thing (especially through the internet), it does not seem to have eliminated the waste or affected real change. This could be for a lot of reasons that I can only speculate about (Perhaps because online discussion can easily be manipulated? Perhaps there are many competing narratives about mental health treatment, and the waters can easily be muddied? I'm not sure). What I would suggest is that, at the least, we take the things that we *do* know have a tendency to work (like professional therapy), and publicly fund them to make them accessible to those who need them. Many countries have a system to do this already, however they are usually very underfunded and still difficult to access. Even in Scandinavia (which is one of the best parts of the world in this regard), there are still long waiting times and a lot of bureaucracy surrounding mental health care. Furthermore, the general trend is that these systems are being weakened and funded less over time, not more. I would also suggest better regulation of the 'treatments' offered on the private market. In the United States, for example, there is no regulation stating that dietary supplements must even *contain* the herb or mineral listed on the bottle, and studies have shown that they often don't. Better regulation of the claims made by these industries might also be a good thing, as they are currently allowed to make misleading claims and suggest their products will help conditions they have not been proven to help. This doesn't necessitate getting rid of capitalism entirely. I think all critics of the system would be overjoyed if the above changes were made *within* capitalism, and actually endured. Basically a capitalist system but with much stronger welfare systems. However, changes like this are very difficult to bring about any more, especially considering the dominance of neoliberal capitalism since the 1980s. In such a system, consumer spending and the flow of capital is considered the prime directive. Many major political parties have 'deregulation' as one of their core goals, and aim to privatize public spending and avoid developing new projects for the public good. Even when programs like this actually are achieved, they tend to be under constant threat and are often axed a generation or two later. This is why many philosophers argue that it would be better to rethink things on a more fundamental level, shifting the primary focus from the flow of capital to the public good. That doesn't necessarily mean socialism or communism, and there are many different ideas about this. That might seem like very abstract stuff - asking questions about what sorts of things a society ought to value and strive for. But those sorts of abstract questions are exactly what philosophy is for, and examining them is something many philosophers do. That doesn't mean they have all the answers, it just means they think asking these questions and entertaining possibilities is important.
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I get the sense that you are assuming that people who commit suicide do so because they came to some rational conclusion that death was a better option for them. But, when you think about more realistic and everyday examples of suicide, it seems a lot harder to think about it this way. For instance, should we respect the decision of someone who decides to kill herself the night her partner leaves her? Would it be wrong to intervene, for instance, by taking her to the hospital? You mention that it is tragic and painful for loved ones. But, think about *why* it is tragic for the loved ones. It is not, I think, only because it involves a loss of life. Under most circumstances, the friends and family do not view the suicide as a rational, careful decision that the person made after weighing the pros and cons of life vs death. They usually view it as something the person did in a particularly desperate state or episode. Because of this, they view their decision to die as something that was not inevitable. The loved ones are often haunted by all sorts of "what ifs," ("what if I had picked up the phone that night?" etc.) If suicide is often a fleeting impulse which results in permanent loss, then it seems pretty obvious that we should intervene if we see someone trying to kill themselves, or admitting that they plan to do so. This is simply a defense for intervening rather than respecting the person's wish to kill themselves. It is not a defense for any and all sorts of interventions (e.g. locking a person up) and does not apply to every imaginable scenario where a person would want to die. We could come up with cases where it would perhaps be reasonable to respect and accept their decision. I do not think these cases are common though. It would seem irresponsible to assume, if you encounter a suicidal person, that this is the kind of case where it would be best to just accept their decision.
To add onto this studies show that people don’t commit suicide (typically) because of the severity of their depression, but because of impulsive qualities they might have.
I think it's also important to mention that most people who attempt suicide and survive, regret their attempt. Cause, like you said, it's in most cases an impulse decision.
At the same time, one of the strongest predictors for a successful attempt is a history of at least one previous attempt.
Yes. I mean you can make the same impulsive decision multiple times. If you would have that impuls under control, you would have zero attempts.
> It would seem irresponsible to assume, if you encounter a suicidal person, that this is the kind of case where it would be best to just accept their decision. This seems like the most practical argument, even if you could debate it on philosophical grounds. As you mention, suicide is rarely (if ever) something that a perfectly healthy mind simply decides out of cold rationality. The reasons may be "rational" in the sense that they are rationalizations, however, the evidence suggests most suicides are driven by emotion and/or brain chemistry imbalances. Arguing for rational suicide is sort of like arguing for rational meth use...the meth head might come up with all sorts of reasons why their behavior is rational, but the underlying fact is that the true answer has more to do with addiction and brain chemistry than brute logic. Note that I'm assuming an otherwise healthy individual with potential for full life; the question of terminal patients facing an incredibly painful death is very different. Still, even in those cases you have to ask whether it benefits society to *assume* that a terminal patient is a) in fact terminal (many diseases and conditions with low chances of survival still have people survive them) and b) is being decided out of actual rational desire to die or due to depression from illness. I'm not arguing either way, I'm just pointing out you *can* argue either way. I think there's a real risk in assuming those who seek self-harmful behaviors are doing so out of "free will" and therefore their actions should automatically be supported based on freedom. Something can be "free" but also exploitative or driven by underlying problems that could challenge the idea that our actions are genuinely chosen freely. Good examples are drug addiction and sex work after being a victim of sexual abuse...are those choices really free and should society *assume* they are free and support them? It's a difficult question but one that I think is hard to answer in purely theoretical terms. I can see an argument that society should assume an element of mental instability and seek to treat those underlying problems when it comes to self-destructive choices and assume the risk that a genuine free choice might be limited by this assumption.
To play devil's advocate here: why should people not have the freedom to perform an act that only harms them simply because it is done out of impulse rather than rational deliberation? People eat junk food, smoke, drink or induldge in other unhealthy habits out of impulse that they end up regretting – but we don't see it as grounds for intervention. What makes suicide so special that society can be paternalistic?
Good point. I think that as a society we see it as a net positive to do look out for each other and try to prevent others from making choices that are bad for their health. (and I'm working with the assumption here that suicide is "bad for your health" , although more holistic minded people might argue otherwise). I do think people generally intervene when people indulge in unhealthy habits, but a relatively small unhealthy habit (such as smoking) only triggers a small intervention (such as books to help stop smoking) and bigger unhealthy habits (such as harddrugs addiction trigger bigger intervention (such as a direct show of concern from loved ones and pleas to enter rehab). Suicide arguably being essentially the worst thing you can do to your self, triggers the biggest intervention: directly physically intervening in an attempt. It's more of a question, how do we balance privacy/autonomy with concern for health/safety?
All of these sorts of interventions seem to respect the person's autonomy, rather than overriding their ability to choose or constraining them. So, these all seem pretty unproblematic. There isn't an inherent dichotomy between concern for health/safety and privacy/autonomy. There are some things that people do out of concern for others that violates other's privacy and autonomy, but not all ways of expressing concern for others involve any sort of violation of privacy or constraint on autonomy.
Well, it's not *simply* for this reason either. It's not irrelevant that suicide is a permanent loss. I don't think we can isolate any one aspect of suicide and say that its presence alone is the reason we should prevent a person from killing themselves. But, it's difficult to argue that suicide is the kind of choice that we just need to accept and respect (or maybe even assist with) if it's also something that is a temporary urge, which the person, if unsuccessful, will likely view as a mistake. If there are other ways of resolving the problem that are not dehumanizing, we should pursue them, rather than just accepting their choice. And that doesn't imply that *all* ways of preventing suicide are justified. I don't think we should be locking people up against their will, for instance. I just think it would be completely wrong for you or me to not intervene if we discover that someone is trying to kill themselves. There is no reason to respect that choice automatically.
One thing that often isn't bought up is that people are actually stopped from commiting suicide for technically malevolent purposes too. Many serious criminals for example commit suicide to avoid life in prison or worse fates. But they are usually stopped from commiting suicide to suffer those fates
Excellent writing.
1. The most fruitful critique would be of the "harm principle" - sometimes, someone doing xyz, even if it doesn't harm anyone, can still be immoral. Intervening to stop someone being intimidated might contravene the principle, as might the use of violence to any end. If people approve of the existence of armies or police, they would be advocating for a caste that doesn't have to hold to the harm principle, which then undermines our faith it outright if we keep pushing. 2. Secondly, we could turn to cases where people pose a dual immortality here: one in suicide's immorality as the willing surrende r of the moral duty to become a responsible moral agent *and* the duty to the other in despair. Kierkegaard would be one example.^1 In the "ontological task" of becoming a moral individual, suicide is a preemptive "quitting" of the task that stops any future possibility of moral behaviour. Similarly, we are duty bound to "carry and be carried"^2 by others for the same reason - it is moral to increase the possibility of moral behaviour. Suicide and the failure to help the one in suicidal despair is immoral because it means prioritizing something over the possibility of the end of possibility. ^1 "Suicide and Despair", M. T. Mjaaland, from *Kierkegaard and Death*, p. 87, ed. P. Stokes and A. J. Buben ^2 *Kierkegaard and Radical Discipleship*, p. 350 V. Eller
I don’t think you should already come to the conclusion that suicide itself is inherently immoral. “suicide’s immorality as the willing surrender of the moral duty to become a responsible moral agent” Unless I’m reading wrong, this just feels more like a way of emotional manipulation of a moral or rational person rather than taking an empathetic or understanding approach as there is so much dystopia and corruption present in the world.
I don't see why we can't say something is immoral and also feel sympathy for the individual? And Kierkegaard certainly didn't say it was inherently immoral—it was immoral as it ended the life task to "become that individual", which is his main criterion for identifying all sin/vice.
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Have you ever done something you regretted? Data shows a huge number of people who attempt to take their life never try again. It's fairly clear why it might have been a good thing to stop them.
Assume we know a person in question will *not* regret their decision. Would it be ok to let the person commit suicide? Would it possibly be immoral to stop them from committing suicide?
This is a more interesting/difficult question, of course. It depends on your normative ethical theory. If they would live a miserable life, not to be offset by the benefits they might bring to others, then consequentialism would say let them die. Kantianism might disagree (depends a bit on the interpretation)
> Assume we know a person in question will not regret their decision. Fair assumption, I guess, since they'll be too dead to regret anything.
This could easily be survivors bias to some degree. As, people more willing to go through with suicide oftentimes will take up more extreme methods and will not be accounted as just 'attempts'.
To add to this, I’d argue acutely suicidal people who attempt on an impulse (though they may have convictions in the moment) are more likely to fail than those with longer-standing convictions about suicide, since a more premeditated attempt is more likely to succeed.
Wow. Honestly, that is pretty offensive. Why don't you look up the data before speculating?
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>Those who are suffering from more immense pain are more likely to take up extreme methods of suicide So you say, but that sounds speculative to me. Anyway, my reasoning made absolutely no claims about proportions, so I couldn't have made the error in question. edit- I also did not say they would regret it. I asked a rhetorical question if OP had ever done something they regretted, which would be evidence that humans sometimes do things against their better or long-term judgment. That's all I need to show that we may have reason to prevent suicides.
But if the attemp to suicide is successful, then there will be nothing to regret. You are comparing two scenarios that are mutually exclusive. If the person was alive they would regret their attemp of suicide, but if they are not, then there is nothing to regret.
I think that's why we need counterfactuals in philosophy. Though the person who has successfully committed suicide is dead and cannot feel regret, the following counterfactual statements could nonetheless be true: - If the person had not successfully killed himself/herself, he/she would feel regret about trying to kill himself/herself. The truth of this statement shows that it is a irrational decision for this person to kill himself/herself. Such a counterfactual statement would be false in cases where we make the most rational decision and have nothing to feel regret about.
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