Work is killing us

Work+is+killing+us

Owen Batchelor, Investigative Reporter

In the United States alone, antidepressant use has risen 65% over the past 15 years. The same country that has a GDP,( which is how valuable the economy is) of 20.94 trillion dollars and the largest wealth gap in the world. Nearly of Americans suffer from a mental illness, and this is not including the effects of the pandemic. 

You may ask why ⅕ of Americans suffer from mental illness while less than 10% of the population suffer from mental illness in countries such as Germany, France and the Netherlands.

This graph puts the USA’s mental illness epidemic into perspective. Most European countries are somewhere in the middle and Asian countries, such as Japan, are extremely low in both categories. Outliers like Germany, Spain and Italy have medium income inequality but little mental illness. Upon looking at this graph, it may be hard to spot the USA because they are all the way in the top right corner with extremely high mental illness and wealth inequality.

To begin with, all of the European countries listed have some sort of universal health care system. While they do have their own problems for instance, where do they get the funding from? They are vastly superior to our current healthcare system.

It is no surprise that mental illness has greatly increased in the past year and a half due to the pandemic.

Correlation between income equality and percentage of the population that has a mental illness

Hospitals exceeding capacity and therapists being in high demand is a problem for most struggling adults. One of our biggest problems is that we just don’t have enough trained professionals nor the funding to handle these rising mental illness numbers.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the worst of this epidemic but it didn’t all start here.

Depression and anxiety rates have skyrocketed since the implementation of neoliberal capitalist policies in the 1980’s. Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher first come to mind and are described as the pioneers of neoliberalism, whether that’s a good or a bad thing that’s up to you.

Firstly, the definition of neoliberalism, according to Google, reads as “a political approach that favors free-market capitalism, deregulation, and reduction in government spending.” This basically means a capitalist society in which individualism is embraced and corporations should be able to operate with minimal regulation from the government. In the USA we have some of this – you see corporations practically running our government with millions of dollars from the richest corporations funding our politicians in an attempt to sway certain laws, specifically laws regarding government regulation as defined earlier. 

Corporations never have the people’s interest in mind. Just a couple months ago, a man named Paul Vilscek killed himself in the Las Vegas Amazon warehouse due to severe stress and depression. Workers have complained before that Amazon hadn’t met their demands which has now led to blood on their hands.

When your main job is to maximize profit and minimize cost, you will sacrifice anyone and anything to maximize profit.

Our interests are not taken care of when the government is being influenced by CEOs. Lobbying is regulated to a certain extent in other European and South American countries, and we see this in the amount of money invested into infrastructure and other public services. 

When a country is run with its main interest to invest in infrastructure and public services, the mental health of people will be significantly better. 

Why should we care? To begin with, a large fraction of students already suffer from mental health issues and we can’t wait for them to get better. Society is plagued by both mental illness and limited financial freedom and one can’t change without the other. Approaching our adult lives we do not want to end up as a statistic.

Sitting idly, we are just waiting for something to happen when we need to make the change. Bruce Cohen, a professor studying sociology in The University of Auckland once stated, “You don’t need to send in the cops or military in if you get the natives to believe the society you live under is fair.” The institutions reinforcing mental illness in the US are all backed up by people with similar interests. They subtly have all the power and don’t need to make it apparent if necessary. 

 

Institutions such as federal prisons and mental hospitals go hand in hand. Under Ronald Reagan’s presidency the amount of Americans in a mental hospital went down significantly… But incarceration rose drastically. Reagan is notorious for increasing law enforcement and the number of Americans, especially black men in jail; drug war being the main cause of this. 

What does this have to do with neoliberalism though? Well, neoliberalism heavily focuses on the individual and how successful they are within a free market economy. We’re taught to win the rat race and become as rich as possible, but what happens to the losers? AKA the 99%, they’re left untreated and left to fend for themselves which is why it is never the individuals fault.

Thatcher, the prime minister of the UK from 1979-1990, is responsible for multiple depressions and recessions. Regarded as one of the most controversial politicians in history, she was hated by most of the working class. To give an idea of the type of leader she was, she once exclaimed “there is no such thing as society… you’re on your own.” 

Focusing away from these politicians, we need to recognize solutions and efforts to shift our planet away from depleting itself and keeping its constituents under strain.

Two solutions come to mind and have been attempted throughout history. One being some kind of peaceful reform in which we vote in leaders that will take care of these problems of mental illness and extreme poverty.  The other being revolution, which is not probable in the United States but has been widely successful in the global south. A revolution entails overthrowing the people in power and replacing them with competent leaders. 

Historically, real change has only occurred through violence and protest, never as reform.

The USA is a special case though, our entire culture revolves around the careerist mentality, which can cause mental illness. The entire idea of the “American Dream” just reinforces this idea and our culture. 

The careerist mentality developed through neoliberal capitalism has caused an unprecedented spike in mental through the ideology of individual success, which pushes us farther away from community and connection and farther to materialism and suicide

To fully understand the scope of our situation, we have to travel back hundreds of years to the arrival of feudalism.

During the medieval periods with kings and knights and monarchies, society operated under feudalism. To put it simply, feudalism is the construct of society in which a social hierarchy with a king at the top and peasants at the bottom exist for the sole purpose of enriching the king. The king would own all the land and the peasants would work that land, having to cough up a portion of their earnings and crops to the higher levels of society. This ideology was popular throughout the 9-15th centuries and existed in countries such as the UK and Japan.

When exploration and trade became more common to other foreign countries in Europe, these ideas faded out of existence and capitalism became the dominant system. We all know the colonization of the Americas, Africa and Asia lead to multiple genocides, slavery, war, famines, etc. All of this is driven by a profit incentive. 

These centuries of colonization have an everlasting effect on people today. Generational trauma is a concept that explains the loss of community and leadership in disadvantaged communities. Considering the context, the slavery of Africans still effects Black Americans today as laws and biases have been in place since then. Symptoms include sudden anxiety and trust issues.

Other prominent ideas rose in popularity such as socialism, which has its origins in the 18th and 19th century with the French revolution and the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. 

It’s pretty apparent when people inside your society all work just for a monetary incentive, your society will not be run efficiently. Human needs and enrichment will be put aside if it means there is no monetary value. In regards to mental health, when money is put over everything your mental health is a sacrifice corporations are willing to make to make a dollar.

The history of mental illness spikes in the US is intertwined with the economy. Historically, there is a recession/depression every 10 years. Usually following strong growth, the economy will crash and that’s when mental illness may set in. Our lives are so tied to wealth and money, so when the economy takes a crashes, suicide rates rise as much as 30%

We’ve progressed as a society overall in regards to mental illness. Programs supporting the mentally ill have increased tremendously since the 70s and 80s, and we’ve stopped throwing the mentally ill in jail (for the most part) and stopped calling them witches or supernatural. 

Capitalist institutions uphold mental illness just for a profit incentive. This process is not rare at all and keeps people imprisoned so politicians or CEO’s can make money. 

The prison-industrial complex and the military-industrial complex are the most prominent of examples and these specific instances have been created primarily for profit. 

The prison-industrial complex is when the private companies that run prisons and the government’s interest overlap. These interests include, making profit of course which could also include breaking unions, prosecuting attorneys and not providing fair and equal treatment to all prisons so they cheap out on aspects of their prisons. They’re empowered by capitalism, racism, sexism, xenophobia, etc. The more people that are in prison the more money both the government and private company make. 

According to Sean Bryant, an author specializing in finance, “In order to make money as a private prison, the corporation enters into a contract with the government. … It can be based on the size of the prison, based on a monthly or yearly set amount, or in most cases, it is paid based on the number of inmates that the prison houses.” Any petty crime a homeless person commits, a prison can capitalize on it and imprison them making money in the process. Factors such as homelessness, poverty, drug addiction, etc push prisons to imprison people. It’s cheaper to imprison people than fund and support their communities.

Suppose a homeless man is imprisoned for stealing some food. He has a 50-60% chance of reporting a mental health concern compared to the 10-20% that a regular American has. This is all for profit and the prison doesn’t care. Now fast forward a couple years and this homeless man has gotten out of prison, not only is he still homeless and likely severely depressed but is a felon and can’t get a job. He has a 40% chance of returning to prison in the next three years and the US doesn’t do anything about it.

The military-industrial complex is similar in the way private companies off of the military and their interests. Instead of just US citizens suffering under the control of the government, it’s also citizens of foreign countries who are impacted by wars that the US causes. 

These companies include Lockheed-Martin and Boeing who sign contracts with the government to supply them with jets and bombs to fight wars. Defense contractors are making billions of dollars, while the USA is easily supplied with weapons to fight wars that could have been avoided.

On the other hand, the American public is suffering. Army recruiters operating in thousands of high schools around America enlist high school students into the service, which has an everlasting effect on the soldiers. For every year you serve, a portion of your college tuition is paid. Of course this attracts young men and women who are impoverished. Nearly 1 in 4 active service members report having mental health issues. PTSD is 15x higher than the normal citizen with depression 5x higher. 

These young adults, who are sometimes forced into the army just to put food on the table or get an education, are at a much higher risk for mental illness, not to mention how incompotent the Veteran Affairs is. Thousands of these veterans kill themself because of the combat they saw and these government services are heavily underfunded, not being able to support these struggling veterans.

You don’t have to be a veteran who’s seen war crimes or a felon who’s been neglected by the system to be affected by mental illness. As listed earlier, it is quite common as an American adult to suffer from an mental illness, ⅕ to be exact. 

Colette Shade, an author specializing in mental health, provided insight to the awareness campaigns in the US. Ms. Shade dedicates the reason for mental health to lack of awareness. She warned people of the misinformation when she answered, “The reason people are so mentally unhealthy in this country is because they are just not aware. The real issue is the policies that facilitate poor mental health.” The government has increased funding towards research and awareness, but it is mostly up to the victim to seek help and recognize their state, which could be near impossible when suffering mentally. Patients are left to struggle, which is why the mental illness epidemic has exploded.  

One of the biggest reasons is because of our culture. Our culture revolves around consumerism and materialism. The American Dream pushes people towards this idea that if you play fair and work hard you are bound to win and people who don’t, don’t work hard enough. This careerist mentality places pressure and stress on the working class man/woman to put on a fake image of themselves. Of course this isn’t true and the only true winners are the 1%. 

How can we get out of this cycle? Taking antidepressants for the rest of your lives won’t solve anything and we need real systemic change. The mental health crisis around the world is already big enough and our culture just adds pressure. 

Ric Price, a psychologist at University of Michigan, documented this cycle in the 90s. From the loss of a job all the way until reemployment. Typically the cycle follows as, “When you experience financial strain when this starts happening to you, you likely feel depressed. It’s also true that they feel they lose control of their lives. The big deal is when you ask people about their health they tend to report it as getting worse.” Essentially, this study identified the cycle a working class man/woman/family goes through when facing financial strain. We just found out that it leads to deteriorating mental health. When you lose the ability to function in society, you fall back into the cycle of financial strain and every time it keeps getting worse.

An interviewee who wishes to stay anonymous but is a 31 year old audio engineer from Cleveland Ohio answered “mostly” and “usually” to, do you feel taken care of at work? And, do you enjoy your job? Assuming becoming a freelance sound designer and audio engineer is a career path he enjoys and has the privilege of pursuing he must be mentally healthy. You’d be wrong as in my interview with him he talked of the depression and mental illness that he’s endured. 

This specific case spreads light to the amount of undocumented depression and mental illness in the US which may not even be caused by work.

A large component of why people feel so depressed or stressed at work is they feel alienated. Workers in our society create products or commodities that are taken and sold to others. We are not creating products that we enjoy or have an interest in. We work solely to survive and are paid for our labor, not our product. The thousands of hours we spend laboring in our lives could’ve been spent enriching ourselves, and doing something we enjoy rather than not worrying about the next bill or the next meal.

Throughout the research conducted, 5 subjects, varying in age and location within the United States stuck out. They were interviewed about their experience with their job. On average 80% of my interviews stated they did not enjoy work. Their jobs included audio engineer, a server, teacher, etc. 

Tony, a 35 year old from Rochester, NY responded, “Yes- stress and anxiety specifically” when asked, has your job caused you any mental strain? 

Jerry from Douglas, Massachusetts was fed up with work when he answered, “No, I do not feel taken care of at work and do not enjoy my job.” Jerry is a server who is 30 years old. 

These individuals are all adults though. Students in the US are widely unaccounted for when providing adequate mental health care. A junior who wishes to stay anonymous alerted me to the fact that not only did he have “A long history of mental illness” but he was being stressed out by school which caused anxiety disorder. He blames the stigma of men’s mental illness as a reason to not reach out, which leads me to my next finding.

Getting in on a real level with some of these workers is extremely important to understand their struggle. Statistics are important but in this case listening to the people is the only way we progress as a society.

Medical Resident Anna Zeira has real patients that have felt the consequences of the pandemic. To get on the level of real people’s struggles is important, and Ms. Zeira recalls her encounters with her patients as “Hopeless and depressing. It’s hard to tell them (patients) they have depression when it’s a reality. Hopelessness can lead you to dark places and get you stuck.” Living in Baltimore herself, a city with 22.4% poverty rate has its limits economically. Families and individuals are stuck when they can’t access good doctors and psychiatrists. 

While systemic problems are to blame for most of the world’s problems, it’s important to investigate the mental health epidemic around the world. In the west specifically 400 hours of leisure time has decreased since 1991 causing a rise in mental illness. 

  • 10% of children and young people have a clinically recognised mental disorder: of 5% to 16-year-olds, 6% have conduct disorder, 18% subthreshold conduct disorder and 4% an emotional disorder
  • 17.6% of adults in England have at least one common mental disorder and a similar proportion has symptoms which do not fulfill full diagnostic criteria for common mental disorder
  • postnatal depression affects 13% of women following childbirth
  • in the past year 0.4% of the population had psychosis and a further 5% subthreshold psychosis
  • 5.4% of men and 3.4% of women have a personality disorder; 0.3% of adults have antisocial personality disorder

The mental health epidemic by itself is a tragedy in of itself and needs fixing. Funding should go towards improving our current healthcare system if nothing else.

Not only is mental health treatment extremely flawed, but the industry is just another proponent of profit driven business. Doctor Bruce Cohen recognizes this as he reads the DSM, the handbook given to psychologists when treating patients, “You can see pretty clearly the norms and values of neoliberal capitalism being filtered through that document.” Essentially, Cohen is referring to these industries being propped up by neoliberalism. For instance, in the handbook they take the individualist path to treating ADHD by blaming the individual and saying it’s their fault.

Keeping with the subject of sociology, a now retired professor at the University of Michigan ran a study in the 90s that followed subjects’ lives after job loss and found out it leads to most of the negative events that follow. An anecdote is provided for one of his subjects and he describes the order of his life events as 

“You’re a 35 year old guy with a high school education, reasonable salary, wife and kids, just any normal working class male. All of a sudden the plant you work at closes and you’re in the middle of a recession. The job market is terrible, you try a few times and people don’t even open the door for you. Now you’ve lost your health insurance associated with your job, which is different from European countries where you keep it regardless of career. You start to feel discouraged and depressed as you’ve been searching for a job. Not only that but your family is wondering where the money is coming from. Your spouse and you start to fight, your kids find out and become stressed and start to do worse in school.”

This is one of many examples Mr. Price and his team found in their studies. Through just one job loss that led to the disintegration of a family. This man lost his job, which kept leading to negative reactions which finally leads to a potential divorce and mental health issues for your own children

The UK and the USA have been prime examples of the mental health epidemic, but how is the rest of the world doing? 

Well to begin with the UK does have a variant of a universal health care system called the NHS. The NHS is relatively efficient compared to other healthcare systems and is saving the UK money in the long run. (Which is a concern of anti-universal health care people.

Additionally the US is the only developed country in the entire world that does not have a type of universal health care system, and its effects are apparent.

To widen the scope, other systems such as the Nordic model are used by countries such as Denmark, Finland and Sweden, which are still capitalist, but they invest highly in their social programs and have great workers rights. Often regarded as some of the best healthcare in the world, 5 Nordic countries are listed in the top 11 best healthcare systems in the world according to World Population Review.

These are all western countries though, and still capitalist at heart. China, a country who is socialist with Chinese characteristics and are currently pushing for communism in the next couple of decades, has an interesting health care system. With a population of around 1.4 billion and more than 600 million people living in rural areas they have done surprisingly well. More than 95% of the population, or around 1.36 billion people, has access to good free healthcare

 

Even Cuba, despite all their sanctions on them by the US and other western countries, have the highest number of doctors in the world who travel to other countries for foreign aid. Not to mention that they have some of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world.

Both these eastern and southern countries have an almost equal mental illness percentage to the US or lower. In Cuba, it is reported that  25.5% suffer from a mental illness, while in China it’s a little over 10%.

It’s wild how the richest country in the world, the US, has the same percentage of mentally ill as a country ranked 196 on the world’s richest countries. China on the other hand, who is a close 2nd to the US in terms of GDP has a 10% decrease in population affected by mental illness.

How is the US able to fix this? After all, they should be ranking in the top 10 at least in mental health since they are the richest country. 

Our greatest hope in changing any of these systemic issues is from within the system. At least in America, in other European countries, or the global south, there are promising protests that are overthrowing their oppressive governments.

Bernie Sanders and AOC are some of the most progressive politicians in the government as of 2022, which doesn’t say much as they sit in the center- center left category in European politics but are the most plausible options the left have. 

Adam, a 17 year old who describes himself as an independent in politics weighs in on this topic saying he promotes their efforts but doesn’t necessarily subscribe to the ideology. Working at a supermarket himself he answered, “no, I do not feel taken care of at work and have a long running history of mental illness.” Even independents feel this is not a left leaning issue and everyone needs to be taken care of.

This isn’t a case of democrat vs republican, in fact it’s quite opposite.

 Medical Resident, Anna Zeira opened up about the solutions each side proposes, “The right buys into conservative ideas. They don’t like the idea of funding social programs for people who don’t work. On the other hand it seems the democrats have given up on trying to help the working class.” As mentioned earlier both sides have been corrupted and no longer function to serve the people.

To push legislation favoring better healthcare or investing in more social programs will show Americans on the right that change doesn’t have to be as radical as they believe it to be. 

Simple steps can be taken as described by author Colette Shade, “During periods of unemployment, typically suicide rate goes up. In states with a higher minimum wage the suicide rates go down.” For every dollar the minimum wage is raised, the suicide rate goes down. Solutions such as these save tens of thousands of lives.

Mental health due to poor working conditions and the system we have in place is growing rapidly, and if we don’t do anything about it we will all be victims if we aren’t already. Out of touch billionaires have been running the country for too long and ignore the working class in interest of monetary gain. As young students and activists, we have a job to protest the system keeping us chained.