Capitalism and its Mental Deficiencies, Diseases and Dejection
Capitalism and its Mental Deficiencies, Diseases and Dejection
By
David Gottfried
In most of human history, poor people did not disparage themselves because they were poor. They knew they were poor because their fathers were poor, and one’s station in life was determined at birth: One did not rise above, or fall below, one’s parents.
However, in America there is much more socio-economic flux. Up until recently, it was quite common to see a new generation surpass its parents’ standing in the economic pecking order. (Now, downward mobility is more pervasive.) In any event, in modern America people’s economic status is much more subject to change.
And most people in America have a goal in life. They want to become a successful lawyer, or a successful doctor, or architect. Since this is, allegedly, the land of the free, young Americans are taught that they are the sole determinants of their lives. If they fail to succeed, it is because they were not talented, or not bright, or not imaginative, or not willing to work hard. In other words, because everyone is – ALLEDEDLY -- free to be whatever one wants to be, one is a failure, and a lesser sort of human being, if one does not achieve one’s dream.
As a consequence, I think a huge proportion of Americans consider themselves failures by the time they are thirty and continue to see themselves as failures until the day they die.
In the old world, a man was more apt to think that he was fine and that his nation was no good. After all, it was the superciliousness of the upper classes, and a society that lauded lords and ladies and spat on the poor, that had humbled and stunted his life in the old world. In this country, where a man is always told that he is free, where a man believes that society is good because it gave him freedom, a man feels unworthy because he was not able to make enough of his freedom.
In a lot of American comedy, and British comedy, blue collar people are depicted as comical, sloppy, a-holes who merrily mess-up at work but are always happy at the end of the day with a six pack and the sort of mind-numbing videos they allegedly love.
In the “Honeymooners,” an old sit com depicting a bus driver and his wife, and a municipal sewer employee and his wife, the audience was encouraged to believe that lower middle Brooklynites found the roaches and rodents playful and amusing and alleviated the boredom and mediocrity of their lives by laughing at their Brooklyn accents.
Meanwhile, our culture has been very successful at propagating the notion that highly successful, affluent people routinely get lots of nervous breakdowns, are all addicted to psychotropic meds and are haunted by the specter of psychosis.
Sometimes, it makes more sense to look at the actual data than to consult novels or televisions shows to assess the mental health of our social classes. If you do this, you will find that the stereotypes are all wrong. The rich are generally much, much happier than the poor, have less alcoholism, drug addiction, altercations with the law, homelessness, hunger and sorrow. And the numbers re life expectancy can make me want to make Molotov cocktails: Men in the top tenth of wealth live, on average, 16 years longer than men who live in the bottom tens of wealth.
But because this country is dedicated to the aggrandizement of the rich, our mendacious, monstrous “liberal media” has suggested that the poor are happy go lucky fools and that the rich are biting their fingernails and eating valiums as if they were after dinner mints.
And does it ever get any better. Of course it doesn’t.
As you get old, capitalism knocks you down with even more virulence.
In a capitalistic country, production and wealth are highly esteemed. As one ages, one becomes less able to produce goods and services or to make money. Accordingly, old people aren’t valued very much.
For example, while practicing law, I overheard attorneys discussing a case in which an 85-year-old man’s testicles were improperly removed because of a false positive result for cancer after a biopsy. The attorneys considered it great fun to joke about, and degrade the value of, old testicles.
The Elderly may be wealthier relative to other age groups since the inception of Medicare, but they are suffering immensely because Capitalism makes them irrelevant. Whereas the Chinese might have valued the elderly for their alleged wisdom, this country is not interested in the wisdom of being able to reflect upon many years of life. This country is interested in instantaneous tweets. The philosophical and the wistful are for wooses. This country esteems crass commercialism and elected, as president, the cattiest grande dame the world has ever known: Donald Trump, dispositionally a sort of male hybrid of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
I enjoyed this essay. Interesting fact about longevity of the affluent.
I asked my father when I was in my early 20's what he wanted from life. He said he wanted my brother and myself to live a better life than he and mom. We were solidly middle class growing up.
I can say that had a lot of impact on my aspirations and maturity when I reflected on his answer about 10 years after I asked him that.✌️
PS: never too old to Rock and Roll!