“Contemporary capitalism breeds a destructive society”, The Age, 13/1. As noted in previous entries, I had increasingly felt that the society I live in is increasingly sick and dysfunctional, and this excellent article clarifies why. Britain is the focus, but it could equally apply to Australia or the USA.
Britain is undergoing a period of serious self-doubt and introspection after a spate of brutal killings and increasingly common and violent anti-social behaviour by young people. Australia is engaged in its own bout of hand-wringing over youth alcohol abuse and random public violence.
Oliver James, author of The Selfish Capitalist, argues that contemporary capitalism, with its emphasis on short-term jobs, a workaholic culture, rampant consumerism and worship of celebrity and the lifestyles of the rich and famous creates a crisis of desire, with depression, anxiety and substance abuse resulting. James argues that you can clearly track the development of neo-liberal, selfish capitalism alongside the growth of mental and emotional distress, especially in Western countries, where individualism has been promoted and encouraged the most.
Both the Right (conservative) and elements of the Left (progressive/liberal) political movements take the blame. The Right promotes rampant capitalism and individualism, and the Left forgoes discipline for excessive focus on “libertarian individualism”. The collectivist social networks that sustained older types of societies (such as the hunter-gatherer ones I have mentioned in previous entries) have been abandoned, and the result is a society of frightened, isolated individuals.
This poisonous social system has spread like a virus to other countries and cultures. Russia experienced an extreme version of uncontrolled capitalism after the collapse of Communism in 1991, and for ordinary citizens it proved a nightmare, while a few greedy opportunists (the oligarches) looted the country of much of its wealth. Not surprisingly, the former Soviet republics have a high suicide rate:
The only countries with higher official suicide rates are Sri Lanka, which is mired in an unending civil war, and the former Soviet republics and their Eastern European satellites, where economic disaster and profound political changes have combined to produce the kind of social disintegration otherwise associated with catastrophic military defeat. [Source]
Children look to adults for guides to behavior, and many adults in this society are sorry examples for role models. These adults, such as those in advertising, corporations and popular culture, regard children merely as future consumers, and encourage greed and selfishness in promoting their products.
Is it not rather strange that the young people raised under the influence of the selfish individualism and consumerism of recent decades get roundly criticised for behaving selfishly? For what is the rash of kids behaving badly – rowdy parties, excessive alcohol consumption and public violence – if not an adolescent version of the selfish destructiveness exhibited by so many of our economic elite in recent years?
The vandalism of trains, the treatment of public space at night as a forum for intimidation and fighting are surely youthful manifestations of the same contempt shown for the public sphere, the public sector and collective endeavour by the champions of market-driven individualism who have captured and distorted our public culture in the past two decades.
Why blame kids for behaving selfishly when our whole society is based on the idea that individuals acting in their own interests produce the optimum economic and social outcomes? This strange theory about human behaviour has helped to create many of the problems we face today as a society, including economic and environmental crises, as well as high levels of social dysfunction, manifesting in suicide, crime, violence, stress, relationship breakdown, child abuse and anti-social behaviour.
This malaise is so entrenched now that it seems impossible to change; too many people profit from the way society currently is. The social experiment of “neo-liberal, selfish capitalism” has been proven a massive failure. Perhaps nothing short of a revolution will change things.
