The Third Meltdown

Young British people claim more disability benefits

The fact that there is almost certainly a direct link between these figures and Thatcherism seems not to have occurred to Mr Grayling, who should ask himself: what have young people to look forward to? Answer: a life of precarity in the service of corporate profit.

Young people are twice as likely to be living on disability benefits in the UK as they are in other rich countries, says OECD ...

The report says not only are rich-world claimants getting younger, but there has been a "big shift" in the reasons for making a disability benefit claim.

Mental health problems have replaced physical causes for long-term sickness payments.

On average, a third of new disability benefit claims have a mental health condition as the primary cause, rising to 40% in some countries and almost 50% in Denmark.

The share of new recipients with mental health problems is highest among young people.

In Britain, two-fifths of those claiming benefits because of depression or mental health issues are aged between 20 and 34.

Professor Malcolm Harrington, the occupational health specialist tasked with improving the government's medical assessments, has told ministers that "people do not attempt to get benefits by pretending they are mentally ill".

Although the figures do not take into account the effects of the recession, the OECD said there would be little change in the overall trend.

Britain had seen a steep rise in the level of the long-term sickness over the past two decades ...

Guardian  24 Nov 2010    Pawns or Players?    Youth Unemployment

Dystopia of Individualism

Incapacity benefit tests face overhaul after damning report

More money makes society miserable, warns report

Economics experts ... (Curtis Eaton and Mukesh Saranargue believe) ... that Britain's thirst for status symbols harms our well-being ...

... that, as a nation becomes wealthier, consumption shifts increasingly to buying status symbols with no intrinsic value – such as lavish jewellery, designer clothes and luxury cars …

Their work owes much to the economist Thorstein Veblen, who in 1899 coined the term "conspicuous consumption" ...

Veblen argued that people seek status through conspicuous consumption, which derives its value not from the intrinsic worth of what is consumed but from the fact that it permits people to attempt to set themselves apart from others ...

The pair believe their research helps to explain why empirical studies show that levels of happiness and feelings of community in affluent countries have stagnated, despite growth in real incomes.

There is another downside. As people yearn for more status symbols they have less time or inclination for helping others. This, the authors argue, damages "community and trust", which are vital to an economy because they ensure the smooth running of society.

They conclude: "Conspicuous consumption can have an impact not only on people's well-being but also on the growth prospects of the economy."

The theory may go some way to explaining the public backlash against the louche lifestyles of the UK's footballers, bankers and politicians ...

Observer  14 Mar 2010    Towards a New Measure of Wellbeing

... Apart from enabling a basic level of economic success, sufficient to pay for food, health and education, the purpose of government is to minimise the amount of mental illness by creating a benign society, like the Scandinavians have been doing for 70 years. Blatcherism has done the opposite. If you can face it, here's a glimpse of what really happened to our social psychology in the past 10 years, starting at the beginning of life.

Foetuses depend on having calm, happy mothers. There is abundant evidence that feeling stressed in the last trimester is an independent cause of hyperactivity and behaviour problems. The mother's high levels of cortisol - the fight-flight hormone - are passed through the placenta and continue to affect the child nine years later. Yet, since 1997, women have been more, not less, likely to work right up to the birth.

It just goes on from there, as if the New Labour control freaks are oblivious to the evidence of what makes for mental health. Caesareans have multiplied several-fold, even though they interfere with bonding. British babies are even less likely to be breastfed than anywhere in Europe, again reducing emotional intimacy. Then, mental illness-inducing strict routines for babies, like insistence on four-hourly feeding or imposed sleep schedules, have become widespread. Where is the government action, following the damning study of this method published last year? It shows that, compared with babies raised in infant-centred regimes (for example, demand-feeding or sharing the parental bed when distressed), at three months the routine-nurtured babies spend 50 per cent more time crying or fussing: the Discontented Little Baby. ...

Oliver James The Independent, 13 May 2007

At the core of this book are some sharply stated truths. Beyond a certain level of material wealth, more does not equate to happiness; indeed, the pursuit of more is positively pathological.

Where this pursuit is accompanied by increasing inequality and economic insecurity, the results are even more dire.

Add to this the ever more insidious power of advertising, the new electronic circus of celebrity culture, and the workaholism of unregulated economies, and we are, as we know, in big trouble.

Oliver James argues that the spread of the US model of capitalism is responsible for the epidemic of emotional distress that has swept across the developed world, and is threatening to engulf the new China and Russia, among others.

The competitive drive for money, status and power results in a profound deformation of the human soul.

We end up treating ourselves and others as commodities, as mere means to vacuous ends. Our capacity to form authentic, loving relationships, to feel secure and balanced, is destroyed. Anomie, alienation and addiction await us. ...

David Goldblatt, The Independent 16 February 2007

Blair's encouragement of free market capitalism has boosted spiralling levels of British mental illness

It is selfish capitalism which largely explains the greater prevalence among English-speaking nations. By this I mean a form of political economy that has four core characteristics: judging a business's success almost exclusively by share price; privatisation of public utilities; minimal regulation of business, suppression of unions and very low taxation for the rich, resulting in massive economic inequality; the ideology that consumption and market forces can meet human needs of almost every kind. America is the apotheosis of selfish capitalism, Denmark of the unselfish variety.

Selfish capitalism causes mental illness by spawning materialism, or, as I put it, the affluenza virus - placing a high value on money, possessions, appearances (social and physical) and fame. English-speaking nations are more infected with the virus than mainland western European ones. Studies in many nations prove that people who strongly subscribe to virus values are at significantly greater risk of depression, anxiety, substance abuse and personality disorder.

Guardian 24 Jan 2007

The Affluenza virus is a set of values which increase our vulnerability to psychological distress: placing a high value on acquiring money and possessions, looking good in the eyes of others and wanting to be famous. Many studies have shown that infection with the virus increases your susceptibility to the commonest mental illnesses: depression, anxiety, substance abuse and personality disorder. ...

The Observer 01 January 2006

Anti-consumerism is the rejection of consumerism. It is similar but not identical to anti-corporate activism. Consumerism is a term used to describe the effects of the market economy on the individual. "Consumer" has come to be a derogatory term within selling companies and debt-management consultants. It implies the mindless purchasing and disposing of any product delivered through the market. Concern over the treatment of consumers has spawned much activism, as well as the incorporation of consumer education into school curricula. Anti-consumerist activism often has parallels with environmental activism and anti-globalization, and sometimes animal-rights activism, in their condemnation of the practices of modern organizations such as the McDonald's Corporation (see McLibel). There is also significant overlap between anti-consumerism and anti-globalization. ...

Wikipedia

Oliver James is a clinical psychologist, writer and television documentary producer. After a 2.2 degree from Cambridge University and completing his training as a clinical psychologist he worked in the Cassel mental hospital.

Both noted and controversial, James is a critic of evolutionary perspectives on psychology, and of what he perceives to be the conventional psychiatric approach to schizophrenia. He has written on the subject of the problematic relationship between wealth and happiness, which is the subject of his most recent book, Affluenza - How to be Middle Class, Successful and Fulfilled.

Some critics have opposed James's willingness to discuss the mental health of celebrities and politicians.

Wikipedia