Carl Beijer

Share this post

Of course capitalism is making people kill themselves

www.carlbeijer.com

Of course capitalism is making people kill themselves

Why are our pundits taking aim at a claim that's completely uncontroversial in the scholarship?

Feb 22
Share this post

Of course capitalism is making people kill themselves

www.carlbeijer.com

I don’t think anyone will confuse Lorenz’s “late stage capitalist” complaint as anything resembling some kind of rigorous scholarly analysis. Still, it’s bewildering that so many people are criticizing this when it is, setting aside the hyperbole, substantively correct. And not just substantively, but intuitively.

Click through this thread, for example, and you’ll see Eric Levitz declaring that “there just doesn't seem to be a straightforward connection between one's objective level of material security and one's susceptibility to suicide”. But here’s the conclusion of Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior’s review of 15 years of sociological literature on this exact topic:

This post is for paid subscribers

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2023 Carl Beijer
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing