I'm with Marx: capitalism is indispensable for productive plenty, so people can live decently and freely. I'm also with Marx in believing that at some point capitalist relations of productions (i.e, the way capitalism organizes control of productive power) is a catastrophe for the well-being of the majority. A case in point?
[T]he America of those without college degrees has been scarred by death and staggeringly shorter life spans.
Almost two-thirds of American adults do not have college degrees, and they have become increasingly excluded from good jobs, political power and social esteem. As their lives and livelihoods are threatened, their longevity declines.
In the 1970s, American life expectancy grew by about four months each year. By the 1980s, it was similar to life expectancy in other rich countries. Since then, other countries have continued to progress, with life spans increasing by more than two and a half months a year.
But the United States has slowly, gradually and then precipitously fallen behind....
Life expectancy at age 25 (adult life expectancy) for those with four-year college degrees rose to 59 years on the eve of the pandemic — so an average individual would live to 84 — up from 54 years (or 79 years old) in 1992. During the pandemic, by 2021, the expectation slipped a year.
But we were staggered to discover that for those without college degrees, life expectancy reached its peak around 2010 and has been falling since, an unfolding disaster that has attracted little attention in the media or among elected officials.
Adult life expectancy for this group started out two and a half years lower, at 51.6, in 1992 — so an average individual would live to nearly 77 years old. But by 2021, it was 49.8 years (or almost 75 years old), roughly eight and a half years less than people with college degrees, and those without had lost 3.3 years during the pandemic.
In ordinary contexts, this would be called reprehensible mass killing, but since the causes are mediated and not traceable to intentions, it is only "unfortunate." It is certainly not murder, but it is not misfortune either. Case and Deaton contrast the U.S. with other capitalist "social democracies," and the comparison is indeed unfavorable. Waiting on the horizon, of course, is a counterfactual comparison, but that is not something one can expect Professors Case and Deaton to investigate given their framework.
(Regarding "the Black Book of Capitalism.")
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