The Guardian's Madeline Bunting reviews Oliver James' The Selfish Capitalist: The Origins of Affluenza. It’s all quite interesting. In a nutshell:
Capitalism brings prosperity. But prosperity comes with a price – namely, stress and anxiety.
our emotional malaise is not an accidental byproduct of market capitalism, but a direct result of increased competitiveness and the way that it exploits our insecurities.James then declares that "mental well-being is a public health issue." As such, the government should deracinate the sundry causes of stress and anxiety. Which is to say, the government should make free markets, well, less free.
This is one of the more ingenious anti-capitalism arguments we’ve heard since the demise of Marxist economics. It’s remarkable because there’s no disagreement about whether capitalism improves the material lot of humankind. The problem, according to the author, lies precisely in the fact that capitalism succeeds in bringing about prosperity.
In the old days the right and the left both agreed on the destination (material well-being), but argued about how best to get there. But things have certainly changed when the left has taken up the cause of scarcity and impoverishment.
Bunting chides James, though, for not following through on a couple loose ends. For example, why does capitalism continue to take root around the world? Why do voters continue to elect politicians who support free markets? Why do people favor psychiatry to deal with their mental health problems rather than call for revolution?
Perhaps James is too honest a thinker to pretend that freedom is worth giving up to avoid stress and anxiety. Come to think of it, perhaps that's the reason why more and more of the world doesn't surrender their freedom as well.
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