Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism

Anne Case; Angus Deaton

Published by Princeton University Press 2020

Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism

Anne Case and Angus Deaton

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691199955

Overview
Contents

About this book

The flaws in capitalism that are fatal for America's working class

In America today, deaths of despair—from suicide, drug overdose, and alcoholism—are on the rise among working-class whites. Life expectancy in the United States as a whole has now fallen for three years in a row, a drastic trend unique among wealthy nations and not seen since the great flu pandemic of 1918. Anne Case and Angus Deaton, known for first sounding the alarm about deaths of despair, shed light on the social and economic forces that make life harder for those without a college degree. They explain why, for those with less education, who used to prosper in America, capitalism is no longer delivering.

Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism paints a troubling portrait of the American dream in decline. For those without a college degree, today's America has become a land of broken families and few prospects. As the college educated become healthier and wealthier, adults without a college degree are literally dying from pain and despair. In this critically important book, Case and Deaton tie the crisis to the weakening position of labor, the growing power of corporations, and, above all, to a rapacious health-care sector that redistributes working-class wages into the pockets of the wealthy. Capitalism, which over two centuries lifted countless people out of poverty, is now destroying the lives of America's workers.

This book charts a way forward, providing policy solutions that can rein in capitalism's excesses and make it work for everyone.

Author information

Anne Case is the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs Emeritus at Princeton University. Angus Deaton, winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in economics, is the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs Emeritus at Princeton University and Presidential Professor of Economics at the University of Southern California. His books include The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality (Princeton). They live in Princeton, New Jersey.

Reviews

"In the face of a government that failed to protect ordinary working-class Americans from the greed-fueled opioid epidemic and a media that was slow to notice the problem, Anne Case and Angus Deaton are true sentinels. Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism is an urgent and clarion call to rethink pain, inequality, justice, and the business of being human in America. This book explains America to itself. I underlined damn near every sentence."—Beth Macy, author of Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America

"This book explains so many of today's headlines with clear writing, sharp storytelling, and an almost symphonic use of research in economics, public health, and history. What it summons is a powerful analysis of who we are as Americans and what we have become as a country."—Sam Quinones, author of Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction: Death in the Afternoon Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I. Past as Prologue
1. The Calm before the Storm Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
2. Things Come Apart Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	28
3. Deaths of Despair Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	37
Part II. The Anatomy of the Battlefield
4. The Lives and Deaths of the More (and Less) Educated Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
5. Black and White Deaths Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	62
6. The Health of the Living Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	71
7. The Misery and Mystery of Pain Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	83
8. Suicide, Drugs, and Alcohol Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	94
9. Opioids Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
Part III. What’s the Economy Got to Do with It?
10. False Trails: Poverty, Income, and the Great Recession Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	133
11. Growing Apart at Work Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	148
12. Widening Gaps at Home Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	167
Part IV. Why Is Capitalism Failing So Many?
Introductions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
13. How American Healthcare Is Undermining Lives Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	191
14. Capitalism, Immigrants, Robots, and China Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	212
15. Firms, Consumers, and Workers Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	226
16. What to Do? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	265
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	293