Consuming Misery

Ecologist, The, May, 2000 by Oliver James

Modern consumer society isn't just wrecking the planet - it is also wrecking our minds. Across the world, the richer a nation gets, the more unhappy its people become. Clinical psychologist Oliver James asks why.

It is hardly news that advanced, dog-eat-dog, American-style capitalism is bad for the planet. Every year, the evidence shows this more and more clearly. It is no longer possible to dismiss the link between climate change and carbon dioxide emissions as the weather becomes crankier and crankier. Nor is there much doubt any more that the use of hormones, antibiotics and nitrophosphates in the food chain is weakening immune systems, lowering sperm counts and creating a wide range of chronic illnesses.

But to the lengthening list of environmental problems caused by the way we live now must be added the many psychological problems which our modern way of life is causing. For modern consumerism is not only wrecking many of our natural life-support systems - it is also wrecking our minds. Ironically, the raging materialism of the modern world is not even fulfilling the function which is used by its supporters to justify its existence - making people feel better off.

MONEY CAN'T BUY HAPPINESS

Put simply, there is no correlation between the wealth of a developed nation and the amount that its citizens say they are happy or satisfied with their lives. The wealthiest are by no means the happiest, and some of the poorest are among the most contented. What is more, the closer a nation approximates to the American model - a highly advanced and technologically developed form of modern capitalism - the greater the rate of mental illness amongst its citizens.

A 1995 World Health Organisation (WHO) study opened with an encouraging account of improvements in life in the developing world. 'In the past 50 years, the world beyond North America and Western Europe has seen improvements in health care and living conditions as breathtaking in their sweep as the technological changes experienced in richer areas of the Northern Hemisphere.' This upbeat message, though, soon gave way to a bleaker one. 'But just as in Western Europe and North America, [in the developing world there is a downside to these remarkable improvements in the measures of daily survival and societal function. Along with the increase in life expectancy has come an increase in depression, schizophrenia, dementia, and other forms of chronic mental illness[ldots] Along with economic growth and various social transformations has come a marked increase in alcoholism, drug abuse and suicide[ldots] The incidence of violence against women, young and old, has increased sharply.' Certainly, violence against the person recorded by the police in England and Wales has mushroomed from 6,000 crimes a year in 1950 to 239,000 in 1996. Even taking into account that more crimes get reported today, this is still a remarkable increase.

Three years later, a 1998 WHO report continued the theme, pointing out that depression was now fourth highest in the world league table of diseases. Significantly, depression was the second most common disease in high-income nations, but fourth in the middle and low-income ones. The same was true of all other mental illnesses: from schizophrenia to obsessive compulsive disorders, the more economically advanced the nation, the greater the amount of mental illness.

Compared with 1950, people today throughout the developed world are much more likely to be discontented, angry and self-hating ('I'm fat, I'm stupid, I'm ugly' etc). The evidence is clear: in spite of being materially richer, people in rich countries are emotionally poorer. In the case of Britain, a 25-year-old today can be up to 10 times more likely to suffer depression.

Similarly, in America, a survey of over 18,000 adults found that a person born during 1945-55 was between 3 and 10 times more likely to suffer major (ie severe, life threatening) depression before the age of 34 than a person born during 1905-14.

What, then, is the probable overall extent of actual mental illness as defined by official psychiatric criteria in developed nations today? The best guess comes from a huge survey of the American population done in the early 1980s by Lee Robins. Over 19,000 people were interviewed in five different sites around the country. The conclusion was that 20 per cent of the total American population suffers from a mental illness (as defined by the psychiatric bible, the DSM - the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) during any given 12 months and 32 per cent will suffer at some point during their lifetime. Because the definitions used are so strict, the real incidence of unhappiness is almost certainly much higher than this. One of the most respected authorities in this field estimated that for every one person fitting the rigorous criteria employed by the DSM there are two to three who are close to fitting them.

In other words, the proportion of Americans suffering serious problems in any one year was between 40 per cent and 60 per cent in the early 1980s. This is supported by studies which take a broader view of what is meant by angst, such as one which found that three quarters of the population suffers from one or more unreasonable fears, spells of panic or general nervousness. Given the likelihood that rates of psychiatric morbidity have increased since these studies were done in the early 1980s, the proportions are likely to be even greater today. For once, it is no exaggeration to use the word 'epidemic in describing a social trend.