Stress or Socialism

Many can recognise a problem but few can offer solutions.We read on the BBC website that key NHS advisers say employers need to pay more attention to the levels of stress and anxiety in the workplace . The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence said the cost of work-related mental illness was £28 billion - a quarter of the UK's total sick bill. More than 13 million working days a year are lost because of work-related stress, anxiety and depression.Bad managers were the single biggest cause of problems, the group claimed. Well , SOYMB may differ on that .

Studies show that social inequality affects the health of populations more than any other factor – more than diet, smoking, exercise, and even more than access to medical care. Inequality is built into and generated by the capitalist system. Capital is created when employers pay workers less than the value of the goods and services they produce. The resulting profit, or capital, is used to extract more capital. As this process repeats over time, capital accumulates at the top of society and misery accumulates at the bottom.

People with more control over their lives enjoy better health. Bosses live the longest, healthiest lives because they have the most power. As power diminishes, stress rises and health deteriorates. This relationship between social status and health has been found in every nation studied.

Michael Marmot, who studies the link between social status and health, explains:-
"Your position in the hierarchy very much relates to how much control you have over your life…Sustained, chronic and long-term stress is linked to low control over life circumstances."

Under capitalism, only a few people get to make the important decisions. The rest of us get no say over how work will be organized and how social resources will be used. We don’t get to decide if we will build more schools or more prisons, wage war or make peace. Exclusion from decision-making is strongly linked with cardiovascular disease, and the more powerless a person feels, the faster the disease progresses. Oppressed sections of the working-class suffer the highest rates of cardiovascular disease, because they have the least social control.
People with little control over demanding jobs are more likely to be overweight and have high cholesterol regardless of age, amount of exercise and smoking habits. By itself, hard work is not bad for your health unless there is also a lack of control. The most health-damaging jobs saddle workers with great responsibility (e.g. caring for patients) while denying them the resources required to meet those responsibilities (enough time to do what is needed).

Human survival has always depended on the cooperation that flows from strong social bonds. People who pull together enjoy better health and longer lives.Human beings cannot be healthy in class-divided societies. From birth to death, capitalism ranks people on a vertical scale, with those higher up being treated as more worthy than those lower down. The unequal relationship between bosses and workers is maintained by divide-and-rule policies that generate more inequality based on sex, skin color, religion, nationality, etc. These divisions rupture social bonds and generate sickness throughout the population.Even the best medical system cannot eliminate the health-damaging effects of poverty, social discrimination, unsafe work, bad housing, poor schools and being denied the right to make decisions that affect our lives. To end these miseries, we must eliminate class divisions and all the other inequalities that follow.

Human sickness is a product of sick social relationships, and human health is a product of healthy social relationships. Replacing class divisions with a cooperative, socialist society would reduce the burden of disease and raise the level of health more than any other measure.

Hat tip to Dissident Voice