The Selfish Capitalist

In this sequel to his Affluenza (2007), Oliver James argues that capitalism as practised recently in the richer English-speaking countries – that includes Australia – is making us miserable. 'Affluenza', a term coined in the late 1970s, is the pattern of chronic over-work, debt, anxiety and waste generated by our obsession with goods and income, and James traces its cause to economic policies.

He defines Selfish Capitalism as the neo-liberal Thatcherism adopted in the 1990s and finds that, depite the 'trickle-down' rhetoric, those policies made the rich very much richer while leaving the rest of us no better off financially and significantly worse off in other ways. Labour market deregulation undermined job security and held down real wages, the media joined business in successfully promoting perceptions of relative poverty even as real levels of consumption reached new highs, and debt increased enormously. (In Australia, mortgages rose from 2.8 to 4.2 times average annual income between 1994 and 2004 while other personal debt tripled).

If Selfish Capitalism is so bad, what is Unselfish Capitalism? Simply capitalism moderated by social policies and structures which support equality and social cohesion, as practised in Japan and mainland Europe.

James is a clinical psychologist and he focuses on levels of 'distress' - basically unhappiness and mental illness. Others have presented similar arguments blaming unrestrained capitalism for social inequality, family breakdown, declining moral standards, teenage crime and many related problems. They may all be right.

Convincingly untangling the causes and effects might be impossible - there are just too many factors to consider - but Oliver James does a good job, supporting clear arguments with good evidence.

Vermilion, March 2008, $44.95

Oliver James: The Selfish Capitalist - origins of Affluenza

Further Reading