Anne Case and Angus Deaton (2020), Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, pp. 312
This is perhaps the most
important book to come out last year that argues trenchantly about what
inequality can do to a society. Princeton economists and real-life spouses Anne
Case and Angus Deaton (who also happens to have won the Nobel Prize in
Economics) examine the reasons for the recently observed deaths of despair
among white Americans. In doing so, they open the black box of what globalization,
deindustrialization, and persistent unemployment and low-quality employment have
pushed an erstwhile working-class group into poverty and precarity in a span of
a few decades. Divided into four parts, the authors dissect the problem, bring
evidence-based arguments and look for possible institutional solutions. As the
title suggest, they are optimistic enough to believe that there is a future for
capitalism despite its epic tragedies!
The authors begin with
the question, why the ‘deaths of despair’? The poignantly named phenomenon refers
to the recently observed deaths among the erstwhile white working-class Americans
resulting from suicide, alcohol and drug abuse. These deaths of despair have
risen to hundreds of thousands in recent years making a disturbing mark in
large-scale demographic data, indicating systemic malaise and reversing the
great public health strides in life expectancy since 1918. In exploring these
deaths, the authors unearth the dismantling of society that systemic failures
of institutions and politics resulted in after the golden decades immediately
succeeding World War II. The book also critiques how the American public health
system particularly failed its people and often actively colluded in their
descent into despair and demise.
The story of the American
white working-class despair is set amidst the indifference of the rest of the
world as it shifted gear to a new ideology and left entire communities bereft
of well-paying jobs, a place in society, and meaning in their lives. The best
thing about this book is how data has been used to make claims and arguments. The
writers bring disaggregated panel data from public health and economics to
compare white middle-class Americans with other demographic groups such as
Hispanics and African Americans to demonstrate how they slipped and fell as the
discourse around progress and prosperity changed rapidly since the 1970s.
Beyond the immediate
issue of the white-working class crisis, this book gives space to the race
question in the United States, the equation between white privilege of the
working class and minority politics, the divide on the immigration issue and
partly explains the resurgence of populist politics. Unlike some data-driven
scholarly works, this book is written with a heart. The pain is palpable and
the poignancy is evident even as evidence is marshalled to show what went wrong
with a surgical precision. Read the work with care and debate vigorously the
arguments it provokes.
