Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism
Anne Case
Top 10 Best Quotes
“We do not think that taxation is the solution to rent-seeking; the right way to stop thieves is to stop them from stealing, not to raise their taxes.”
“The increase in deaths of despair was almost all among those without a bachelor’s degree. Those with a four-year degree are mostly exempt; it is those without the degree who are at risk. This was particularly surprising for suicide; for more than a century, suicides were generally more common among the educated,1 but that is not true in the current epidemic of deaths of despair. The four-year college degree is increasingly dividing America, and the extraordinarily beneficial effects of the degree are a constant theme running through the book. The widening gap between those with and without a bachelor’s degree is not only in death but also in quality of life; those without a degree are seeing increases in their levels of pain, ill health, and serious mental distress, and declines in their ability to work and to socialize. The gap is also widening in earnings, in family stability, and in community.2 A four-year degree has become the key marker of social status, as if there were a requirement for nongraduates to wear a circular scarlet badge bearing the letters BA crossed through by a diagonal red line.”
“We would like to see a world in which everyone who can benefit from going to college, and wants to go to college, is able to do so. But we do not accept the basic premise that people are useless to the economy unless they have a bachelor's degree. And we certainly do not think that those who do not get one should be somehow disrespected or treated as second-class citizens.”
“As Bertrand Russell once noted, among the strongest advocates that the poor should work more are the idle rich, who have never done any.”
“systematic oppression and underprivilege lead individuals to be adjusted to the misery and tragedy of human existence which”
“We need to correct the process, not try to fix the outcomes.”
“They also want mutually contradictory outcomes, such as having coverage for”
“Our account echoes the account of suicide by Emile Durkheim, the founder of sociology, of how suicide happens when society fails to provide some of its members with the framework within which they can live dignified and meaningful lives.16”
“No one likes compulsion, perhaps especially Americans, who hate the idea that healthcare should be rationed, although apparently not when the rationing is done by money, excluding those who cannot pay.”
“Most seriously, and this is what concerned Young, the loss of the smartest children from the less educated group deprives them of talent that is useful to the group itself. Young writes that “the bargaining over the distribution of national expenditure is a battle of wits, and that defeat was bound to go to those who lost their clever children to the enemy.” He notes that the real reason the elites have been so relatively successful is that “the humble no longer have anyone—except themselves—to speak for them.”
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Book Keywords:
taxes, rich, stealing, idle-rich, poor, college
