State Induced Suicides And Self-harm,

         Anyone with a grain of humanity knows that prisons are a barbaric relic from a brutal past and have no place in a civilised society. In our not so distant past children at school could receive physical punishment for any misdemeanour, it was eventually recognised that harsh punishment doesn’t have the desired effect and was in fact damaging to the child. Prisons are much the same, as a punishment it doesn’t work, as a reforming process is doesn’t work, most of those individuals who enter the prison system do so again and again. However, the state will hold on to the prison system as a tool of repression, something to hold up as a warning to its citizens that it still has the power to remove you from society should you cease to be subservient.
       One measure of the barbarity of the prison system can be seen in the number of suicides. Over the last five years, 2011/2016, suicides have steadily risen, from 58 to 107, (England & Wales). Any system that sees an almost 100% increase in suicides has to be seen as inhumane and fatally flawed. Another barometer of the barbarity of the whole prison system is the amount of self harm among prisoners, this has seen a 50% rise in the last four years. Our prisons are dark places of injustice and despair, where the human individual is crushed.
        This quote from a BBC article highlights the anguish and desperation that fills the lives of those trapped within our prison system, none of which is of any benefit to the individual or the quality of our society.

       Danny Weatherson was 19 years old when he was given a 13-month IPP for robbery. More than nine years later, he is still in prison. In February, a parole board said his re-offending risk had reduced sufficiently to be moved to an open prison.
      But he cut his own throat last month and the move has been postponed. He is currently recovering in the prison's hospital wing.
       His solicitor, Shirley Noble, says self-harming has become his way of coping with not having a release date. But she is worried it could also hurt his chances of ever being let out.

Read the full article HERE: 

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Civilised People Don't Cage Animals Or Humans.

       The UK has one of the highest prison populations percentage of population in Europe, being beaten by Poland. The UK prison population stands at approximately 86,000, this is an increase of roughly 800, on last year. The largest growing age group being imprisoned are the over 60s, showing an increase of 130% between 2002 and 2013. The UK state imprisons 148 of its citizens per 100,000 of the population. All this while we are being told that crime is falling. Prisons have nothing to do with rehabilitation, they are simply a method of control by the establishment.

      Not content with holding the dubious record of imprisoning more of it citizens than practically every other country in Europe, the UK state is building a mega-prison in Wrexham, North Wales. This monstrosity of inhumanity, will have the capacity to cage 2,100 of our citizens. It will be the second largest prison in Europe and will cover an area large enough to fit the Millennium Stadium in its grounds seven times over and still leave space. It will cost an estimated £250 million of our tax money to build, which will go to the shareholders of Lend Lease, the company doing the build.

      Why should we be concerned? Simply because we know, like all prisons, it will imprison, the poor, working class, troubled people with mental health difficulties, learning difficulties, individuals suffering substance abuse, plus a disproportion of people of colour and immigrants. We know that these festering, depressing halls of cages, produce self-harming, brutality, mental trauma and suicides. Also, apart from being an inhumane and brutal caging of human beings, its workshops will replace local jobs based on slave labour, and paying well below the minimum wage. As far as I am aware, the decision as to whether it should be run by the public or the private sector has still to be decided. Another wonderful corporate idea, making a fortune from the incarceration of poor and vulnerable people.
      However, there has been considerable resistance to this monstrous edifice of the capitalist exploitative system.

This from Contra Info:

Sunday 17^th May, 2015.
     Last night an action took place at the site of Europe’s second largest prison in construction on Wrexham Industrial Estate in North Wales. The mega-prison, if built, will cage more than 2100 human beings at any one time.
     Multiple large diggers and construction equipment had their engines destroyed. Slogans were sprayed on the half-built prison fences including ‘Fuck Lend Lease’ and ‘Fire to the Prisons’.
     This is a warning to any company large or small that that is involved in the North Wales Prison Project, or any other prison building scheme that the state initiates. You are a target and you will feel the venom of the working classes fighting back.
     This action is dedicated to every slit wrist, suicide attempt, destroyed family and oppressed community harmed by the prison system.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk



 

We Need To Organise Pan-European.

       Does anybody still think that the UK austerity plan and the privatisation of everything, including the health service, is purely a UK government plan? It is happening across the planet, in the new era of capitalism, public is evil, private is good. Populations will be impoverished as all wealth is syphoned up to the privileged parasite class, at an ever increasing rate.

         Greece, a country I visited regularly over a number of years, and in my earlier visits in and around Athens, I never saw a begger. Now it is not uncommon to see people sleeping in doorways, including children. You will see people rummaging through waste bins in search of something to eat or sell. Suicides and substance abuse have rocketed in the last few years. 

         Spain, remember that country that you went to on holiday, bustling streets and shops and a friendly atmosphere? Well, regarding child poverty, Spain has now dropped to the second worst in Europe, just above Romania.

        Of course both of these countries always had poverty, under capitalism every country has poverty. The difference now is that it is widespread, endemic and getting worse, not because of the lack of wealth, but because of the ever increasing rate at which that wealth is being sucked upwards.

        Even those countries that are considered the leaders in social welfare, Sweden for example, are now seeing their public services being gobbled up by the corporate greed machine, to the detriment of the general population.

Two short quotes from The International Journal of Socialist Renewal: 

       Tonight’s public meeting is standing room only. The mood is cheerful, earnest, disciplined and, dare I say it, rather churchly. Fittingly, we begin with songs: first a hymn tune with the refrain "Everything is for sale", then a jazzier number that goes "Got any money? (Then you can buy a place in the queue)". Next there’s a short dystopian pantomime set in a hospital waiting room: the man with the private plan goes straight upstairs while the lady on the public option has to wait in line. The sheepish uninsured fellow with the broken leg is shown a price list, then the door. 

       Sweden’s welfare system is famously extensive: long parental leave, free childcare, free tertiary education, generous social security. After the economic crisis of the early 1990s successive governments have reduced entitlements and cut public spending, but what has changed the most is the incorporation of the private sector at every level of the welfare state. All public contracts are subject to competitive tendering and most new clinics and hospitals are built with private funds. Communal clinics, nursing homes and schools compete with private firms for pupils and patients. Last year the state paid almost 100 billion kronor (£11 billion) to private welfare operators, overwhelmingly to 10 large corporations all owned by private equity funds.

Read the full article HERE:

           Bearing in  mind the above facts, do you honestly believe that changing the smiling face of the Etonian millionaire, sitting on the throne at the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, for another smiling Oxford educated suit, will make one bleeding bit of difference in the direction this country and every other country in Europe, is being driven? Will running and putting a X in a box in favour of party machine that is in the thrall of the financial mafia and the corporate world, stop the UK slide into a sweatshop economy, reverse the child poverty in Spain, reduce the deprivation and suicides in Greece, and bring back Sweden's social welfare system? Don't hold your breath. 

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Austerity Is State Murder.

       I don't think it can be emphasised enough the murderous effects “austerity” has on the ordinary people. As the millionaire cabal talk of tough decisions and tightening belts around their over fed bellies, to the vast majority that means a deterioration in their health. It means cold homes in winter, and kids being deprived of decent meals, therefore jeopardising their future health. It can, and does, also mean stress and deteriorating mental health, and in many cases suicide, as the task of surviving at a decent level becomes impossible. All this is heaped on a population at the dictate of a wealthy elite who are immune to the ravages of that “austerity”. What is more the reasoning behind this policy of “austerity” is supposed to be for “our” benefit, to bring us prosperity, pie-in-the-sky, in some distant future, when in actual fact all we are doing is suffering poverty and all its vile manifestations, in an attempt to recoup the gambling losses of the financial Mafia.

         Every cut in the social welfare is a step towards deprivation, and to some, a step towards an early grave. “Austerity” is a cull on the working class, every deterioration in living conditions is avoidable. Poverty, mental and physical health problems are not accidents, they are the direct result of deliberate policies carried out by an extremely wealthy bunch of self-interested, greed parasites, they are fully aware of the effects, but care not a jot. As long as they are in power, they will do nothing that might jeopardise their own wealth and power, we will always be used to further their wealth and power. Of course there is an alternative, put the ordinary people in power, and let them shape society to the benefit of all our people.



This from Xpressed:

4 additional observations complement the answer to your question:

a) We have an impressive 36% growth of suicide attempts from 2009 to 2011 and a statistically significant relationship between economic hardship (poverty, unemployment, inability to find financial resources for survival) and suicidality in overall population.

b) In our country, due to religious beliefs and the culture of orthodox Christianity (as well as the ‘indirect’ suicides caused in the context of road accidents), there is a strong bias against families declaring suicide as the cause of a sudden death of one of their members (for reasons of being able to hold a religious ceremony).

c) Requests for psychological help that the telephone help lines receive for depression and suicides have increased in recent years by an average of 27% (UMHRI,2010).

d) Furthermore, according to Stuckler (2009), at European level, 1% increase in unemployment is associated with a 0.79% rise in suicides, at ages less than 65 years and every 3% increase in unemployment is associated with a 4.45% increase of suicides.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

Austerity Is Death By Another Name.

       When that babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, report on the Greek “crisis”, it is always about bailouts, debt, and need for greater “austerity”. What, seldom if ever, gets a mention is the death factor in all this financial Mafia economic gobble-gook. Hidden behind the unemployment figures and falling wages, rising taxes and prices, is the death factor. Accelerated deaths from malnutrition, stress, drug and alcohol addiction are all linked to the “austerity” plan. There is another toll the people of Greece are paying to satisfy the financial mafia and banksters, suicide. During the first 4 years of Greece's “financial crisis”, 2007-2011, the suicide rate increased by a staggering 43%. In fact 2011 marked the highest number of suicides in Greece, for 50 years. According to some authorities the last two years are showing indications that there will a further very large rise.

        The group Klimaka, based in Athens, stated that reported suicides rose dramatically, but we cannot take these figures as accurate, as there are a considerable number of unreported suicides, the figures are in all probability, much higher. Greece is a relatively small country population wise, with a population of just 11.28 million, (2012 figures), but with the direct impact of the financial Mafia's dictate, creating 27% unemployment, 60%+ among the young and a stratospheric minimum 43% increase in suicides, you begin to get the true meaning of “austerity”. This is a small country, a member of one of the largest and richest developed economic blocks on the planet, yet we can't see to it that the people of a small country of 11.28 million, can have a reasonable standard of living. Capitalism isn't working for the benefit of the majority, capitalism will never work for the benefit of the majority, capitalism can't work for the benefit of the majority. It isn't made that way, it is simply a system of exploitation, where the few live in luxury off the backs of the many, who struggle to survive, as all the wealth they create is siphoned up to that few, the parasites, the leeches of society. Capitalism is the enemy of the people.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Thatcherite Era Of The Class War.

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    Our babbling brook of bullshit, the media, is in full spate at the moment, gurgling through its foetid channels is the stench of Thatcher. The praises ring loud and clear, they do however allow a little criticism to show its face, just to try to give the impression of balanced journalism. Balanced it is not. What has become known as the “Thatcherite” era, was an era of war, but it is never detailed like war, the deaths and injuries were not noted. In the case of the Belgrano, a ship needlessly torpedoed by a UK submarine, killing 323, many of them young sea cadets, it was detailed. A coal mine was shut, hit by an ideological missile, a town/village dies, the deaths and injuries are not detailed. In the case of the Belgrano, the deaths were more or less instantaneous, in the case of the destroyed coal mine, steel works, shipyard, the deaths and injures took place much more slowly, in some cases over years. But deaths and injures there were, those who fired that ideological missile have blood on their hands.       

     During this “Thatcherite” war era, there were many such ideological missiles fired at towns, villages and cities across the country, the resultant deaths and injuries were never detailed. Deaths from stress, addiction, overdoses, suicide and mental and physical problems, plus destroyed future generations, faced with poverty and long term unemployment, all the direct result of those ideological missiles fired with callous calculating coldness by those who had everything to gain and nothing to lose from the resultant war carnage. The “Thatcherite” era was a bloody era, for the ordinary people of this country, it was an all out war on working class communities and institutions, nowhere was there any gain in it for those casualties of the ideological missiles fired.

       Millions across the country suffered as the financial Mafia pushed ahead with their grand plan, Thatcher was merely the badge that they wore, she was their public face. Today that same grand plan is still being pushed, the rape, plundering and pillage of all public assets, grinding down of the ordinary people, preparing the correct recipe for corporate greed to take control of everything. Yes, spit venom at the image of a woman who symbolised an ideological plan, but she didn't write that plan, she didn't detail the targets, she was just simply put in the driving seat with her satnav already set. Yes she done it with force and pleasure, but remember, she has gone, but the plan is still in place and proceeding at an alarming pace.

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THE PRICE OF CAPITALIST ADJUSTMENT, DEPRIVATION.

      Every economist comes up with their own personal idea of the "problem" with Greece and the Greek people and all of their answers usually are around some capitalist economic formula that is hinged to the "people" paying more to put things "right" by taking a greater hit to their already impoverished living standard, or by the state borrowing more and creating "growth". The former solution will be an even greater disaster for the Greek people, the latter, beneficial for the corporate world, but more of the same for the Greek people. All capitalist "adjustments" require deprivation, malnutrition, homelessness and mass unemployment to be heaped on the ordinary people. The Greek people's solution, like all those ordinary people across the globe who are at present suffering "austerity", does not lie in any form of capitalist economics, capitalist economic solutions are the problem, the only answer for the ordinary people, lies outside capitalism. 

      An interesting article by Nikos Libero, on the Greek situation taken from The Commune:

 

      Greece is living through its biggest crisis since the downfall of the military junta in the summer of 1974 – a consequence of the world economic crisis and the historical decadence of the Greek bourgeois elite. The same internal tendencies – with more or less the same characteristics as in the USA in 2008, at the beginning of the world economic crisis – are manifested in Greece today in an explosive form.

All the social conquests of the working class since 1974 have been lost in the last three years. Since the end of the second world war, there has never been, in a period of peace, such a dramatic decline in the standard of living of the majority of the population of any country in Europe, or such a violent redistribution of wealth in such a limited time.

         The crisis has given rise to an assault not only on the working class, but also on the middle class, which is being destroyed today. And here it should be noted that in 2009 the petty bourgeoisie is two or three times larger, as part of a proportion of the total population, than in the so-called developed capitalist countries.

       In November 2012, unemployment reached 30% – and 80% of the unemployed received no benefits. Since 2009, the real income of ordinary people has been reduced by 40%. And the downfall will continue in the next year.

      The minimum daily wage for people below the age of 25 is 22 euros, and for those above 25, 26 euros. Three million people, in a population of less than 11 million, are living below the poverty line. There are 40,000 homeless. The suicide rate is rising dramatically especially among the destroyed middle class. In tens of thousands of homes, the electricity has been cut off. Crime is rife.

Read the full article HERE:

ann arky's home.

YOUR KIDS WILL BE NEXT.

         What awaits us as the Eurozone circles the drain, for some idea we can look at what has happened to the Greek people in just a couple of years. From a relatively comfortable lifestyle for most, to deprivation, from a comparatively low crime rate, to a rocketing crime rate, from mostly stable communities to massive increases in suicides, alcoholism and mental health problems, all the direct result of AUSTERITY, which is just a polite word for plundering the people and pushing them into deprivation. I should add that all these problems are for the ordinary people, our political masters and the financial Mafia are exempt from that deprivation they inflict on the rest of us. This from Teacher Dude's Grill and BBQ.

      This picture was taken in the centre of Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. The young teen, no older than 13 or 14 was wheeling a shopping trolley full of scrap metal just metres away from the high end hotels and shopping malls that call this part of the town home.

      He, along with many even younger can be seen in the city rooting through the recycling bins for cans, scrap metal and paper.. For those who scavenge, beg, sell trinkets and wander the streets of this European city there is no school or perhaps even a future, except for more of the same.

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TO SOME FASCISM IS ACCEPTABLE, - WHY?

          Most of us are aware of the problems facing the Greek people, most of these problems are the result of the policies of the financial Mafia, which includes the IMF (International Mankind Fuckers). The money maggots of the bond markets' Billionaire Club, having gambled and lost, now want the people of Europe to make good their loses. This is done by getting governments to transfer all public assets to the  billionaires' bank accounts. At the moment the Greek people are being hit hardest, the result being dire poverty and deprivation, with all its resultant conditions, increase suicides, mental health problems, rampant unemployment and decimated education and health services. With this deliberately applied brutal financial plunder there has also been a rise in violence, especially by the fascist groups against immigrants. In most of these cases the police are complicit by their inaction against the perpetrators and lack of support for the victims. The rise of fascists groups is something that always happens in time of extreme poverty, people start looking for answers but they don't all look in the same direction. That is why we have to push harder to get our answers out there, if our ideas are there they will be taken up, if not, then those ideas that are on the table, religion, more government, fascism, etc. will be the ones that the people will grasp.

fascist attacks - www.docupraxi.net by docupraxi

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IT IS VESTED INTERESTS THAT ARE KILLING PEOPLE.

      We should never lose sight of the fact that all this talk of "austerity cuts" has a human face. While those, the faceless ones, in expensive suits, sit in marble halls discussing how, where and how deep  to cut at the social fabric of our society, the results among those without the expensive suits, you and I, the ordinary people, can be ill health, poverty, deprivation, mental health problems and even death. It is discussed politely on TV and radio and long winded economic articles appear in the mainstream media, all with a cold rationalism the belies the horror and hurt of the situation to most ordinary people. As the results of the polite decision makers policies grind on, our society changes, suicides rise dramatically, family relationships start to break down, hopelessness descends on youth, who see their future as a bleak unknown devoid of opportunity. It is not the "economy" that is killing people, it is a small group of human beings making decisions to protect their vested interests.

      The powers that be would like to keep that veneer of politeness and cold discussion, but it can't last. The people are getting more anger by the day, across the developed world we are taking to the streets to vent that anger, and there is more to come, we will not be destroyed to save the wealth of the financial Mafia.

     This from OCCUPIED LONDON.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

      At approximately 7pm on Monday evening, 78-year old S.K. set himself alight with petrol at a parking lot in the town of Lefkada, in Western Greece. The man died on the spot.

This follows from a tremendous increase in suicides across Greece, and Crete in particular – where also, two days ago (on Saturday night) a homeless man died of the cold in the streets of the city of Chania.

Exploring Revolt in Greece from Ross Domoney on Vimeo.

      On December 6th 2008 a police shooting of a 16 year old innocent boy in Athens started a two week revolt in cities around Greece. Three years on people march in remembrance of Alexis Grigoropoulos. Greece now is very much in social and economic turmoil. This films looks at the events surrounding December as well as an inside look to the often cases of revolt in a country that is sinking deeply in recession. This film also explores the role that anti authoritarian movements play in Greece.

ann arky's home.

THE CURSE OF CAPITALISM.

     In Europe all the bankers and their yes men the politicians, are running around trying to find ways to save their billions. They keep coming up with grand plan after grand plan, only to find that it isn't working. Though they can hold their meetings in luxurious hotels and wine and dine their way through a multitude of exotic menus, the people at the receiving end of the grand plans are sinking fast.

    Under the present system of bankers corporate fascism, what has Europe got to offer the people? Country after country is seeing unemployment soar, some countries are at the moment away ahead of the others. At the forefront is Greece with youth unemployment almost at the 50% level, while total unemployment is at 18.3% and rising. Spain is in a similar position with total unemployment running at 22.8% and youth unemployment also approaching the 50% mark. Portugal and Ireland have approximately 30% youth unemployment, here in the UK it running at about 20%. All other countries in Europe have varying degrees of this malaise.

    This is the stark reality of conditions for the next generation of young people growing up in Europe, poverty and unemployment. These figures are an indictment against a system that can pour unbelievable wealth into the coffers of the few, while the vast majority struggle to keep their heads above water. A system that, to protect the unearned wealth of the few, is quite prepared to sacrifice country after country to a life of deprivation.

      Unemployment never comes alone, it has constant companions, the obvious is poverty, less noted but just as cruel is mental health problems, then there is the usual rise in suicides, violence, drug addiction and malnutrition. All this brings about the destruction of our social society, but only at our level. The millionaire class responsible for all this misery and destruction, go unscathed and will continue to take their yacht to the Med. fly to Dubai, and soak up the sun at St Moritz.

CRISIS!!  What crisis?

      As across the continent unemployment and poverty rises to scales not seen since the 30s and the 1% parasite class continue living in luxury on the backs of the ordinary people, it is surely obvious that the system doesn't work for the majority of the people. If the people want an end to this corrupt, unjust and exploitative system, they have to take control away from the financial parasites, remove the corrupt political class, (the parasites' managers) and organise society from the grassroots, creating a society that sees to the needs of all our people. A society based on mutual aid and sustainability, one that is free from the profit motive. Capitalism doesn't work.

ann arky's home.

COMING TO A CITY NEAR YOU!!!

         Greece is shut down, the people have called a 48 hour general strike against the extremely severe “austerity” cuts being imposed by the financial puppets of the IMF, (International Mankind Fuckers), the Greek government. 70,000 on the streets of Athens, over 15,000 on the streets of Thesilonika, riot police fire stun grenades and tear gas into the protesters, running battles across the city centre. This is democracy Western style, the people don't want the policies the government is forcing on them, so they try to beat the shit out of the people to intimidate them in the hope that they will meekly accept poverty and deprivation.

       What the Greek people have had inflicted on them over the last 18 months or so, is unacceptable in any so called civilised country. They have faced massive pay cuts, not just one but in some cases two pay cuts, cuts to their pensions, if it is over 1,00Euros a month, it is cut by 20%, also lump some retirement payments cut, increased taxes, tax threshold lowered from 8,000 Euros to 5,000, VAT increased to 23%, plus new taxes. One such new tax is the property tax, whereby you have an extra tax if you have a house, it is worked out at so much per square metre. Prices are rising and unemployment is soaring, the health budget has been cut by 40%, health problems are mushrooming plus alcohol problems, drug problems and suicides are on the increase. Perhaps it wasn't the best health service in the world, but whatever it was has now been decimated. Students complain of not having books, 30,000 public sector workers have been put on “reduced” pay, 60% pay, with the possibility of being made redundant after a year. New reduced pay and conditions for all civil servants, and an end to pay bargaining, Still the IMF (International Mankind Fuckers) claim it is not enough, their puppets in Athens must do more. Apart from the savage dismantling of the social fabric of the country, they have been ordered the sell-off of 59 billion Euros of public assets. The IMF puppet government that is hell bent on pursuing these policies, will in no way suffer themselves, no, the “necessary” hardships they claim that must be imposed are for the people, not for the implementers. Western capitalist democracy at work.

       What we are witnessing is the Greek people being sacrificed on the alter of corporate greed, a blood curling and savage process to appease the world's billionaire bankers. The will not suffer any losses, if they can take the money from the general public, and if Greece is not enough then other countries will have to be sacrificed on that same alter. Spain, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, are all being prepared for the sacrifice. With the rest of Europe being held in the same trap in case that last list is not enough. France isn't far down the list, and so it will go on until they own everything and their coffers are secure. All this misery and deprivation to save the wanker bankers from losing their unearned billions that they gambled and lost.

        The fight that the Greek people are involved in is our fight, we are not immune from the greedy tentacles of the corporate greed machine. Whatever it can do and get away with, to protect its wealth and power, it will do. It has no nationality, it knows no borders, the only pain it can feel is the loss of money. People are of no consequence, wealth and power are all that matters. We have to think the same way, solidarity across nationality, solidarity across all borders.

ann arky's home.

THE EPIDEMIC DISEASE OF CAPITALISM.

       The propaganda from the proponents of capitalism continually spout that capitalism will bring prosperity to all. Yet across the globe poverty is on the increase. As poverty increases so does all the health problems that go along with poverty, mental health problems as well as physical. Figures show that suicides and depression are on the increase, there is no doubt that enviromental problems of the individual play a big part in bring about these conditions, the sort of things that are part and parcel of capitalism, unemployment, competition, the illusion that happiness comes in nice fancy wrapped boxes at a price, and the constant fear of deprivation, diseases that could be called the capitalist epedemic. The following is an extract from an article published in LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal the full article makes excellent reading.

By Mark Harris

July 23, 2011 -- www.resistance.au -- There is no denying it, depression is on the rise across the world. The World Health Organization says depression will be the second largest contributor to the global burden of disease by 2020. For young people this is already the case. Depression leads to about 850,000 deaths every year.

But why is depression on the rise? In some instances it is a product of more readily available methods of diagnosis and public understanding of the disorder. But increases in suicide rates and other indicators suggest that the increase in depression is well beyond this statistical readjustment.

Depression is not always caused by a chemical imbalance or as a result of human biology. It is a result of social factors such as loneliness, lack of social support, financial strain, lack of purpose and unemployment. These are endemic under capitalism.

Even in a wealthy country like Australia, youth often look to a future that is at best unfulfilling. Furthermore, capitalism is based on competition. In all sorts of ways we can only succeed if someone else fails. Obvious examples are job interviews or exams to get into uni.