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Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Kate Harper (Narrator), Anne Case (Author), Angus Deaton (Author),

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New York Times best seller

Wall Street Journal best seller

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

Shortlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year

This audiobook narrated by Kate Harper reveals how the flaws in capitalism are fatal for America's working class and includes an introduction and preface read by the authors themselves - economist Anne Case and Nobel Prize winner Angus Deaton.

Life expectancy in the United States has recently fallen for three years in a row - a reversal not seen since 1918 or in any other wealthy nation in modern times. In the past two decades, deaths of despair from suicide, drug overdose, and alcoholism have risen dramatically and now claim hundreds of thousands of American lives each year - and they're still rising. Anne Case and Angus Deaton, known for first sounding the alarm about deaths of despair, explain the overwhelming surge in these deaths and shed light on the social and economic forces that are making life harder for the working class. They demonstrate why, for those who used to prosper in America, capitalism is no longer delivering.

Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism paints a troubling portrait of the American dream in decline. For the White working class, today's America has become a land of broken families and few prospects. As the college educated become healthier and wealthier, adults without a degree are literally dying from pain and despair. In this critically important book, Case and Deaton tie the crisis to the weakening position of labor, the growing power of corporations, and, above all, to a rapacious health-care sector that redistributes working-class wages into the pockets of the wealthy. Capitalism, which over two centuries lifted countless people out of poverty, is now destroying the lives of blue-collar America.

This book charts a way forward, providing solutions that can rein in capitalism’s excesses and make it work for everyone.

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Page 1 of 1Start OverPage 1 of 1

Listening Length	11 hours and 38 minutes
Author	Anne Case, Angus Deaton
Narrator	Kate Harper
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com Release Date	March 17, 2020
Publisher	Princeton University Press
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B085GL6NXX
Best Sellers Rank	#15,393 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #2 in Suicide (Audible Books & Originals) #13 in Public Health (Audible Books & Originals) #22 in Economic Public Policy

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5 star		69%
4 star		16%
3 star		9%
2 star		4%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Big Cow

Not written for popular consumption

Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2020

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This is a data book designed to be used as a foundation for policy ideas. It is painfully, scrupulously careful not to say anything that might suggest the authors have a partisan agenda. And therefore it doesn't really have any ideas in it and it is SUPER boring. (The authors occasionally try to throw some wit and humor in; it falls quite flat, in my opinion.) To the extent the book has any "idea" in it (beyond presenting and explaining data findings), it would be that the brokenness of the U.S. healthcare system has much larger and wider deleterious effects on the U.S. economy as a whole than one might think.

It's not a bad book. It's just an extremely unfun one. Even Piketty's book is way more fun than this one. Unless you are an academic or policymaker, I would recommend the following books instead for understanding the roots of U.S. poverty and deaths of despair, particularly for white America: Desmond's Evicted (this is the best one!); Putnam's Bowling Alone; Murray's Coming Apart; Goldstein's Janesville; Vance's Hillbilly Elegy.

56 people found this helpful

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Shirley T Fang

Timely and thought provoking

Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2020

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Overall, I recommend this book as it tries to explain the plight of white, working class Americans. Having lost so many things, including the privilege of race, it's easy to see why the white working class would vote for Trump. The first part of the book can be a bit dry, but uses loads of data to power its hypotheses. The second part of the book falls short, as it blames only one culprit for a poor outcome. True, the American healthcare system perversely generates inequality instead of provides universal care. However, I would have liked to see more discussion about education. Is it possible that our inefficient educational system also perpetuates generational inequality and transfers wealth from lower income students to rich university bureaucrats who contribute little of actual value? More discussion needed. I imagine multiple entrenched interests bleed money from the working class, reinforcing health and life outcome disparities that amplify through generations. While one book cannot possibly call out all those "Sheriffs of Nottingham," it should at least offer one chapter of discussion.

36 people found this helpful

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Yoda

A Decent (but not Perfect) Overview of the Phenomena

Reviewed in the United States on June 13, 2020

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The two authoritative authors, one of whom has a Nobel prize in Economics (awarded specifically for the field he writes on in this book), examines why Euro-American non-college graduates in the US have been relatively recently dying of excessive rates of suicide, alcoholism and drug abuse. This is despite the fact that their incomes are higher than Hispanics and African-Americans who also do not hold college degrees. They also put forth potential policies that they believe will mitigate the problem.

With respect to causes, the authors posit that there are a sizeable number. All of these have relatively recently caused the economic condition facing this demographic (i.e., since the early 1980s) to deteriorate. Unlike African Americans, this is a recent and new phenomena (African Americans have been experiencing these problems well before the 1980s). Causes put forth by the authors include deteriorating wages and benefits in the market place stemming from globalization, automation, an increasingly oligopsonistic and monopolistic market for many types of labor in many geographic areas, a switch in demanded skill sets away from this demographic, increasing medical costs (the have gone up by more than double the rate of inflation over the past 40 years), a very predatory medical system that profits from widespread overuse of highly addictive drugs and economic instability in terms of jobs, wages and medical coverage (among other causes).

These have not only caused wages and health to deteriorate among this demographic but have also led to serious alienation within this demographic’s social structure (i.e., deterioration of family and other social relations, etc.). As if that was not bad enough, other factors have further undermined this group. Examples include a decline in religious values and church attendance, weakening family structures accompanied by illegitimacy and a deterioration of social institutions such as trade unions. In addition, many members of this demographic are no longer treated as they have been in the past by employers (valued employees as opposed to temporary and disposable laborers). Ironically the authors do not examine, never mind analyze, the impact of society-at-large’s derogatory views of them. At one time blue collar labor in the US was looked upon very positively, now it is looked upon in a demeaning way.

The authors compare the situation of this demographic in the US with the situations of the same demographic in other developed nation and show that, in other nations, this pain and suffering does not exist anywhere close to the degree that it does in the US. The authors attribute this to better social support and health institutions (and a less predatory health system profiting from highly addictive drugs). Unfortunately the authors do not analyze the long term viability of this system in other nations, in particular the pressures being put on it by increasing global economic pressures. As the German Chancellor Angela Merkel commented, Europe has about half the world’s social spending and a much smaller percentage of GDP. She believes that this, combined with greater economic pressures from less developed nations, poses a serious challenge to this institutional structure, one that threatens it long-term viability. This issue really needed to be examined in this book.

The authors, in their final chapter, propose a set of policy initiatives to try to remedy, or at least mitigate, deaths of despairs. These include better supply and access to medical treatment (i.e., increased supply of medical personnel [the American Medical Association has limited entry into the medical field considerably to keep the wages of its members high], medical benefits independent of employment, etc.), a decreased supply of highly addictive drugs into society and more social support (ie unemployment compensation). They also propose the introduction of some form of universal income provision a-la the Austrian Economist Frederick Hayek’s proposal. They do not, unfortunately, discuss other policies that could have huge potential benefits such as improved technical schooling or non-university education outside of a lifetime education credit. This is especially a shame as so much of the US’s education effort and spending, post-secondary school, goes to university education. This is despite the fact that only approximately one-third of high school graduates go on to universities. In the US, unfortunately, there is very little in the way of a non-university post secondary training system or even, for that matter, a "technical school" like track in secondary school.

One last serious problem with the book, ironic considering that the book’s full title is “Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism” as opposed to just “Deaths of Despair”, is the possible future direction of this “disease” up the socio-economic ladder. The book does not look at how increasing globalization, automation, telework and other economic pressures will probably spread this sickness to those outside the demographic studied in this book. The current telework explosion alone, combined with much improved translation software in the future, portends the move of many white collar positions out of the US and into the third world. This reviewer has a bad feeling the lower classes will not be the only ones facing these problems in the future in the US (as well as other developed nations) in the not too distant future.

21 people found this helpful

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Matt L. Pimentel, Ph.D.

An accurate state of affairs without overt partisan blame

Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2020

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I recommend this read. Although it focuses near exclusively on white non-Hispanics between the ages of 45-54 in the USA (well, since I fit into this category, it's germane to me), these two professors (Case & Deaton) make repeatedly cogent and substantive arguments about the correlation between "deaths of despair," (deaths from alcohol, opioids, & suicide) with those who have a bachelor's degree or higher versus those who do not. It's striking. A number of variables are controlled for. Moreover, the discussion of how the country was stratified economically, around the year 1970 is logically and factually laid out quite well. Moreover, the reference list provide a great resource for other reads that I'm already ordering on eBay on the cheap

18 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

William Jordan

a unique book, but stronger on the problem than on the causes and the solution

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 17, 2020

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The authors, in their later years, have come up with a new and interesting subject for research - the increasing incidence of 'deaths of despair' (from alcohol, drugs and suicide) of white non-Hispanic US citizens without at least a four year university degree.

The book is very strong in establishing the case for their being a really interesting subject to study here - this group is not just demonstrably likely to die, but also demonstrably likely to be in more pain than their more educated White counterparts, and more likely to feel their life is not good and to be in poor health generally. They are still probably better off than their African American counterparts, but the trend is really for more of an educated/less educated divide in the US and less of a white/black divide.

When it comes to the causes of this, clearly economics has a role - not immigration, in fact, but certainly globalisation and automation. The question really is do these factors have a direct effect; and to what extent are they mediated via the breakdown of society (less adherence to organised religion; less propensity to vote and engage in civic action; less propensity to marry); and to what extent uniquely American social policy choices have an impact (the iniquities of US healthcare; 'Sheriff of Nottingham' redistribution; the political lobbying system).

One of the many virtues of the book is that it enables the reader to make up his or her own mind about these issues. But perhaps the authors tend too much towards 'it's a uniquely US phenomenon so seek the cause in the US' view of the world, given Brexit and recent trends in the UK and other countries with 'left behind' populations. The US causes may just act as an 'amplifier' to a global trend.

Overall, though, a really interesting book which I would strongly recommend to others.

10 people found this helpful

Flambards

Rigorous analysis

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 21, 2020

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Good quality information and a very stark warning to the UK of the perils of sleepwalking into a market-based NHS. Other big takeaway, don't look to the current political system for answers. A more inclusive political system, such as some in the European model, (proportional representation) may provide a better (though not by any means perfect) solution to many of the problems identified in this book.

3 people found this helpful

Louise Cooke

Excellent and depressing.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 18, 2020

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This is a very thorough, thoughtful book. Very in depth research, all backed up with data. Some negative reviews complain they don't have good solutions . I think this is unfair. This describes the problems in excruciating detail, maybe we should all work on the solutions.

One person found this helpful

Luke software developer

Just does not convince

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 30, 2020

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If feels like they had a thesis of 'deaths of despair' and then went to find statistics to 'prove' it.
They throw in the decline of organized religion as a factor with no evidence. They overlook how damaging religion has been and continues to be. Disappointing.

Mrs A T McLean

Well researched. Good read.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 12, 2020

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A must read

One person found this helpful

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Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

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