And Japan, a collectivist society by yours and my general agreement, also has one of the highest suicide rates in the world along with the "family breakdown" in regards to a declining birth rate. You're still making a claim that doesn't stand up to scrutiny
If we investigate the reasons why there is a high suicide rate in Japan we will see that there is a lot more going on. Though there is a strong family value there are other issues like oppression and a lack of meaning for many due to government control. Japanese people find it harder to express their feelings due to their culture.
But if anything it is the family that is the saving grace. Research seems to point to the main cause of suicide being isolation and depression. Many old people are dying alone in their apartments. So being in a close supportive family can mitigate this. But I also think that western culture is slowly encroaching into Japan which is causing the loss of traditional family values.
"Isolation is the number one precursor for depression and suicide," says Wataru Nishida, a psychologist at Tokyo's Temple University.
Why does Japan have such a high suicide rate?
Don't think I ever claimed capitalism unfettered was the solution, it requires a balance. Income inequality is through consumerism and corporatism, not capitalism in any strict sense.
True but I think there is a fine line between capitalism and consumerism and corporatism. If capitalism is
the economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state then the logic and temptation would be if the state believes it is a good policy politically and economically then why not for health and welfare.
I think even the more socialist government parties are turning to economic rationalist ideals for health and welfare mainly because they cannot manage their budgets to pay for these things. We are seeing this with private health cover and the tough policies aimed at reducing welfare dependency.
Actually you can, there's nothing saying it cannot be so, because capitalism is not strictly about capital without the balance you and I both agree it requires. What you describe would be unfettered laissez faire capitalism like some libertarians might advocate.
Maybe but I don't trust politicians.
Social welfare requires state involvement and that doesn't require it creates a dependency issue if properly applied.
The problem I see is that many western governments have moved away from even providing basic welfare support and are implementing more and more user pay services through outsourcing. They just haven't got the money to pay for a growing and demanding welfare and health system and therefore depend on the private market.
This is especially true for implementing preventative family friendly measures as they cannot even deal with the problems already created and they are more preoccupied with presenting a balance budget to get votes. They create a discourse that demonizes welfare dependency and the voters seem to but it.
You used the word neo liberalism, not me
Neoliberalism is characterized by free market trade, deregulation of financial markets, individualisation, and the shift away from state welfare provision. And that is exactly what is happening in many western nations including much of the EEC where they now require a country to be economically viable to enter.
Healthcare shouldn't be privatized to the exclusion of those who can't pay for it based on standards that favor consumerism and such, healthcare isn't the same as welfare or education, though education and healthcare both have a particular issue that makes them difficult to privatize in the sense that it's a limited resource that requires investment of time and money to get the qualifications to be a doctor/nurse or teacher respectively.
Believe me the government will find a way to privatize things. They may not be able to completely private something like national basic healthcare but they can privatize much of the structures that support it by contracting it out. They can also have policies based on the principles of privatization such as changing eligibility rules for getting health care. Dentistry is no longer a free service which is health related so everyone's teeth are now rotting which causes more health issues.
Again, you're talking about capitalism without any social welfare as part of it, which isn't remotely how it is universally characterized and certainly isn't as polarizing as you seem to make it relative to social welfare
I am not saying that the health and welfare system is completely privatized. But over recent years the governments have gradually brought in more economically rationalist policies. Like mentioned above. Like toughing up the eligibility and penalty rules for qualification of welfare and health. I could mention 2 dozen recent policies that have denied basic health and welfare services to people compared to years ago.
But the main point is that it is the preventative care that helps families stay together and remain strong. Governments have been three steps behind prevention and are always battling to deal with the problems created by not implementing good family friendly policies in the first place. That's because it would require longer term strategies which don't pay immediate dividends that make them look good in the now. That's the way the western political system works and that's the problem.
Proper management of resources doesn't require a purely capitalist regard, but basic structural considerations that are more about social planning than economics in the broadest sense.
I agree and this would be a good thing. The problem I think is that we have the best managers in the private sector because it is demanded based on the bottom line. But it is hard to apply this thinking to the public sector without also implementing all the other economic rationalist thinking which often means cutting waste and things that are not viable to make profits. But social welfare is about human beings with all sorts of human issues which cannot be seen in terms of profits.
