Kelley makes some good arguments, but the correlation between a period of Stalinism/social democracy and suicide seems to jump out of the figures however much you twist and turn them. It's an interesting thought, but maybe the sense of Durkheimian anomie is at its highest in those countries where the state has done most to substitute itself for more voluntaristic forms of human solidarity.
I interviewed a child-protection lawyer from Sweden who told some pretty horrific stories about the Swedish state's willingness to lock up parents, mostly immigrants, whose parenting skills were not officially approved - mostly for smacking their kids.
http://www.informinc.co.uk/LM/LM121/LM121_Taboos.html
As I've said before, the correlation between welfarist and eugenic policies is reason to think twice about the idea that the Swedish 'third way' is some kind of 'human face of socialism'.
In message <3.0.3.32.19990808223912.0069a6f8 at pop.flash.net>, kelley <kcwalker at syr.edu> writes
>a better way of thinking about the issue would be to ask if the suicides
>rates have always been 'high' in sweden and other countries whch have high
>rates. if so, then we can pretty much guess that socialism isn't the
>problem. turns out that sweden's suicide rate has been pretty steady at
>around 15-20/1000 throughout 20th c., with an upsurge in the 60s and 70s
>where it got it's rep. suicide per 1000 deaths [1994 world health organization]
>
>Estonia 40.95
>Hungary 35.38
>Slovenia 31.16
>Finland 27.26
>Denmark 22.13
>Austria 22.12
>Switzerland 21.22
>France 20.79
>Mexico 17.58
>Belgium 19.04
>Japan 16.72
>Sweden 15.75
>Germany 15.64
>Portugal 14.83
>Singapore 14.06
>Canada 13.19
>Mauritius 12.98
>Norway 13.64
>New Zealand 12.81
>Australia 12.65
>Scotland 12.16
>United States 12.06
>Hong Kong 10.29
>Netherlands 10.10
>South Korea 9.48
>Ireland 9.81
>N. Ireland 8.41
>Italy 8.00
>England/Wales 7.68
>Israel 7.05
>Spain 7.77
>Greece 3.40
>Kuwait 1.66
>
>
>
>
-- Jim heartfield