In medicine, this translates into a primordial belief that the system is working for our good. That doctors are using science to get us better. And that there is an unending march forward in medical advances.
Sure, this is not the total view. Most people just don't want to think about illness at all, unless it is forced on them by necessity. Out of sight, out of mind. But when crisis begins, faith also begins to spring forward. Faith in the capitalist medical professionals.
So let's take a brief overview of mental health, and see how little benefit the capitalist medical system really has to offer. The record here, is as dismal as it is in other aspects of health care. And the pro-system propaganda is even more insidious.
In brief, people are being told that the medical system is conquering depression and schizophrenia. We are bombarded world wide, with a constant bath of propaganda that new scientific advances are being made on these fronts. Especially important is the battle against depression, since it is something that we are all exposed to in our own daily lives.
Key here, is to question whether depression and schizophrenia are the major portion of the spectrum of mental illness in society, just because the medical system focuses on this. An even greater problem is aggression and violence.
But aggression and violence are sponsored by capitalism, so medicine has tended to only become involved in this issue with patients that have committed official criminal acts, as defined by law or other public authority, such as the school system.
And key to all these probems of depression, aggression, and even schizophrenia, is stress. Here is a dilemna for capitalist medicine. How can stress be treated?
Stress can be treated two ways. It can be reduced, or it can be moderated by "happy pills". What a terrible situation for practioners of medicine for profit!
"Happy pills" are abused and become part of the problem itself. PLUS, they are prohibited in large part, by an elite that realizes that a drugged horse runs slower. Here is the real ideological stance of church and state, reduced to a nutshell. A drugged horse runs slower.
So why not tackle the problem from an angle of reducing stress in our lives? Why doesn't capitalist medicine campaign scientifically for reducing disease causing stress in society? Clearly, with less stress, we would need less "happy pills", or "antidepressants".
The answer is simple, and parallels why capitalist medicine cannot struggle seriously against overuse of antibiotics, either. It has to do with the need to accept capitalist disease causing structures without mention. Or funding and well paid employment gets cut off.
Capitalism loves stress for workers. Speedup is indigenous to the capitalist system. It is held up as its highest virtue. Stress is progress. Stress is efficiency!
The whole foundation of capitalism is speedup. The assembly line is speedup personified. But capitalism didn't stop here in its efforts to "rationalize" economic activity. Speedup was introduced into all areas of personal life. Fast food, highways, cellular phones, computers; all represent speedup introduced into daily living, non-stop.
Capitalism is dependent on a mentally ill, stressed out society. And it continually tries to speedup the line, everywhere. An interesting example is seen in volume. Compare sound levels in cinemas and at concerts, with the sounds of traditional music.
So how can capitalist medicine treat mental illness? The answer is simple. It can't. It can only pretend to do so. And just as capitalist medicine has botched up treating infectious disease, it is producing a larger and larger number of botched up victims of its medical practice in the area of mental health.
It is this inability of capitalist medical structures to maintain an ecologic balance between health and disease, that is creating the biggest crisis world wide for capitalism's survival. Capitalist medicine cannot check the profit making need for continual speedup on all assembly lines.
Our health is going to sink on board this Medical Titanic.
Tony Abdo