Letter: Socialists 'shying away'? (1996)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists 'shying away'?

Dear Editors,

In May’s Socialist Standard Jonathan Clay writes that "evil” has social roots, rather than being some theologically explicable external force ("Dunblane—a Question of Evil?"). Let’s take "evil" as meaning acts of gross inhumanity, and let’s accept this as a sound argument. As capitalism becomes more effective in undermining our essential humanity as states and companies are increasingly free of restraint on their use of our lives for their purposes, then it seems that random acts of "evil" by individuals become more common.

This makes perfect sense to me, and finds an echo in Erich Fromm’s study of "evil"— Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. In this superb work, Fromm reasons that commercial and corporate life produces certain character types who have a tendency towards sadism as a solution to the draining away of meaning and human contact from their lives. It is a commonplace in psychology that such tendencies are more likely to be actively expressed if the person is subjected to pressure, and who can deny that modern capitalism produces an abundance of stress and pressure on everyone subjected to it?

I wonder, however whether Clay's picture might be incomplete in a vital areas of inquiry. There is a sense of omission here for me which feels important, and which is shared, to do Clay credit, by Fromm’s approach. The omission concerns our incomprehension of how antisocial pathology is actually formed in an individual character. Clay put it this way:

"The formation of an individual is on extremely complex, open-ended process which, even will all possible information about that individual at our disposal, can never be adequately grasped."

Is this so, I wonder? We as Socialists certainly feel that we can arrive at, at least, an "adequate” grasp of social mechanisms, in spite of their complexity and opacity. The fact is that there is a body of work available now which shines a good deal of light into the hitherto dark region of enquiry encompassed by the word "evil’’.

John Bowlby’s work on attachment and loss, in which he built upon insights gained through a study of hospitalised children, has given birth to whole field of investigation called Attachment Theory, which is proving fruitful in the understanding of antisocial behaviour and even acts of gross savagery. For example. it shows that violent rage stems from a disrupted attachment in infancy or early childhood, from a breakdown in a carer’s ability to provide a "secure base" for the child, for whatever reason, we are not talking about judgements here, but about explanations.

Experiments carried out by Ainsworth. Mary Main and others show that even among under-five's it is possible to prove a connection between the quality of attunement and boundary setting provided by a parent for an infant, and that infant's behaviour in an observed play setting. The better the connection the parents are able to offer the child, the more the child will play sociably and as an equal with its peers, whereas infants of parents who are neglectful will be disruptive and perhaps bullying. For an excellent overview, expanding and in my view deepening Fromm’s masterpiece, anyone interested might read Felicity De Zulueta's From Pain to Violence—The Traumatic Roots of Destructiveness (Whurr 1993).

Socialists tend to shy away from such work. They fear that it implies the abandonment of societal explanations for personal ones. We think what we hear is—"society isn’t sick— you are!" We are suspicious because we think such thinking is simply the blaming of the powerless for the abuse of the powerful. the shackling of working-class mothers with the responsibility for all the ills of the world.

This is not so. The understanding of the origins of pathology is not the same thing as judging. Under capitalism in many ways adequate parenting can become almost impossible.

Of course suspicion is healthy here. I’m not arguing for the shifting of responsibility from capitalists onto hard-pressed parents, but let us not turn our backs on new thinking which casts light on, not only gross crimes, but also the psychological mechanisms which help to produce our assent for abuse and exploitation.

I want to look at Jonathan Clay’s description of reality under capitalism for a moment He talks of: "Fragmentation, powerlessness. alienation, anxiety and despair, in a world which is chaotic beyond all our attempts at control."

This accurate description of how capitalist society can feel is also a beautiful and harrowing evocation of how it must feel to be a helpless neglected child. Such a child, as an adult, may well feel driven to inflict those unbearable emotions on others now less powerful than himself. Such logic does not excuse his behaviour, but it may well explain it.

All of the foregoing is not intended to blame the powerless or shift the spotlight off capitalist society, but with gaining a better understanding of abuse power, which is, surely, the essence of capitalism. Abusive power masquerading as its opposite.

Clay quotes Camus, saying “Children will still die unjustly, even in a perfect society." Well, maybe we as Socialists have more to offer in illuminating this problem than Jonathan Clay thinks, at least if we can be more open to, and less afraid of. the more intimate "people sciences". To paraphrase him— "Do we really want to understand less?"

Peter Rigg, 

Nelson, Lancs

The Economic Foundations of Ill-Health (1944)

From the August 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Much emphasis has been laid of late years, particularly since the war, on the importance of health education. It is a tragic fact that under the present system it takes a war to reveal the condition of the nation’s health. The Boer War revealed the harm done to the manhood of England by their employment as young children in the factories and mines. Those surviving, whilst fit enough to be alive, were not, curiously enough, sufficiently fit to die for their country. The last great war revealed a high percentage of C3s. Robert Sinclair, in “Metropolitan Man,” states (page 28) : “The position has not substantially changed since the closing year of the war, when the Ministry of National Service compiled a health census of the 2,500,000 young men who then attained their eighteenth birthday. Of this fine flower of the English race, two specimens in every three were unfit.”

Complacency during this war has not been so much disturbed by the prospective fighting men as by the condition of their children. Evacuation of the town populations to the country brought to light some startling facts. Dr. Kenneth Mellanby, quoted in “Our Towns” (page 5), suggests that 50 per cent. of the evacuated children were verminous. Their hostesses were horrified by their condition, but had they become aware of the state of the “homes” from which many had come, their horror would have been better founded.

“The New Survey of London Life and Labour,” quoted in “Our Towns” (page 40), states : “It is the exception rather than rule to have water ready at hand in unlimited quantities. In half the houses investigated water has to be fetched from outside the tenement, often from a tap on the landing, sometimes from across a yard, at others up or down three flights of stairs; nor is the place for emptying dirty water always where the tap is—it may be yet further away.”

Public health workers, such as health visitors, midwives, school nurses, are expected to be the educators of the working class living in the conditions mentioned above. Under the more passable conditions of some of the working class their advice is welcomed and followed; to those dulled by years of the most brutalising poverty, it fails to register. To the more intelligent among the poorest, however, nothing could be more exasperating. Under hopeless conditions, health talks serve to deepen frustration.

The writer recently attended a lecture on Parentcraft. As he stated his case, the lecturer cited a family of his acquaintance as an example of what parentcraft can do. They appeared to be in the direst poverty, but due to the untiring efforts of the mother, the children had survived. The writer made a reference to “Birth, Poverty and Wealth,” by R. Titmuss, a work showing how descent in the social scale, and the type of work performed by the father, condemned the children to a greater expectation of disease and early death than those of the highest professional groups, and was the greatest factor in the health of the family. The lecturer stated that, whilst he appreciated the effects, he felt that much could be done to ameliorate them by knowledge of parentcraft. What empty hopes! Reminiscent of the boy who, by holding his hand over the hole in the dyke, hoped to stem the flood. Thus do reformers waste their time and energies in trying to alleviate the direct effects of capitalism, instead of striving to abolish the cause.

Health education comprises also a knowledge of food facts. In December, 1937, the Ministry of Health and the British Medical Association worked out budgets in which the amount necessary for food lay between 5s. and 6s. a week per head at the then prevailing prices. Aleck Bourne, commenting on it in “The Health of the Future” (page 81), says : “It may be true that if such a sum were spent by a housewife with a sound practical knowledge of the vitamin and mineral content of the food exposed for sale, she might be able to feed her family without physiologial privation. But this would still not be possible, even though she could buy the food, unless she had been taught how to prepare and cook it, both to preserve the living elements and also to make it palatable and attractive.”

Let us try to imagine the mother of a large family, living, if very fortunate, in a council house; if less fortunate, in a tenement, or even in one room or less, in the worst part of an industrial town. Her vitality is diminished by repeated births and the unending struggles to wash, cook, clean and care for her little ones in surroundings not conducive to the continuance of such activities. Yes, it is very hard to imagine her sitting down and planning the day’s menus in a balanced manner; much easier to imagine her buying fish and chips, bread, marg. and jam, and washing down the mixture with over-sweetened tea as a stimulant. Under such conditions, knowledge, if imparted, could scarcely be made of use. A telling incident is recorded in “Our Towns,” showing how bad housing induces bad eating: “The motives of conduct of poverty are sometimes very far to seek for the well-to-do. An old woman who was bringing up a 10 year old grandson used, when short of money, to give him 2d. to buy two cubes of a proprietary extract. Asked why she did not buy herrings instead, she replied, ‘You see, we’ve only got one room, and the smell of fish frying turns me stomach; and it brings out the mice, and I’m afraid of mice'” (page 41).

Many of these incidents must have occurred within the experience of the average worker, but for a last damning example we will turn to America, that land of the free, and further to South Carolina, that erstwhile home of slavery, where negroes now live under conditions never equalled in the heyday of the “Southern Gentlemen.”

“Look,” an American magazine, in its June 1942 issue, published an article entitled “Parenthood U.S.A., The Story of South Carolina.” It deals with the appalling conditions in Berkeley and Lee counties, which are mainly populated with negroes. “Tucked away in the hot amiable heart of South Carolina are the counties called Berkeley and Lee. Here in two areas, each of 1,200 parched square miles, rural, agricultural, economically impotent, 70 per cent. Negro, exists a public health programme with teeth in it, obstetrical care, infant care and baby spacing are its three main functions. Nowhere in the U.S.A. was there a greater need for such a programme. In 1936, 360 South Carolina mothers died in childbirth; 5,600 infants died in their first year, a higher proportion than in any other state. In 1939, when South Carolina made baby-spacing one of its official public health services, Berkeley County instantly began functioning as an experimental centre. … If the programme works in these impoverished regions, it will work anywhere.”

Graphic descriptions follow. The main diseases rampant include V.D., malaria, rickets, pellegra. Malnutrition is common enough to be almost the rule. The article states in uncompromising terms, “Low incomes mean high infant death rates.” What, then, is the solution to the problem in South Carolina ? The obvious one of raising incomes, or of abolishing the wages system and providing plenty for all? No! what is called baby spacing is alleged to be the panacea for all ills.

Whatever so-called success attends this health drive, it can only constitute a palliative. The malaria may be treated by free quinine, but in such a district, with sanitation almost nil, re-infection will quickly occur. The treatment of syphilis is lengthy, and much of the damage done is irradicable. And the deficiency diseases, what of them ? With smaller families, the wage, such as it is, is divided among fewer mouths. But as the chief occupation is tenant farming in a dry, crop-poor land, reward for hard work is meagre. Many receive what we should term public assistance, and this, we know, maintains life, but not necessarily health. An excellent example this of capitalist reforms; surface scratching, leaving the hard core, the root cause untouched. After all the teaching of parentcraft, birth control and what you will, Berkeley and Lee will remain to their unfortunate inhabitants 2,400 parched square miles where they are compelled to sell their labour power at a bare existence price, or seek some other place. But wherever they go, they will be, whilst working, exploited; if idle, forming part of the industrial reserve army, and, finally, join the scrap heap.

When the worst anomalies are removed, others more subtle become apparent. An excellent exposition of the effects of poverty on the mentality of the school child is given in a work entitled, “A Pen’orth of Chips” by C. S. Regal. This school teacher, working in the Royal Borough of Kensington, found children living in over-crowded surroundings, getting little sleep, and that disturbed, having the well-known diet of bread and marg., getting little fresh air, with a greater preponderance of dullness than those living in less poverty-stricken districts. Dullness is a physical condition that may be inherited, but it may also be acquired. The difference in the stature of the elementary schoolboy and the public schoolboy is well known, but is the difference in the mental stature and its cause so readily appreciated?

It will take more than parentcraft, baby spacing, school meals, etc., to remove the effects of poverty in a world of plenty; it will take a complete change in the social system to bring about production solely for people’s needs, and not in order to make a profit such as obtains to-day. Poverty for the many is inherent in the capitalist system, and we must work for Socialism in order to remove it. By Socialism we do not mean public utility corporations, State control and National Health services, which pass for it with some of our less well informed fellow-workers. By Socialism we mean a system in which all who are able participate in production, and everyone receives what he needs. Only under Socialism can the heart-breaking effects of poverty be removed and all have an opportunity of living the good life as well as enjoying good health.

W. P.

Child Benefits (2009)

From the February 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

In times of economic insecurity, nothing calms the nerves better than a good moral panic.

The last recession coincided with the media interest in the James Bulger murder, and the British media and sanctimonious politicians have recently found plenty of reasons for moralising, with the investigation into the death of “Baby P” in Haringey and the Karen Matthews prosecution for kidnapping her own daughter.

  The Baby P case in particular fuelled many column inches split between sermonising about human nature and trying to find a person to blame: anything but a serious examination of childcare inside capitalism. Within hours of the blame being squarely laid at the convenient door of supposedly incompetent employees of a failing council department, a Home Office survey was published showing how the (thankfully) rare incidence of child fatality is in fact just the tip of the iceberg. While approximately 1.5 million children are considered possibly at risk of deprivation or abuse, councils have the resources to actively monitor less than 2 percent of these. To find causes then we need to look beyond blaming individuals for the situation.

  It may seem simplistic to blame the treatment of Baby P and Karen Matthews’ daughter on this social system rather than on the immediate family in each instance. It is a complicated picture for sure, but we shouldn’t ignore the wider picture: the economic hardship of the majority inside capitalism, the atomised and alienated nature of much of our social interaction, and the anti-human values that flourish where profit comes first. We should perhaps not be surprised at the depths to which some stoop as adults when they have grown up in a society that materially and psychologically deprives and abuses humanity.

  Certainly it’s not just working class children that can suffer emotional abuse from their parents. While the media used these events as an excuse to go to town on the so-called underclass, blaming single mums on benefits for most of the world’s problems, it is worth noting one notable extended family which is full of single parents and are significant recipients of state benefits. The family Windsor might look a tad out of place on the sort of estates typified by TV’s “Shameless”, but despite their economic privilege, they are still far from being a good example of healthy emotional functioning.

  But no matter how many “good parenting” books you guiltily read, it’s harder to bring up happy children if you lack space, or the road outside is noisy and dangerous, or there’s no park nearby, or the nearest toddler’s group or GP surgery requires a bus ride to access. There is a mountain of evidence that poorer communities generally suffer more from such environmental or “community safety” issues.

  Children may well be “innocent”, “our future” and other such sentimentalised slogans, but more significantly they are also an immense hindrance to the smooth operation of the system of production for profit. The care and attention children need just doesn’t square easily with the time commitment demanded by employment. Despite ever-increasing standards of living (at least if measured by how flat your screen is, or how many different channels you can watch the latest “UK’s Worst-Behaved Kids” TV show on), the working week always seems to come in at around 40 hours. This allows just enough time for sleep, to feed yourself, and otherwise recover before the next shift.

  Inadequate childcare provision has been recognised by the government as a reason why some women (usually) give up work to bring up their child full-time. This undoubtedly helps the child’s emotional health and happiness. Unfortunately it reduces the productivity of UK plc. This has prompted a range of government measures to try and encourage employers to make the workplace more flexible for parents.

  Labour has made much of its 1999 commitment to reduce child poverty. it’s probably not too much of an exaggeration to say that this promise (to halve child poverty by 2010) has been the carrot dangled in front of the Labour membership that allowed it to go along with the many downsides of the last 10 years in government. Foremost amongst these of course was the Iraq War (which doesn’t appear to have done much for child poverty in that country). But of course it’s only UK kids that the government is concerned about. And not even all of them.

  The Labour government is clearly significantly less interested in the care of the kids of the unemployed. After all, in their own carefully-constructed phrase, it is only “hard-working families” that get their support. The rest can pretty much rot. A few days after the Haringey report findings were published, the government detailed their intention to get single mothers on benefits to sit lie detector tests to get them back to work within 12 months of the birth. This means forcing 12 month-old children into full-time childcare for up to 40 hours per week. The government’s own commissioned research indicates the long-term damage – in terms of emotional attachment, security, anger management and ability to form healthy relationships in later life – that childcare (i.e. away from primary care-giver) of over 16 hours per week can do to infants under three years of age. Remember the boast about “joined-up government”?

  Government promises are all very well, but it’s the economy that usually decides whether a political reform will stick. While Labour has made great play of how much it has prioritised child poverty in its ten years in office, numerous reports in the last few months have shown just how little impact this effort has made, and how structural poverty is inside capitalism.

One of the main criticisms that world socialists have of attempts to reform the insane system called capitalism, is that gains obtained one year may disappear when the economy dips, and you find yourself back at square one again. That looks to be what is happening as we enter a period of recession. A slump is the market’s way of correcting a serious failing – that is, the diminishing levels of profit returning to the owning class. That recalibration must occur inside capitalism, regardless of the damage to be incurred by those dependent on the state, such as children, the unemployed and the poor.

  The government’s 2010 target will probably then be missed, and by a long shot – the best part of a million children. The government’s response? – to boast of another target, a bigger target. This time they promise full eradication of child poverty by 2020. An impressive objective perhaps but so what? – if someone tells you a small lie and you find them out, it’s hard to be impressed if they respond by telling you an even bigger lie.

  The council workers involved in these recent “Broken Britain” news items, those whose job it is to mop up the human victims of the profit machine, were variously described as “failing”, “incompetent”, “not fit for purpose”. These adjectives should instead be directed at this social system, and at a quite fundamental level. Let’s not forget that – as unsympathetic and deluded an individual as she appears to be – Karen Matthews would simply not have kidnapped her daughter if it weren’t for her confidence (very well-placed as it turned out) that her unwitting accomplices in the media would be likely to stump up a £50,000 reward to keep the story on their front pages.

Brian Gardner

Pregnant pause (1987)

From the October 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

To use a phrase much favoured by those of a sporting ilk—we are over the moon. What is the cause of our unrestrained joy? We are going to have a baby.

Once the pregnancy is confirmed, one of the first things to happen to would-be mother is to be "inputted" into the medical system. For healthy people, who were last in hospital on the occasion of their own birth, the experience can seem an alien one. particularly, if like the majority, you are dependent upon the NHS.

The initial contact with the ante-natal clinic teaches the expectant parents several things. Firstly, one learns that lots of other people are expecting babies too! The work load imposed upon the health service is consequently greater than it can manage. No matter how dedicated the medical staff, a shabby, run-down working environment does nothing for the morale of either hospital staff, or patients.

Be prepared for a very long wait at the clinic. The time spent waiting may be used in a variety of educational ways. It is likely that upon arrival for your first visit you will be presented with a number of booklets, for example "The Baby Book" and "New Baby". Whilst booklets of this kind contain information that is extremely useful to would-be parents, they also contain a heavy amount of advertising. The commodities advertised range from nappies to breakfast cereals. Capitalism believes in catching them young. You may also, whilst waiting, be able to watch a video dealing with child birth, breast feeding, interspersed with advertisements for prams, maternity wear. etc. etc. etc.

All parents want the best out of life for their children. Some parents are in a better position to provide the best than are others. Whether a child is born with a golden spoon in his/her mouth, or a plastic one, is an accident of birth. For the child born to parents belonging to the capitalist class it is a very fortuitous accident. The path that winds from the cradle is likely to prove much easier to travel than the path confronting her/his working class counterparts.

When the birth takes place we shall not be announcing the occasion in The Times. Neither will our offspring join the present 6.6 per cent of UK pupils who go to public school. We cannot afford the fees that public schools charge — £5000+ a year at present. Eton, by the way, only comes fourteenth in the top fees list.

We hope that our child will grow up to be a healthy, happy person. That is a prospect which will be much more likely if we no longer have a system where the best way to become rich is to be born to rich parents.

Dave Coggan

Birth Pangs (1988)

From the April 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

It's true what they say, "If men had to bear children, there'd never be more than one in a family". The infusion pump bears a small plaque that says, "Donated by . . . , Fun Run. 1985". There is no bean-bag, no birthing- stool. no background Mozart or Barry Manilow, just an interminable time that gives us a new insight into the concept of "labour". When Eleanor, our daughter, finally emerges, our relief is quickly followed by wonder at the sight of the techni-coloured baby who has just joined the human race.

Like the proverbial Martian sent to discover whether there is intelligent life on the Planet Earth, a baby starts life with a completely open mind about the new world s/he now inhabits. Our Martian day-tripper, being a completely rational being, flees back to his own planet after half a day, convinced that the inhabitants of Earth all belong to a huge lunatic asylum. Research has been unable to pinpoint the exact features of life here that upset the alien so. but there is some evidence to suggest that exposure to Murdoch's tabloids. coupled with soaps and game-shows, exerted an unbearable stress on the Martian whose sense of good taste is much more highly developed than ours. Some commentators wondered whether a glimpse of a social system that keeps millions in poverty and hunger might not have affected the visitor but this analysis was dismissed out of hand by Prime Minister Thatcher on the basis that Martians don't pay the poll tax, and therefore can't vote.

But for the new-born there is no escape from a society where people are trained to think that individuals are powerless to alleviate hunger, or poverty, or homelessness, or misery. Instead, they are led to think that giving a few pounds to charities is the limit of their ability to change the order of things. It's not that people don't recognise the need for a better system, the infant could do that. But unlike the infant who has still to be conditioned, society's rulers have persuaded the rest that there is no alternative. You don't have to read the Sun, and you don't have to watch Eastenders or The Price is Right. You can probably avoid having fairy-stories preached at you by some reactionary, misogynist in a pulpit. But unless you happen to be a member of the capitalist class you will find it almost impossible to provide food, clothing or shelter for yourself without allowing capitalism to exploit you.

A child who, on entering the world, discovers that his/her parents belong to the ruling class, is hardly likely to squallingly demand to be instantly handed over to a working class family. As s/he lies in her/his cot dreaming of the life of privilege and luxury stretching ahead — benefits derived from the exploitation of those forced to sell their labour-power in order to live — does it occur to the infant to question why a majority continue to run capitalism for the benefit of a minority?

Asked for my occupation when registering the birth I am sorely tempted to state "Wage Slave". Driving home from the hospital I slot Lindisfarne into the cassette and sing loudly to Lady Eleanor. Then I think about my future reply to my daughter's unasked question. "What did you do in the Class War, Daddy?".

Dave Coggan

Material World: The Troubled-Teens Business (2012)

The Material World column from the January 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the internet I keep running across the same image - the scowling face of a teenage boy - accompanied by the words: Fix Defiant ODD Children. It is an ad for a “Total Transformation Program” that will “empower” you to “stop defiance, backtalk and lying” and “regain control of your child, your family and your life”.

ODD, in case you’re wondering, is the “diagnosis” that psychiatrists now pin on disobedient youngsters: Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Until recently no one had ever heard of it.

Numerous programs to “fix” disobedient kids are on offer to American parents. Many are residential programs run by private entrepreneurs in “boot camps” and other locked facilities located both inside the US and outside (in Mexico, Jamaica, Costa Rica, etc.). Or you can send your child off on a gruelling “wilderness expedition” in the harsh desert landscape of the Southwest.

Force and deception are routinely used to trap children in these programs, which usually entail physical and/or emotional cruelty inflicted in the name of “tough love”.

Abuse and deprivation sometimes result in death – in particular, when complaints of pain and exhaustion are not believed. (See, for instance, nospank.net/boot.htm: Torturing Teens for Fun and Profit.) In many places, victims are made to attack and humiliate one another and extract “confessions” (often fabricated) in spectacles reminiscent of “struggle meetings” in Maoist China.

Maia Szalavitz, author of Help At Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids (Riverhead Books, 2006), estimates that 10-20,000 teens are held in several hundred abusive programs at any one time. The programs are very lucrative business ventures, as fees are high while costs are kept low. Total profits are thought to be well over a billion dollars a year.

Why so desperate?

What makes people so desperate that they will abandon their own children to the “tough love” of strangers – and pay through the nose for the privilege? Parents are, of course, alarmed at the perils their children face – perils that even if exaggerated by sensationalist media reports are real enough. They worry especially that their children will start using street drugs. Many feel unable to cope with such problems and easily fall prey to any huckster who claims to have a solution. The decline in the economic position of working people over the last few decades has made it even harder for them to cope. Compensating for falling real wage rates by working longer hours or even  taking two jobs, parents are left with little time or energy to devote to bringing up their children.

Another factor is the strength of religious fundamentalism in large areas of the US. The “tough love” approach (which also includes corporal punishment, for example) is especially prevalent among fundamentalists. Many abusive programs call themselves Christian. Authoritarian relations within the family are an important part of the  fundamentalist creed. Preachers tell parents not to feel obliged to tolerate or respond to “backtalk” – in other words, to listen to and reason with their children.

Targeted by advertisers

But are children inherently more difficult to bring up nowadays? Doesn’t every generation imagine that their children are especially hard to understand and deal with? Be that as it may, there are good reasons for thinking that the task facing parents has become even more daunting. One significant change concerns advertising. In the past, except for items like sweets and chocolates, advertisers aimed only at adults. Now, as Juliet B. Schor describes in her book, Born to Buy (Scribner, 2004), children are a primary target of advertising and marketing campaigns. Exposure to these campaigns makes children anxious and obsessed with status. To acquire and maintain status they must nag their hard-pressed parents to buy them lots of expensive junk. Otherwise their peers will look down on them. Even apart from the anti-adult messages conveyed by some ads, this puts children and parents on a direct collision course. When some relatives of mine refused to buy something demanded by their son, he lay down on the floor of the store and screamed until they gave in – just to escape the embarrassing situation.

Attention deficit disorders

Then we should bear in mind the harm done to children’s mental capacities by long periods in front of a television. Research shows that the more hours of TV watched per day the more likely a child is to suffer from an attention deficit disorder. Video games have a similar destructive effect. How can a parent reason with a child who is unable to pay sustained attention?

This does not mean that TV and video games are solely responsible for attention deficit disorders. There is evidence that toxins in the environment such as organophosphates contribute to these disorders by disrupting thyroid hormones (Philip and Alice Shabecoff, Poisoned for Profit: How Toxins Are Making Our Children Chronically Ill, Chelsea Green Publishing 2010, pp. 92—95).

Profit at both ends

Many of the underlying causes of the difficulty of bringing up today’s youngsters – from the excessively long hours worked by their parents to TV advertising and environmental toxins – stem directly from the profit drive of capitalist business.

The same relentless and remorseless drive for profits underlies the fraudulent promises to “fix” ODD and other supposed mental disorders by means of dangerous drugs or abusive programs.

So, capitalists make huge profits at both ends, both in causing and in pretending to solve the problem. It is all good business for them.

And it all counts as “economic activity” for inclusion in the GDP statistics that prove how prosperous, productive and highly developed the country is.

Stefan