HeavenlyPossum @HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social
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We know, definitively, that chronic stress has a major negative effect on our health…

(pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/)

…and poverty entails constant, grinding stress.

Wages and income are of course important factor for understanding economic well-being, but an approach that treats economic well-being as a synonym for *stuff* misses the social aspect of the US (and any) economy. How much do you control your own economic choices? How confident are you that your economic choices have a meaningful effect on your economic outcomes?

The answer for most Americans is “none or very little.”

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The effects of chronic stress on health: new insights into the molecular mechanisms of brain–body communication

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov · PubMed Central (PMC)

HeavenlyPossum @HeavenlyPossum@kolektiva.social
Public

Humans are distinctly social animals. When humans are kept in isolation, we experience declining mental and physical health, irreversible cognitive changes, and, eventually, death.

We cannot separate the social from the material. Our social standing has a direct effect on our material well-being. This isn’t something we can casually dismiss by pointing to *relative* poverty, as if it’s ok to be poor compared to Elon Musk because we have access to YouTube. People who live in egalitarian communities, even ones that have so much less *stuff* than ours, seem to experience less of the stress that drives our high rates of self-harm:

researchgate.net/publication/3

And so the rampant, growing, and obscene inequality in the US isn’t just turning the economy into a giant scam factory and encouraging people to check out from electoral politics. It is literally, physically, materially killing us.

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(PDF) Suicide among the Mla Bri hunter-gatherers of Northern Thailand

PDF | The Mla Bri are a small group of nomadic hunter-gatherers (about 400) living in northern Thailand who since the 1990s have begun to settle in... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

www.researchgate.net · ResearchGate

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