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The Selfish Capitalist: Origins of Affluenza
 
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The Selfish Capitalist: Origins of Affluenza (Hardcover)

by Oliver James (Author)
3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
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The Selfish Capitalist: Origins of Affluenza + Affluenza + They F*** You Up: How to Survive Family Life
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Vermilion (3 Jan 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0091923816
  • ISBN-13: 978-0091923815
  • Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 14 x 3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 83,656 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description

In the bestselling Affluenza, world-renowned psychologist Oliver James introduced us to a modern-day virus sweeping through the English-speaking world. He met those suffering from it and demonstrated how their obsessive, envious tendencies made them twice as prone to depression, anxiety and addictions than people in other developed nations. Now The Selfish Capitalist provides more detailed substantiation for the claims made in Affluenza. It looks deeper into the origins of the virus and outlines the political, economic and social climate in which it has grown. James points out that, since the seventies, the rich have got much, much richer, yet the average person's wage has not increased at all. He provides a wealth of evidence to show that we have become more miserable and distressed since this time, and suggests that this is a direct consequence of Thatcherite/Blairite 'Selfish Capitalism', whose most significant act has been to rob the poor to give to the rich. A rallying cry to the government to reduce our levels of distress by adopting a form of unselfish capitalism, this hard-hitting and thought-provoking work tells us why our personal well-being must take precedence over the wealth of a tiny minority if we are to cure ourselves of this disease.


About the Author

Oliver James trained and practised as a child clinical psychologist and, since 1987, has worked as a writer, journalist and television documentary producer and presenter. His books include Juvenile Violence in a Winner-Loser Culture, the bestselling They F*** You Up and Britain on the Couch, which was also a successful documentary series for Channel 4. He is a trustee of two children's charities: the National Family and Parenting Institute and Homestart. His most recent book Affluenza, was a Sunday Times bestseller.

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Customer Reviews

23 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.6 out of 5 stars (23 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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129 of 165 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Who makes us mentally ill?, 22 Jan 2008
Another dull book from Mr James. The central thesis is that advanced capitalism, with its emphasis on keeping up with the Joneses, makes us mentally ill. Snippets of data from this or that study (much is made of the WHO report on mental health) are sketchily introduced to give the impression that this is a serious academic work; it definitively isn't.

Some argue that the perception of the increase in mental disorders is due to the burgeoning of the psychiatry profession and its incessant message that we are all need their services. These days, shyness isn't just shyness; it is social anxiety or avoidant personality disorder, afflictions said to trouble millions. Emotions and states of mind that were considered normal twenty years ago are now diagnosed as pathologies.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the bible of psychiatrists, has been transformed from the slim handbook it was up until the 1980s into a chunky tome, with hundreds of new, poorly specified and poorly researched syndromes. The descriptions of many `disorders' are so generalised and so catch-all that, indeed, it would be possible to say that all or most people are mentally ill at various stages of their lives. The tragedy of trying to increase the market of consumers of therapy (psychotherapy is a lucrative business and like any business it cannot stay still or it will go under. It needs to find new markets or sell more services to the same market) is that those who truly are in need and suffer from *real* emotional or behavioural disorders, are left out in the cold and don't get the help they need.

Mr James has additional reasons for continuing to preach his trite message that we are all in need of psychotherapy. He is deeply imbedded with the psychoanalytic movement (psychodynamic psychotherapy) in the UK, albeit as a `lay' member. Such movement, however, is holding on by its fingertips in the competitive business of psychotherapy. It needs all the help it can get to spread its message; including the services of a mediocre populariser. No wonder Mr James keeps repeating that CBT doesn't work!

For alternative views on the lucrative and not particularly healthy world of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, you may want to read the following books (they are not more biased than Oliver James's "work").

Christopher Lane,
Shyness: How Normal Behaviour Became a Sickness.

Frank Furedi
Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age

Anna Sands
Falling for Therapy: Psychotherapy from a Client's Point of View

Frederick Crews
Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays

Tana Dineen
Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry is Doing to People
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93 of 120 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Anti-Capitalist rant masquerading as a serious argument, 20 Jan 2008
The dust jacket says the book provides `more detailed substantiation' for the claims about materialism being a contributing cause of mental illness, made in Affluenza (James' previous book, which raised the possible link, but was criticized for being light on evidence).

But this is one of the worst books I've ever read all the way through. It's a rant by an unreconstructed 1970's socialist about the evils of Thatcherism/ Reagonomics/ Neoliberalism (together `Selfish Capitalism') and US foreign policy and New Labour, masquerading as a serious argument.

James distinguishes between `survival materialism' (desire for the basic necessities) which he says does not lead to mental illness and `relative materialism' (keeping up with the Joneses) which he says has led to longer working hours, poorer parenting (as parents spend less time with their young children), increased stress, weaker relationships, greater inequality of income and wealth - all in turn leading to an epidemic of mental illness, principally in those countries that have embraced selfish capitalism (US, UK, Australia, some ex-communist countries); in contrast, the more paternalist European and more egalitarian Scandinavian countries and Japan have not seen a similar rise in mental illness (chiefly depression).

The best part of the book is the last 3 pages of chapter 3, where James identifies a number of other factors correlated with mental illness, which may be more important causes of the mental illness epidemic:

* Levels of collectivism vs individualism
* Economic inequality
* Anomie and alienation
* Levels of absent fathers.
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94 of 122 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars A deceitful book, 30 Jan 2008
This book is not different from all the previous writings in Mr James' repertoire; it argues that, manipulated and goaded by the marketing industry, we confuse wants with needs.

It could be said that our strange attraction to the ever expanding self-help and psycho-bubble industry (which includes psychodynamic psychotherapy, incidentally) together with increased levels of disposable income, cause growing preoccupation about how happy or unhappy we are and how much more in touch with our inner child/feelings we could be if only the message of the latest guru could resonate more with us. What is this, if not another manifestation of the `me', `me', `me', selfishness and self absorption that Oliver James condemns?

This kind of writing is part of the problem (of an increasingly atomised society) not part of the solution.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Who's laughing now ????
I read this book about 2 years ago ( 2007 ) when oliver James was on a visit to Sydney. The book got good coverage from the SMH then. Read more
Published 6 months ago by B. Bruno

3.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't do what it says on the cover
I read Affluenza and very strongly agreed with Oliver James' central thesis. This book claims to be a 'detailed substantiation for the claims made in Affluenza. Read more
Published 7 months ago by M. T. Allenby

5.0 out of 5 stars Spot on!
I have just read this book having read "Affluenza" some months sgo. It fills in what I thought to be a lot of gaps in the latter book. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Gordon Brocksopp

5.0 out of 5 stars Argues concisely and evidently has ruffled feathers
It stands to reason that the 'neo-liberals', who have benefitted from 'selfish capitalism' and the influence of materialism on the more disadvantaged as well benefitting from a... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Anti propaganda

4.0 out of 5 stars Wrongly Maligned
This book is a follow up to Oliver James previous work Affluenza. This provides deeper background to support his arguments. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Kane Clements

2.0 out of 5 stars You may have a point, but you don't have the answer...
It's an age old problem - The rich get richer and everyone else envies them. Since the dawn of human civilisation people have divided labour and accumulated capital, and some of... Read more
Published 19 months ago by N. W. Field

4.0 out of 5 stars Why we are richer but poorer. . .
This book is an expose of the acquire/aspire obsession in English speaking countries of the last 30 years, and may rub some people up the wrong way as a result. Read more
Published 20 months ago by C. Brighton

4.0 out of 5 stars A useful companion volume to Affluenza
I really enjoyed Affluenza, but found it anecdotal and rather long. The Selfish Capitalist is more research based than interview based, and draws on all kinds of different... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Jeremy Williams

5.0 out of 5 stars Elightening...and NOT Anti-Capitalist
Unlike Mrs Thatcher, Oliver James thinks that there is such a thing as society and that the one in which we currently live is ailing fast. Read more
Published 21 months ago by M. Marlow

1.0 out of 5 stars Not very interesting
I have no doubt that there are a few good points about the dangers of conspicuous consumption in advanced capitalist societies, buried in this book. Read more
Published 22 months ago by WIlma Knutz

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