https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/25/1164819944/live-free-and-die-the-sad-state-of-u-s-life-expectancy
I checked the article and apparently that one is actually Germany
How would this work then? Wouldn't this imply that the GDR had a much lower life expectancy, low enough that rolling it into Germany caused the average life expectancy to plunge? What am I missing here?
Wouldn’t this imply that the GDR had a much lower life expectancy, low enough that rolling it into Germany caused the average life expectancy to plunge? What am I missing here?
Abruptly ending the entire social safety net in the GDR and replacing it wholesale caused a lot of people to die, I imagine. I'm no expert on the topic, but it's well-documented that there was a massive spike in deaths in East Germany once the wall fell.
Naturally this was a major contributor, I'm just surprised it caused the entire country's LE to drop so fast and so dramatically, although this was par for the course in the eastern bloc countries undergoing shock therapy.
Apparently we still don't know exactly why, because the incoming Freedom and Democracy of the West™ thought it was a cool idea to rip out the entire medical coding system in GDR hospitals. So there's very little data on why life expectancy dropped even in the furthest west parts of the former eastern bloc.
It did, by about 2,5 years.
Apparently the GDP per capita in 1950 was 10 079€ for the FRG and 7 886€ for the GDR (78% of the FRG's) and in 1989, 30 035€ for the GDR vs 39 124€ for the FRG (76,7% of the FRG's) - and when the stagnation started in 1981 (possible cause: political turmoil in Poland, just across the eastern border; computer boom in the west; stagnation in the USSR) the gap was at 80,9%.
Capitalism killed soviet socialism precisely so that it could get away with doing this to american workers without the threat of a better example in the USSR where people would be living longer and being taken care of.
2015 looks like statistical noise.
Statististical is maybe the wrong term, since I din’t think these are sampling based, but small changes in a short period are probably more due to random fluctuations than genuine environmental changes.
If you mean the curve leveling off in like the 2008-2017 range, I think that's long term effects of thr 2009 recession.
The average going down, okay.
But every single country except Japan exhibiting a decrease? No, something's going on there.
Would you rather poor people die in an apartment fire, or have an imperceptive loss of income and not have the psychic gratification of hearing about poor people dying in an apartment fire?
If only this could be the graph for billionaires keeping their heads on their necks our world could look so different. :gui-better:
This is actually good for the United States, because the declining medicare demographic will free up defense budget :sus-torment:
I remember when Cuba's life expectancy had just barely surpassed America's. Now Cuba is a full year and a half ahead lmao
Bad take. This is anti-working class woke liberalism at its worst. :liberalism:
Try caring about all segments of the working class, or does it not make you FEEL as good as being able to laugh over the graves of millions of people dying early because of capitalism does?
What's the Matter with Kansas? (2005)
A brilliant analysis-and funny to boot-What's the Matter with Kansas? is a vivid portrait of an upside-down world where blue-collar patriots recite the Pledge while they strangle their life chances; where small farmers cast their votes for a Wall Street order that will eventually push them off their land; and where a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs has managed to convince the country that it speaks on behalf of the People.
:amerikkka:
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691217079/deaths-of-despair-and-the-future-of-capitalism
Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism
Deaths of despair from suicide, drug overdose, and alcoholism are rising dramatically in the United States, claiming hundreds of thousands of American lives. Anne Case and Angus Deaton explain the overwhelming surge in these deaths and shed light on the social and economic forces that are making life harder for the working class. As the college educated become healthier and wealthier, adults without a degree are literally dying from pain and despair. Case and Deaton tie the crisis to the weakening position of labor, the growing power of corporations, and a rapacious health-care sector that redistributes working-class wages into the pockets of the wealthy. This critically important book paints a troubling portrait of the American dream in decline, and provides solutions that can rein in capitalism’s excesses and make it work for everyone.
so, desperate working class people who feel like there is no alternative to present conditions are dying at a higher rate than others. You know that's people who would, if they weren't dead or dying, be receptive to a dialectical materialist understanding of class and American politics, yes? What makes you assume the majority of them are racists?
https://www.npr.org/2020/03/18/817687042/deaths-of-despair-examines-the-steady-erosion-of-u-s-working-class-life
For white Americans between 45 and 54, average life expectancy was no longer increasing; in fact, it was actually declining — in a pattern seen almost nowhere else on Earth.
