In his study of suicides, the French sociologist Emile Durkheim found a relationship between suicide and capitalism. When we look at today, we see that suicides have become more frequent with the outbreak of neoliberal capitalism, especially after the 1980s.
Their numbers in 38 European countries in 1996-2002 150,000 The WHO stated that in 2000, approximately one million people all over the world ended their lives by suicide. WHO says that today, 800,000 people worldwide end their lives every year. In the 2020 annual report of the Gendarmerie General Command, it was announced that 5 thousand 593 people attempted suicide under the heading of ‘events to be followed’ in 2020. It is stated that the annual number of suicide attempts in Turkey is between 40 and 150 thousand.
In this case, it is obvious that Durkheim’s work sheds light on the future of society. Moreover, the point that Durkheim criticizes is that capitalism is more goods and accumulation of wealth to be released with a motto that can provide
In other words, while capitalism can bring more happiness, the opposite result, the increase in suicide cases, makes one think that capitalism is not something that brings happiness. So this is Durkheim’s inversely proportional What were their findings on the situation? Let’s see together.
According to Durkheim, one of the reasons for suicides is the perception of individuality created by capitalism.
Durkheim, as a result of his study, the types of suicide selfish, altruistic and unruly (anomic) talking about it. If you ask what this means, for example, a selfish suicide type, which is also related to our subject, if a person cannot feel integrated with the society they live in, they may commit suicide because the person feels lonely and alone.
capitalism, emphasizing individualism It removes the status of belonging to a community in traditional societies. As it is understood, since the capitalist system has a mechanism that centers the individual and focuses on what the individual can do, capacity and limits, it is among Durkheim’s theories that people who cannot keep up with this process may commit suicide.
Capitalism demands more from individuals than they can do. For this reason, problems such as irregularity, excessive competition and unhappiness may arise in the society.
Durkheim argued that capitalism ‘they can do more than they can’ He speaks of instilling hope in his direction. In this way, people are not satisfied with the life they live by feeling pressure on them and, in common terms, are offended by their fate. Feelings such as jealousy, anger and hatred among people increase more because everyone wants to have more material possessions in the capitalist order, and people may see someone who has more luxury than themselves as a threat.
For example, in traditional social structures, people had to internalize the rules of that group in order to feel belonging to a group. Even Durkheim, with the rules of a group overidentification He calls the resulting suicides as altruistic suicides. But now, with the modern society structure, being free has become popular. It can be said that social norms have been eroded as capitalism feeds the modern society structure to be ‘without rules’. Durkheim refers to this situation as anomalous. anomie by explaining the concept; He explains that when social norms are eroded, there is no meaning that people can hold on to, and therefore suicides can occur.
The most important thing is the weakening of the family phenomenon that comes with a collective collapse.
Although Durkheim talks about the weakening of collective perception in society and the emergence of normlessness with capitalism, the main reason that leads people to commit suicide may be that they cannot find a family to hold on to. Because family members ‘they can feel’ an environment. But as Durkheim stated, the concept of family has evolved from the extended family to the nuclear family, and this family structure is not intertwined from birth to death.
For example, nowadays, when children grow up, they may not want to work with families as in traditional times, build their own life can ask. In other words, nowadays, mostly people prefer to move away from their social group by listening to the advice of capitalism that it is necessary to work and strive individually, because they have more economic concerns.
Resources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
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