Needs No Introduction

In this episode of the Courage My Friends podcast, Capitalism and the mental health crisis, social worker, researcher and writer, Madeleine Ritts, researcher on mental health of Black communities, Michelle Sraha-Yeboah, and researcher and educator in labor issues, Jon Weier, discuss the current mental health crisis as an inevitable outcome of capitalism and whether good mental health is a benefit or a boon to our economic system. According to Ritts: “...Poverty, exploitation, alienation, these are inherent features of capitalism. So the degradation of physical and mental health is inevitable as long as we continue to live under the domination of the market. And I think in our system of racialized capitalism those forces will continue to disproportionately impact racialized people.” Speaking to impacts on Black communities, Yeboah says: “The field of psychology was born at the height of imperial expansion and colonial conquest. It was created to reinforce and serve the interests of the state. And so we see a l