A free market where nothing is free

 

It should come as no real surprise to know that 25% of American adults suffer from diagnosable psychological disorder each year. Here in Spain every day there are more sufferers of bigorexia, exercise addiction, orthorexia, an unhealthy obsession for healthy eating, people addicted to video games and those addicted to cosmetic surgery etc....

 We live in a society in which every day we become more emotionally exiled from one another. Christmas is perhaps the time of year that most highlights the difference between what the market requires and expects from us and the actual possibilities that are within our grasp.

 Capitalism is the new religion, you just have to talk to one of their neo liberal fans realize how fanatical they really are.  In similar ways in which the Aztecs sacrificed lives to quench the thirst of their gods, we sacrifice our freedoms and our physical and mental health to quench the thirst of capitalism. "Everything for the market!"

 To ensure that free market remains free, the exchange of labor, land, money, and consumer goods should not be contaminated by social and emotional elements, such as loyalty to the nation, social responsibilities, professional guilds or unions, charity, family obligations, social roles, or religious values. Cultural traditions distort the laws of supply and demand, and therefore must be eradicated.  In free market economies, it is expected that people migrate where the jobs are and adjust their lives and their cultural tastes to accommodate the supply of the global market.

  People who for one reason or another, fail to fully integrate, or simply do not want to integrate because of different values ​​can find themselves excluded and marginalized. Once outside of the social fabric it is not surprising that people seek refuge within substitute lifestyles and subcultures.  This implies alternate lifestyle and can include, but not be limited to drug use, obsessive behavior and can lead to the creation of social relationships that are not close or sincere, stable, or culturally acceptable to provide a minimal psychosocial integration. People who can not find better way to achieve psychosocial integration will cling to a substitute lifestyle with a tenacity that represents addiction itself.

 This can be considered as an adaptive behavior. All behavior has its function and that includes addiction, which is based on relieving discomfort and feelings of emptiness created by not being fully included, or perceive that one is not included within the social fabric.
  Could this explain the poor success of drug treatment programs? Given that addiction is a behavior that relieves anxiety created by a psychosocial dislocation; without real alternatives and a just society where we care about each other, trying to treat a person out of addiction will have more or less the same success as trying to law enforce a person out of addiction. That is, almost zero.