Capitalism’s boom-bust cycles mirror and produce bipolar disorder in populations

Evidence

The increase in bipolar disorder is a particularly significant development. In the discussion after Christian’s lecture, I asked him about the relationship between this form of mental illness and capitalism as a system. It is clear that capitalism, with its ceaseless boom and bust cycles, is itself, fundamentally and irreducibly, bipolar. Capitalism is characterised by a lurching between hyped-up mania (the irrational exuberance of “bubble thinking”) and depressive come-down. (The term “economic depression” is no accident). To a degree unprecedented in any other social system (and capitalism is very precisely NOT a social “structure” in the way that the despotic state or the primitive socius are), capitalism both feeds on and reproduces the moods of populations. Without delirium and confidence, capital could not function. As it happened, Christian confirmed that he had in fact been working with people who had been “psychologically smashed” by capitalism, many of whom, it turned out, had in fact developed bipolar disorder. It could hardly be denied that there is an isomorphic relationship between the social and individual disorders of capitalism. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1409

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes Durkheim’s suicide/anomie analysis and the broader social-determinants-of-health literature. The psychedelic economy angle connects to Fisher’s other essays on affect and financialized subjectivity. — connects to: ADHD and dyslexia are pathologies of late capitalist control circuits — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 54; Capitalism structurally requires collective mood swings to function — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 75; Capitalism is structurally bipolar, feeding on population mood cycles — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1409 (+3 more)
• QUESTION: Is there empirical epidemiological evidence that manic-depressive incidence tracks financial cycles? The isomorphism claim deserves testing against data on mood disorders and economic expansions.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that capital structurally requires population delirium and confidence — moods as infrastructure of accumulation — reframes mood disorders as systemic readings, not individual pathology.

Broader Connections

• Capitalism is structurally bipolar, feeding on population mood cycles #corroborates (0.95) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1409
• Bipolar disorder is the mental illness proper to capitalism’s interior #expands (0.90) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 75
• Neoliberal policy privatised stress into individual mental illness #complicates (0.75) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1601