Deaths of Despair | Boston Review
▻http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/joshua-cohen-angus-deaton-deaths-despair
‘#Purdue Pharmaceuticals and other companies went to places where there was already lots of despair. They were looking for despair.’
All in the Family Debt | Boston Review
▻http://bostonreview.net/class-inequality/melinda-cooper-all-family-debt
The poor laws went on to see several iterations both in England and America. The early American colonies imported them virtually word for word and later incorporated them into state legal systems. But despite the many policy tweaks and changes that have occurred since, one element of the original poor laws has remained stubbornly in place: the foundational role of familial responsibility. Indeed, save for a brief respite in the 1960s, American social welfare policy and ideology has maintained a persistent—and damaging—attachment to that framework. Some ramifications are obvious—such as when legal relationships of spousal support and paternity are enforced without consent from either party—but some are more nuanced. The current crises of tuition costs and college debt, for instance, are the downstream effects of limiting a free public good and reinstating “familial responsibility.”