IF A sliver of optimism remained, when elected last year, that Labour was genuinely concerned for the working class, this has now been superseded by bitter resentment.

The party’s enthusiastic desire to slash welfare personifies their betrayal. Labour’s welfare reform plans rob from the neediest—including the disabled and long-term sick, and carers whose sacrifice for those they love often means a life of poverty—all to balance the books, as part of an unsightly act of fawning at the feet of the financial markets.

Firmly fixing its crosshairs on the most vulnerable, Labour now has individuals with mental health issues in its sights.  

Rumblings have come from government in recent months of the desire to look again at who with mental health issues should be entitled to state support.  

In March, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Wes Streeting, endorsed the view that too many people are diagnosed with mental health conditions, with a need to reassess who is eligible for welfare benefits. Echoing this sentiment, at the Conservative Party conference in September shadow chancellor of the Exchequer Mel Stride was clear: benefits for those with less “severe” mental health issues should be stopped.

Moreover Reform, in their characteristically persecutory manner, have, in recent months, openly questioned whether some individuals who receive state support have a genuine mental illness.

Lee Anderson, Reform’s welfare spokesman—whose level of compassion resembles that of a cheetah spying a wounded gazelle—has inferred quite clearly that a significant proportion of individuals with anxiety and stress should just get on with life.

Reasons for the attention given to overdiagnosis is self-evident: the desire to cut the welfare budget and increase the numbers in the population who are ripe for exploitation—expanding what Marx referred to as the reserve army of labour.

With Wes Streeting recently ordering a review into the alleged overdiagnosis of mental health issues, chaired by Professor Peter Fonagy, a clinical psychologist at University College London and vice-chaired by Professor of Psychological Medicine Sir Simon Wessly, the government is determined to use medical knowledge to justify reducing welfare benefits and cajole thousands of individuals into accepting precarious work, or face destitution.

Work and Mental Health
Concealing the repressive nature of this debate, politicians have seized upon the narrative of employment as a positive influence on our mental wellbeing to justify their position.

Work, the former prime minister Rishi Sunak asserted in the run-up to last year’s general election, is good for our mental health. Paradoxically, there are, on the surface, echoes of Marx here.

In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx strenuously argued that work had the potential to be fulfilling, allowing us to be freely expressive, both physically and intellectually.

It should allow us to relate to what we produce as meaningful expressions of our essence and inner creativity.

Not using our contemporary language of mental health, Marx nonetheless firmly believed work was beneficial for our mental wellbeing—but this is where the similarity with today’s politicians ends.

In a capitalist society, Marx was at pains to stress, working is an alienating experience.

We feel very little connection to our work, to what we produce, and often the people we work with—it often makes us unhappy, but we have little choice but become wage slaves if we are to survive.

The Marxist psychoanalyst Erich Fromm described work under capitalism as deeply unsatisfying; it inflicts upon us a perennial sense of apathy, and with the experience so damaging it invokes a longing for laziness and often a deep hostility towards working generally.

It is commonplace for many of us to have feelings of dissatisfaction, frustration, and boredom with our work.

Emotions such as these are, in themselves, reflections of poor mental wellbeing and are far from how Marx imagined work should be experienced.

But for many millions of individuals work is a catalyst for mental illness. The most recent Health and Wellbeing at Work survey by the Charted Institute of Personnel and Development makes this clear.

Findings indicate mental illness, including anxiety and depression, were the second leading causes of short-term absences from work last year. Moreover, they were by far the main reason for long-term sickness and absences of longer than four weeks.

Of all employers surveyed, 64 per cent reported stress-related absences in their organisations in the previous 12 months.

Although non-work-related causes were highlighted, overwhelmingly the dominant reasons were work-induced including workload, pressure to meet deadlines, and management style.

Key findings from workers themselves highlight how 21 per cent feel under excessive pressure; a quarter believe that work impacts both their mental and physical health negatively; while less than half reported that work positively effects their mental health.

An Alternative
It is now recognised that poor mental health is as serious as physical health—although this is not reflected in investment.

Yet, when attempting to tackle it, for too long the focus has been on the individual. Antidepressants—with their questionable results—or the more recent credence for talking therapies, as exemplified by the NHS Talking Therapies programme, have taken precedence.

Not denying their potential benefits, talking therapies nonetheless obscure how exploitation, low wages, and precarious work fundamentally drive poor mental wellbeing.

Indeed, NHS therapeutic interventions are complicit in reinforcing exploitation, as eligible recipients are assigned an employment adviser who supports those receiving therapy to develop their employability skills.

As Marx made clear work is good for our mental wellbeing—but how it is organised under capitalism is not.

We must subsequently fight for a society which is more compatible with our mental health needs.

Already we have evidence of alternatives to the way we work bringing positive change. Results made public earlier this year by the Mental Health Foundation conclusively demonstrated that a shorter working week, without the loss of pay, improved the mental wellbeing of 68 per cent of participants—with 69 per cent reporting a reduction in work-related stress.

Recent Universal Basic Income (UBI) research has decisively demonstrated that receiving a secure unconditional income—even one that is relatively low—also has great advantages for our mental wellbeing.  

From Finland, to Spain, the Netherlands, and Ontario, where UBI pilots have been rolled out, reports have been shared of life satisfaction increasing; child wellbeing improving as parents and children spend more time together; a reduction in the use of mental health services; and people feeling an increased sense of social cohesion and community.

Additionally, there is little evidence suggesting that an unconditional income reduces people’s desire to work—instead it gives them greater protection against exploitation.  

Subsequently, our mental wellbeing not only improves when levels of exploitation are reduced, but also when our income is not grounded in our exploitation. The benefits of economic security, something which for centuries has been known only to the wealthiest, is essential if we are all to experience good mental health.

Already the foundations of an alternative way of working are within our grasp. The low wages, long hours, insecure working environments, and the competitive nature of work, as characterises life under capitalism, must be replaced by an experience of work that severs the detrimental relationship between survival and exploitation. 

Dr David Matthews is a lecturer at the School of Health Sciences, Bangor University.