Severely damaged individuals may need to be segregated from society for everyone s protection. However protective segregation is a world away from the current state-run incarceration system which is punitive and brutalizing towards those who are least able to defend themselves. Because capitalism is constructed to funnel wealth from the bottom to the top of society, social inequality increases over time. Over the past 20 years in particular, those at the top of society have seen their wealth grow exponentially. The majority of us have suffered a declining standard of living.
Research shows that people with more power live longer and have better health.
Those with less control over their lives die younger and suffer more from almost every kind of disease. Lack of social power results in greater exposure to traumatic stress and less resilience in recovering from its damaging effects. For virtually every disease there is a class gradient, so that the burden of illness in society is born most heavily by those with the fewest resources. Increasing social inequality causes greater levels of stress, trauma and illness. Capitalism is a social system which divides humanity into antagonistic classes and sets nation against nation.