China, U.S., Japan, Russia: Suicide Surge Universal Under Capitalism

The Foxconn plant in China, which assembles iPads among other things, has made headlines recently with its incredibly high rate of worker suicides. Working for $132 per month, Foxconn workers are on their feet on the job for 12 hours a day, six days a week. Conversing with coworkers is strictly forbidden and bathroom breaks are relegated to ten minutes every two hours.¹

One worker described how his favorite activity was dropping stuff because squatting down to pick up the object is the only way to get any rest.² Another worker said of his job, “Every day, I repeat the same thing I did yesterday. We get yelled at all the time… Life is meaningless.” A worker suffering from insomnia simply stated, “I feel no sense of achievement, I’ve become a machine.”³

Foxconn employs nearly 600,000 workers at its Shenzhen facility, almost all of which are young migrants from the Chinese countryside.⁴ “Hukou” (Household Registration System) laws make internal migration in China illegal. These laws deny migrant workers access to any social services and the risk of deportation back to the countryside makes them especially vulnerable to exploitation.⁵ In the city of Shenzhen super-exploited migrant workers make up over 80% of the population.⁶

As tragic as the story at Foxconn is it is hardly unique in the new China. A 2007 article in the China Daily noted that 287,000 people kill themselves in China each year. It has become the leading cause of death for people between ages 15 and 34. A study done by Peking University found that 20% of Chinese high school students considered committing suicide and 6.5% had made plans to do so.⁷

The current economic downturn has only exacerbated the issue. In 2009 the London Telegraph reported that suicides were surging among Chinese college graduates. They connected this rise in suicides to the fact that one-third of graduates are unable to find work after graduation.⁸

Suicide and Capitalist Economy
are Connected

The link between suicides and the capitalist economic system has long been acknowledged. A 1976 Congressional report in the U.S. even commented that, “The national rate of suicide in the U.S. can be viewed as an economic indicator.”⁹ A recent study from Oxford University confirmed this finding that a 3% raise in unemployment resulted in a 4.5% raise in the suicide rate.¹⁰

Indeed in the U.S. the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline reported an 18% increase in phone calls in early 2010.¹¹ And the BP Gulf oil spill that destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people has also now seen a corresponding increase in suicides on the Gulf Coast.¹²

The linkage between suicide and capitalism seems to be a universal one. The Aokigahara Forest in Japan has become known as the “suicide forest” due to the large numbers of people who have gone there to kill themselves. In 2009 Japan saw a 15% increase in suicides over the previous year. One man who attempted to kill himself in the forest after losing his job stated, “My will to live disappeared. I’d lost my identity, so I didn’t want to live on this earth. That’s why I went here.”¹³

Fall of Communism Leads Workers to Despair

The harsh working conditions, long hours, and terrible wages brought on by China’s reversion to capitalism are only part of the suicide puzzle there. Another factor not discussed by the Western news media is the despair brought on by the fall of communism in China.

The connection between the collapse of communism and worker suicides is most evident in the former Soviet Union. According to the World Health Organization the five highest suicide rates in the world all belong to former Soviet states (Belarus, Lithuania, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Hungary).¹⁴ The dissolution of the Soviet Union led to a surge in suicides in Russia that began in the mid-1980s leading one World Health Organization official to state, “The reasons are complex but the suicide rate is obviously linked to social and economic disintegration.”¹⁵

Along with having the third highest suicide rate in the world, Russia also has the highest rate of alcoholism in the world. Recently the Russian Public Chamber reported that 500,000 Russians die every year from alcohol abuse.¹⁶ The combination of alcohol abuse and suicide has helped to lower the life expectancy of Russian men to 59, causing Pravda to remark that Russian men are becoming “extinct.”¹⁷

Nets Won’t Save Chinese
Workers

Embarrassed by the suicide scandal Foxconn has devised a plan to increase pay by 20% and has begun installing anti-suicide nets around all the worker dormitories (most workers have committed suicide by jumping from buildings).¹⁸ Workers have even been forced by management to sign pledges not to kill themselves.¹⁹

Despite these measures the suicides at Foxconn continue.²⁰ One worker who admitted to contemplating suicide, and already made well above the proposed pay raise, summed up the real problem, “I do the same thing every day; I feel empty inside. I have no future.”²¹

The half-measures taken by Foxconn bosses to stop the worker suicides are all window dressing. The real problem at Foxconn, and in China and the world as a whole, is the alienation and despair caused by the capitalist system. Workers do not want to toil as slaves for the bosses’ profits while only getting crumbs for themselves. The only solution to the suicide problem in China is the overthrow of the capitalist class and the victory of communist revolution. Until that point, anti-suicide safety nets won’t solve anything. J

Sources:

1 Business Week, “Foxconn Workers in China Say ‘Meaningless’ Life Sparks Suicides,” 6/2/10.

2 Gizmodo, “Undercover Report from Foxconn’s Hell Factory,” 5/19/10.

3 Business Week.

4 Open Letter from Chinese Sociologists, “Address to the Problems of New Generations of Chinese Migrant Workers, End to Foxconn Tragedy Now,” http://sacom.hk/archives/644 , dated 5/18/10, retrieved 8/1/10.

5 Christian Parenti, The Nation, “Chinese Struggle Over Resources Under a Quasi-Maoist Capitalism,” 5/18/08.

6 Open Letter from Chinese Sociologists.

7 China Daily, “China’s Suicide Rate Among World’s Highest,” 9/11/07.

8 The Telegraph, “Wave of Suicide Sweeps China’s Graduate Class,” 7/25/09.

9 CHALLENGE, “Unemployment: Capitalism’s Killing Fields,” 3/17/10; NYT, “US Study Links Rise in Jobless to Deaths, Murders and Suicides,” 10/31/76.

10 Bloomberg, “Murder, Suicide Rates Climb When Jobs Vanish and Economy Slows,” 7/7/09.

11 AOL News, “Amid Lack of Jobs, Suicide Hot Line Calls Surge,” 7/6/10.

12 Mother Jones, “Depression, Abuse, Suicide: Fishermen’s Wives Face Post-Spill Trauma,” 6/25/10; Washington Post, “Apparent Suicide by Fishing Boat Captain Underlines Oil Spill’s Emotional Toll,” 6/24/10.

13 CNN, “Desperate Japanese Head to ‘Suicide Forest,’” 3/20/09.

14 WHO, “Suicide Rates per 100,000 by Country, Year, and Sex,” 2009. Sri Lanka would be 4th highest but was omitted because the most recent numbers were almost 20 years old (1991).

15 The Lancet, Suicide Rates in Russia on the Increase,” 7/19/03.

16 Ria Novosti, “Alcohol Abuse Kills 500,000 Russians Annually,” 6/16/09.

17 The Guardian, “No Country for Old Men,” 2/11/08; Pravda, “Russian Men Become Extinct,” 11/3/05.

18 The Guardian, “Foxconn Offers Pay Rises and Suicide Nets as Fears Grow Over Wave of Deaths,” 5/28/10.

  19 Sydney Morning Herald, “I Promise Not to Kill Myself: Apple Factory Workers ‘Asked to Sign Pledge,’” 5/26/10.

  20 ABC News, “Worker Death Tally Rises at Foxconn China,” 7/21/10.

  21 Business Week.