Opioid drugs were widely and readily prescribed, and hundreds of thousands of people became addicted and died. What explains the opioid epidemic in the U.S.? What kind of pain were these drugs taken to alleviate – and what is the root of such suffering? Max Haiven draws connections between the opioid crisis and racial politics, corporate malfeasance, the Opium Wars, and neoliberalism’s impact on our psyches.
Max Haiven, Revenge Capitalism: The Ghosts of Empire, the Demons of Capital, and the Settling of Unpayable Debts Pluto Press, forthcoming