Madness and Enterprise: Psychiatry, Economic Reason, and the Emergence of Pathological Value

In the 19th century, psychiatry linked mental illness severity to a patient's economic productivity, viewing some conditions as assets and others as liabilities. This relationship transformed the concept of value in the modern North Atlantic, conflating what is good, healthy, and remunerative. Madness could be converted into an economic form and redeemed, even revered.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 352 pages
Publication date: 18 January 2024
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press

Madness and Enterprise uncovers a profound and intricate relationship between pathology and money,spanning the nineteenth century. This captivating book delves into the economic norms that permeated psychiatric thinking about mental illness in the North Atlantic world. Throughout this period, various forms of madness were subjected to a peculiar psychiatric reasoning that was heavily focused on monetary considerations. Psychiatrists across Western Europe and the United States assigned financial and even moral value to a wide range of pathological conditions, treating some mental disorders as valuable assets and others as burdensome economic liabilities. By examining economic behavior and assessing whether potential patients possessed the ability to manage their financial affairs or even generate wealth, psychiatrists could often circumvent diagnostic uncertainties regarding a person's mental state.

In a remarkable exploration of the interconnected histories of psychiatry and economic thought, Nima Bassiri unveils how this relationship fundamentally transformed the concept of value in the modern North Atlantic. This transformation occurred as the most common forms of social valuation, including moral value, medical value, and economic value, became intertwined and interchangeable. As the boundaries between what was deemed good, healthy, and remunerative blurred, a conceptual space emerged where madness itself could be transformed into an economic form, redeemed, and even revered. Madness and Enterprise offers a thought-provoking examination of the complex interplay between pathology, money, and the construction of societal norms, shedding light on the profound ways in which economic considerations have influenced our understanding and treatment of mental illness throughout history.

Weight: 454g
Dimension: 229 x 152 x 23 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780226830896