Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest today is one of the

world's most renowned economists whose work on poverty, inequality and the challenges facing capitalism

won in the Nobel Prize. Sir Angus Deaton's latest book, co-written with his wife and Cass,

focuses on what he calls the deaths of despair,

those attributed to suicide, drug, and alcohol abuse, which he says tell us much about the

failings of 21st century American capitalism. In particular, he points to rising mortality rates

amongst midlife Americans, especially poorer white people.

Capitalism, he says, is no longer delivering better lives generation after generation.

The American dream is in retreat.

And now, of course, the US and the world is grappling with the impacts of the coronavirus

pandemic. Is it further exposing the weaknesses of the American brand of capitalism? Well, Sir Angus

Dieton joins me now on the line from Princeton University. Welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you very much. I'm delighted to be back.

Let me ask you a simple question. You are one of the world's renowned economists, and in your

latest work, you have focused very much on death and mortality rates. Why have you done that?

I've always believed that life is about much more than just money.

And I've interested throughout my career in well-being, in what make people take and what

matters.

And having money is not worth a whole lot if you don't have a life to enjoy it with. So mortality is, you know, a key

component of trying to assess a much more complete picture of what it is that's happening to people.

You talk of a complete picture. The big picture, according to several sort of political

scientists, stroke economists, the big picture,

if one looks, not just across the developed, but the developing world as well, is a mortality story

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