globalization and automation, which are faced by all, need not reduce wages as has happened in the US, let alone bring an epidemic of death. American healthcare bears much of the blame, as does policy, particularly the failure to use antitrust to combat market power, in labor markets perhaps even more than goods markets, and to rein in the rent-seeking by pharma, by healthcare more generally, and by banks and many small- or medium-size business entrepreneurs, such as doctors, hedge fund managers, the owners of sports franchises, real estate businesspeople, and car dealers.
