The impacts of an anti-capital / anti-profit mentality

Last week, I wrote about some odd comments emanating out of Germany from the chairman of the SPD. The comments focused on the adverse effects of the capitalist system's profit-orientation. This week, we learn that the same country which seems so diametrically opposed to a market-driven economy is dealing with this:

According to the research, by a German health insurance firm, cases of depression among Berliners have risen by 70% since 1997. Up to 70% of Germans also say they are prepared to seek professional help for psychological problems.

What is the root cause for this pandemic of the blues among Germans?

Mental health experts blamed the rise on Germany's faltering economy, which has seen unemployment rise to over 5m.

And what impacts do the depression-effect have on the ecopnomy?

Workers in Germany's capital, regarded as one of Europe's most vibrant modern cities, emerged as an unhappy bunch more likely to miss work through depression than for any other reason. Nationally, mental health problems were the fourth most common cause of absence from work, behind back pain, colds and flu and personal injury.

So to summarize: economic policies which don't encourage personal responsibility, discourage entrepreneurship and blithely shun the notion of profit-motive create a situation in which 6% of the total population (not the working population, mind you) is jobless. And the effects of these policies, according to experts, are driving a mass wave of emotional depression. So we are left with a cycle of malaise in which poor policy fuels unemployment, which generates emotional problems, which reduce worker productivity...which further entrenches psyche-sapping unemployment.

So just how exactly are the mentality and policy orientation of the red-green coalition positive for Germany and Germans? And more importantly, what lessons can the United States learn from this economic juggernaut?