Neoliberal Market Logic, the Collapse of Intimacy, and Embrace of Death

Autonomy without support is coercion. A choice made in the absence of care is not a free choice - it is a survival mechanism within a collapsing system.

Abstract

This paper critically examines two contemporary phenomena: the rise in voluntary singlehood and the expansion of Canada’s Track 2 Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program. While seemingly unrelated, both are outcomes of a broader neoliberal regime that embeds market logic into domains once governed by care, vulnerability, and reciprocity. Under this regime, relationships are commodified, emotional support is privatized, and disability is reinterpreted as economic liability. Drawing from sociological, psychological, and disability justice literature, this paper argues that neoliberalism fosters a climate of emotional disconnection and systemic abandonment, conditions under which both romantic alienation and death by poverty become not just possible, but rationalized as personal choice. The paper calls for a renewed ethics of interdependence, care, and human dignity in both public policy and cultural narratives.

Introduction

Neoliberalism, as both an economic doctrine and a cultural ethos, reconfigures society around market principles: individualism, self-optimization, privatization, and transactional logic (Harvey, 2007). These values have profoundly reshaped how individuals relate to one another and to the state. This paper explores how neoliberal market logic has contributed to two alarming social trends: (1) the commodification and erosion of romantic intimacy, leading to rising emotional disconnection, and (2) the expansion of Track 2 Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) in Canada, particularly for disabled individuals experiencing poverty, systemic neglect, and isolation. Both phenomena reflect deeper structural disconnections. In the absence of adequate emotional, social, or institutional support, individuals are left to navigate life and death within systems that prioritize profitability and efficiency over empathy. When connection becomes commodified and care becomes inaccessible, disconnection itself is medicalized, mourned, or monetized.

Romantic Alienation Under Neoliberal Culture

Modern dating culture increasingly mirrors the logic of the marketplace. Online platforms reduce individuals to profiles curated for maximum appeal. Relationship advice often mirrors consumer strategies: optimize your brand, secure high-value matches, minimize risk. In this climate, intimacy becomes a performance rather than a presence (Illouz, 2007).

The Rise in Emotional Disconnection Through Voluntary Singlehood

The number of single adults in developed nations is steadily rising. In the U.S., 31% of adults are single (Pew Research Center, 2020). In Canada and parts of Europe and East Asia, delayed relationships and outright disinterest in romantic engagement are increasingly common. While cultural shifts around gender and independence play a role, a growing body of research suggests that many people, especially men, are retreating from dating and romantic connections not out of preference, but out of emotional fatigue, performance anxiety, and systemic loneliness (DePaulo, 2017).

Psychological Costs of Disconnection

Disconnection has severe psychological effects. Humans are wired for attachment and resonance through mirror neurons and polyvagal pathways (Porges, 2011). When relationships are filtered through transactional expectations or avoided due to fear of emotional cost, loneliness and mental health issues rise dramatically. Chronic social disconnection is linked to depression, anxiety, and premature mortality (Hawkley & Cacioppo, 2010).

Disconnection, Exit and the Logic of Economic Abandonment

In 2021, Canada expanded its MAiD legislation to include Track 2: individuals not facing imminent death but experiencing intolerable suffering. While framed as an expansion of personal autonomy, Track 2 MAiD has been disproportionately accessed by disabled and low-income individuals facing social disconnection and dire socioeconomic conditions. Rather than increasing autonomy, it medicalizes abandonment, offering death as a substitute for connection, care, housing, or pain relief (Downey & Saad, 2022).

The Disability Poverty Cycle

Disabled Canadians face some of the highest poverty rates in the country (Wall, 2017). Unenforced accessibility laws, employment discrimination, inadequate income supports (e.g., ODSP), and unaffordable or inaccessible housing entrench many in cycles of severe deprivation. Several high-profile MAiD cases involve individuals requesting assisted death due to poverty, extreme isolation, or the inability to access services, not because of unrelievable medical suffering (CBC, 2022). This reflects a market-based triage system, where those who cannot “contribute” or “optimize” are subtly encouraged toward exit. It is a quiet form of economic eugenics, where neoliberal cost-efficiency replaces care with “choice.”

Neoliberalism’s War on Vulnerability

What unites the collapse of intimacy and the rise of MAiD is a fundamental cultural aversion to vulnerability. In neoliberal logic, interdependence is framed as failure, emotional needs are privatized, and suffering is either exploited for content or discarded as unacceptable inefficiency.

In the dating market, men are often expected to be providers but not feel, and women are expected to monetize beauty while suppressing burnout. In the disability sphere, worth is measured by utility, not humanity. The emotionally exhausted and the systemically abandoned are increasingly labelled “rational” for choosing solitude or death.

This inescapable environment does not offer true choice. As Eva Kittay (2019) emphasizes, autonomy without support is coercion. A choice made in the absence of care is not a free choice - it is a survival mechanism within a collapsing system.

Toward a Culture of Care

To reverse these trends, we must dismantle the market logic embedded in our most intimate spaces. Love must be redefined not as performance but as mutual presence. Policy must prioritize relational ethics over economic utility. This includes:

Expanding disability income supports above the poverty line.

Funding accessible housing, home care, and pain treatment.

Promoting relationship education rooted in reciprocity and emotional intelligence.

Recognizing that loneliness and suffering are public health issues, not private failings.

Conclusion

The commodification of romance and the institutionalization of disability euthanasia are symptoms of the same pathology: a neoliberal system that reduces human lives to economic value and offers exit over empathy. In such a society, connection becomes dangerous, vulnerability becomes shameful, and the unsupported are left to die by the suffocating silence of systemic neglect.

What we need is not more autonomy in isolation, but collective responsibility, public investment in care, and the reclamation of our relational nature. Only then can we create a culture where love is not a luxury and death is not a policy solution.

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