When problems become profitable: Why solving social issues matters more than scaling “solutions”

In recent years, mental health has become one of the fastest-growing industries in the world. Online courses, coaching certifications, wellness apps, self-help programs, retreats, and “healing journeys” promise clarity, confidence, and emotional relief. At first glance, this seems like progress: greater awareness, reduced stigma, more tools. Despite this, the number of people afflicted by anxiety, burnout, depression, and loneliness continues to grow. This raises a difficult but necessary question: what if the mental health industry is not alleviating the crisis, but perpetuating and amplifying it? This blogpost is not an argument against mental health support. It is an argument against a system that prioritizes investing in marketable solutions rather than solving the underlying problems that produce distress in the first place.

From care to commodity

Mental health discourse today often relies on subtle but powerful messaging: you are missing something, you are not enough, you need this [name course] to be whole. While rarely explicit, these narratives mirror classic scarcity-based marketing strategies that leverage fear of missing out (FOMO) and perceived inadequacy to drive consumption. Psychological research shows that such messaging can increase anxiety and self-doubt rather than alleviate it. When people are repeatedly told that their distress is a personal deficiency rather than a reasonable response to unhealthy environments, they may internalize blame instead of questioning the systems around them. Paradoxically, this dynamic turns suffering into a renewable resource.

When the environment is the problem

Decades of research in environmental psychology and social psychiatry demonstrate that mental distress is strongly shaped by context: precarious labor, social isolation, urban stressors, digital overload, inequality, and constant performance pressure. In other words, many people are not “broken.” They are responding normally to environments that are chronically dysregulating.

This dynamic is amplified by what psychology refers to as medical student syndrome—the tendency for individuals to believe they have a disorder simply because they are repeatedly exposed to information about symptoms. In today’s digital ecosystem, where mental health content circulates constantly on social media, this phenomenon extends far beyond medical training. Continuous exposure to diagnostic language can lead people to misinterpret normal stress responses, sadness, or fatigue as evidence of pathology, encouraging premature or inaccurate self-diagnosis.

When mental health becomes a commodity, however, attention shifts away from improving the environments that generate distress in the first place. Why? Because solving the root causes would reduce demand and thus profit. If fewer people are anxious, burned out, or insecure, there is less to sell.

Why mental health and education struggle as capitalist products

Capitalist markets depend on scarcity and continued demand. This creates a structural tension when applied to domains like mental health and education, where success would ideally mean far fewer people experiencing psychological distress or lacking access to learning, alongside greater autonomy, confidence, and collective capacity. From a market perspective, these are not desirable outcomes.

Scholars have long warned that commodifying care risks prioritizing profitability over prevention and long-term wellbeing. In the mental health sector, this can lead to an over-individualization of systemic problems, the pathologizing of normal emotional responses, a policy preference for short-term interventions rather than structural change, marketing strategies that amplify anxiety to sustain demand.

A similar logic applies to education. If education is treated primarily as a private good rather than a public or relational one, inequality persists by design. Universal access would undermine the very market that profits from exclusion.

The vicious cycle of “helping” as a business model

Another unintended consequence emerges when mental health and education are framed as lucrative industries: they attract well-intentioned people, but also people primarily motivated by the promise of easy income. Helping professions require long-term training, ethical grounding, and self-reflective practice. When entry is framed as “anyone can do this” and success is marketed through income claims rather than responsibility, quality and care risk being diluted. Combined with anxiety-based marketing, this creates a self-reinforcing loop in which environments produce distress, distress is framed as personal failure, anxiety is amplified to sell solutions, more people feel inadequate, demand for solutions grows. The problem remains unsolved—because solving it would disrupt the business model.
 

What doing things differently can look like

Despite these structural pressures, alternatives exist. Some organizations are intentionally designing models that do not rely on keeping people unwell, insecure, or excluded.

Conscious Marketing Movement

Conscious Marketing Movement (CMM) challenges fear- and scarcity-based marketing practices, advocating instead for transparency, dignity, and respect for human psychological vulnerability. Its work aligns with research showing that ethical communication increases trust and long-term engagement without exacerbating anxiety. By questioning how language shapes behavior, CMM demonstrates that selling does not have to come at the expense of mental wellbeing.

Tianmei World Academy

Tianmei World Academy (TWA) offers another example. Designed as a decentralized “network of classrooms,” cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary learning platform, TWA approaches education as a universal human right, not a privilege. This principle directly informs its business model: participants pay for facilitation, environments, and community, not for access to knowledge.

TWA integrates psychological and reflective practices into its learning programs, drawing from environmental psychology, systems thinking, and trauma-informed education without branding itself as a mental health institution. This avoids pathologizing participants while still supporting emotional literacy, self-reflection, and agency. The aim is not to “fix” people, but to change the conditions (environments) in which people learn, relate, and grow.

From investing in solutions to solving problems

The broader lesson extends beyond mental health and education. When businesses focus on scaling solutions without addressing root causes, they risk perpetuating the very problems they claim to solve. Sustainability research increasingly emphasizes the need to redefine value creation around problem-solving, not demand-generation. This requires asking uncomfortable questions: Would this business still exist if the problem disappeared? Does its success depend on people remaining unwell, uneducated, or insecure? What incentives does the model create over time? If the answer reveals a dependency on ongoing harm, then innovation alone is not enough.

Rethinking business for human and planetary wellbeing

Mental health and education reveal a deeper tension at the heart of contemporary capitalism. Some domains cannot function ethically when governed primarily by profit logic. They require models centered on care, prevention, shared responsibility, and long-term wellbeing. Investing in solutions without solving problems may generate impressive growth metrics with prosperity and wellbeing for a few select ones, not for all. If we want societies that are mentally healthier, better educated, and more resilient, we must design economic models that succeed because problems diminish, not because they persist, which is why my work at the RIFS focuses on redefining “business” to “an entity that solves social issues and creates social value in a financially sustainable way”.