Berkeley/Norinaga/Marx; Awareanalysis, Part 2: Capitalism, burnout, depression
In my previous article, bringing together the idealism of George Berkeley, the poetics and psychology of Motoori Norinaga, and the materialism of Marx, I proposed a model of the human mind where a quaternity of exchange, discourse, morality, and feelings are at work. Exchange determines what discourse of the other informs the moral judgments and actions of the mind, towards its own feelings, or desires and emotions. The workings of this quaternity, I also hold, are not something the mind is always conscious of. It overlooks this quaternity when it assumes a naive realist position, which attributes absolute reality to every object it encounters. With regard to exchange, I have also argued that the mind does not always successfully participate in exchange. When it brings its commodity to the marketplace, the success of its sale of this commodity is never guaranteed. Therefore, its exposure to the discourse of the other, contained in such commodities as books, which would inform its moral judgments and actions, is not guaranteed either. A sale is, as Marx called it, a salto mortale. In this article, as a Marxist, a fanciful Marxist, I apply this model to capitalism, and to burnout and depression, so prevalent today among workers.
Capitalism, strikes, and boycotts
The context where the working-class and capitalist-class subjects encounter everything is the sphere of capitalist exchange, or the capitalist market, and the sphere of capitalist consumption, or the workplace and home. In the capitalist market, all is fair. Marx wrote, in the sixth chapter of the first volume of Capital, that the capitalist market
“is in fact a very Eden of the innate rights of man. There alone rule Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham. Freedom, because both buyer and seller of a commodity, say of labour-power, are constrained only by their own free will. They contract as free agents, and the agreement they come to, is but the form in which they give legal expression to their common will. Equality, because each enters into relation with the other, as with a simple owner of commodities, and they exchange equivalent for equivalent. Property, because each disposes only of what is his own. And Bentham, because each looks only to himself”.1placeholder
In other words, on the market, the working-class subject and the capitalist-class subject confronts one another as free, equal, propertied, and self-interested individuals.2placeholder Outside of the market, however,
“we can perceive a change in the physiognomy of our dramatis personae. He, who before was the money-owner, now strides in front as capitalist; the possessor of labour-power follows as his labourer. The one with an air of importance, smirking, intent on business; the other, timid and holding back, like one who is bringing his own hide to market and has nothing to expect but—a hiding”.3placeholder
The working-class subject, who has sold their labor power commodity to the capitalist-class other, labors under the capitalist-class other. They are no longer free, as they have submitted themselves to the will of the capitalist-class other. They are no longer equals with the capitalist-class other, as the capitalist-class other now confronts them as their master. They are no longer propertied, because their sole property, their labor power commodity, has been sold to the capitalist-class other, to be disposed of however they wish. They are no longer merely self-interested, though motivational posters would tell us otherwise. Workers do not, merely, “work to live” and “enjoy life”, that is, to buy and consume at the end of their working days. As Marx wrote, in the twenty-third chapter,
“The individual consumption of the labourer…forms…a factor of the production and reproduction of capital…The fact that the labourer consumes his means of subsistence for his own purposes, and not to please the capitalist, has no bearing on the matter. The consumption of food by a beast of burden is none the less a necessary factor in the process of production, because the beast enjoys what it eats. The maintenance and reproduction of the working class is, and must ever be, a necessary condition to the reproduction of capital”.4placeholder
Outside of the market, in the sphere of capitalist consumption, which is consumption conditioned by capitalist exchange, i.e. in the workplace, the working-class subject encounters the capitalist-class other as their master. Outside of the workplace, at the end of their working day, they return home to eat, drink, and, in general, recuperate. They buy and consume to reproduce their labor power commodity which is so important to the capitalist-class other. Come the next working day, they continue their sale of their labor power commodity to the capitalist-class other, hence also continuing their servitude to the capitalist-class other in the workplace.
As it has become increasingly fashionable to say that Marx is obsolete or even outright wrong, we need only say here that the working-class subject encounters the capitalist-class other in the capitalist market, workplace, and home, and the capitalist-class other, likewise, encounters the working-class other in the capitalist market, workplace, and home. The capitalist market, workplace, and home are the contexts of the working-class and capitalist-class subjects.
These contexts, from the position of Awareanalysis, are contexts where the working-class and capitalist-class subjects encounter, not only one another, but also their own feelings. The desire to stay in and not go to work is, often, not looked upon favorably, because the worker feels obliged to work. They may feel so in accordance to social standards which declare that all responsible adults work. They may also feel so out of a sense of camaraderie with their colleagues, or obligation to their employers. The working-class subject encounters both the other and their feelings within the capitalist contexts of the market, workplace, and home.
Having said so, the working-class and capitalist-class subjects are not always embedded in these capitalist contexts. In the first place, they leapt into these contexts and luckily, their leaps did not miss their marks. This is why they are in these contexts in the first place. Their leaps, however, were and are not guaranteed to always find their marks. For the working-class subject, they make the leap when they sell their labor power commodity to the capitalist-class other. For the capitalist-class other, the leap is made when they sell the commodities they had produced for them by working-class others. For the working-class subject, their leap, if it falls short, leads to a crisis of livelihood. They have thus far lived on the wage paid them by the capitalist-class other, but now, that wage is gone. However, then, are they to live? At the same time, the commodity they brought to the market, their labor power commodity, which has thus far proven valuable in exchange and useful to the other, has abruptly proven otherwise. They can no longer encounter their labor power commodity—they themselves—the same way they always have. The capitalist-class other, likewise, cannot be encountered the same way they always have. The capitalist-class other is no longer their employer, for whom their labor power commodity is useful. The capitalist-class other has spurned their labor power commodity, which, as far as the working-class subject is concerned, has become useless to the capitalist-class other.
For the capitalist-class subject, their leap, if it falls short, means a failure, not only to turn a profit, but also earn back the money they have spent in the production of the commodities they are selling. The money they have spent hiring the working-class other goes down the drain. It cannot be spent again in the hiring of the working-class other. It cannot be earned back, again, with an increment. In other words, it does not become capital. The commodities they had produced for them by the working-class other, and aimed to sell, also become useless objects.
Historically, we have not only seen the leaps of working-class and capitalist-class subjects fail, but also made to fail. This happens during strikes and boycotts. The working-class subject, going on strike, refuses to make the leap: they refuse to sell their labor power commodity. When the capitalist-class subject faces a boycott and their commodities go unsold, their leap fails: the other would not accept their commodities and the sale of these commodities fails. In general, as their leaps fail, they become unsettled, or even dislodged from their contexts. They no longer encounter their and the other’s commodities the same way they always have. They no longer encounter themselves and the other the same way they always have. As they encounter others differently, the discourse of the other, which informs their moral judgments and actions, likewise, become encountered in a new light. Motivational phrases and pop philosophical aphorisms the working-class subject, once halfheartedly believed in and enjoyed, become mockery of their suffering. The moral judgments the subject passes upon their own feelings, informed by the discourse of the other change as well. The desire to stay in and not go to work ceases to be condemned under such exhortations as “work hard, play hard!” Questions arise, which drive the working-class subject to action: “Why can’t I sleep a little while longer? Why am I so tired anyways? Why must I work these hours, under this pay”?
Burnout, depression, and social action
Now, I would like to consider the burned-out and depressed worker. In his book, The Burnout Society, Byung-Chul Han declared “[n]eurological illnesses such as depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder…borderline personality disorder…and burnout syndrome” the “signature afflictions” of our era.5placeholder He also made the argument that burnout, depression, and other such prevalent mental conditions today do not result from “external instances of domination forcing [the worker] to work and exploiting it”,6placeholder but from “overexcited, overdriven, excessive self-reference”,7placeholder more precisely, a race after an ego ideal, which, failing, leaves “the real ego…as a loser buried in self-reproach.”8placeholder This has been criticized by Žižek as an account of capitalist subjectivity applicable only to “self-employed and self-exploited workers” in developed countries, while hardly being applicable to those who do “assembly line work in the Third World”, or “human care workers (caretakers, waiters…).”9placeholder Nevertheless, I have found Han’s emphasis on “self-reference”, “self-reproach”, and, elsewhere in The Burnout Society, “autoaggression”, invaluable to understanding burnout and depression.
From the 2000s to the 2010s, in organizational studies, many studies were done on the concept of “employability” in neoliberal discourse. Among them is a Lacanian study, by Peter Bloom, which phrases the discussions around the concept in familiar terms. Bloom argued that “employability” is a fantasy under which the worker exploits themselves, in a race after an ego ideal of self-mastery, constructed with respect to neoliberal discourse. “Employability” is defined as a worker’s “capacity to…readily and easily obtain and maintain new employment.”10placeholder Workers work hard to increase their “employability” by increasing their skill sets to better meet the demands of their present and future employers. They do so under the impression that they are increasing their power of self-determination as workers on the capitalist market. “The authoritarian demand to meet employer’s desires is transformed into an appealing fantasy of self-determination and actualization.”11placeholder Of course, this race is in truth, endless and futile, as the worker must “must constantly find new ways to benefit their present or future employer, ostensibly for their own perceived advantage.”12placeholder They can never be “employable” enough. Their ego ideal is always beyond reach. Finally, it has also been suggested that the failure to attain this ego ideal of “self-mastery”, or sufficient employability, may lead to aggression directed towards oneself, by oneself.13placeholder
The subjectivity Bloom and Han described seems to be a subjectivity which occurs under what is commonly called “hustle culture” today, and “hustle culture”, it is declared many times a day, has ended. It has been replaced by a more enlightened “culture of rest”. The race against oneself, however, has not ended.14placeholder In his response to Žižek, Han suggested that there is a tiredness more “fundamental” than tiredness from work, which derives from our uses of social media, where we are “entrepreneurs whose selves are the businesses…produc[ing] ourselves and put[ting] ourselves on permanent display.”15placeholder Those who have participated in the race for followers on social media, or the more “personal” struggle of maintaining a “good follower to following ratio”, would know this well. This is all the more so for streamers and other kinds of social media influencers, who do this for a living.
Without any doubt, there are other kinds of races against oneself as well. Two other kinds of races are, readily, conceivable. The first is the race of the addict, who spends an increasing sum of money purchasing the commodity they are addicted to (e.g. the classic gambling addict), and therefore has to sell their labor power commodity, and in general themselves, at an ever-higher value to secure the funds. The second is the race of the “fan”, the “brand loyalist”, and so forth, whose spendings increase whenever their favorite brand releases a new product (e.g. Apple fans and the latest iPhone model, fans of J- and K-pop idol groups), prompting them to either sell themselves at a higher value, or cut other living costs, to secure the funds. In both races, when the consumer fails to secure the funds, self-reproach and autoaggression are like to ensue. They have failed to realize their capitalist raison d’être, i.e. their buying and consuming the commodities they are addicted to, or the commodities from their favorite brand, after all.
To each race against oneself belongs its own kinds of self-reference, self-reproach, and autoaggression, as well as its own kinds of burnout and depression. From a Marxist position, it can also be said that these races after oneself can fail not only because they are often races after impossible ego ideals, but also because they are leaps into exchange with others, that is to say, sales of one’s commodity to others. The worker, striving to increase “employability”, strives to increase their value, as labor power commodity, on the job market, but this value is only realized when they sell themselves, and there is no guarantee that they actually would sell for more than they previously did. There is no guarantee either that the capitalist-class other would continue to hire them after they supposedly have increased their value on the job market. The same goes for those who produce and reproduce themselves for their audiences on social media. The many mishaps of influencers making statements which had effects different from what they intended testify well to this. In other words, failed races after oneself fail because they are, as Marx called it, a salto mortale. There is no guarantee that the sellers of themselves would successfully sell themselves at the values they expected, nor is there any guarantee that they would even succeed in selling themselves in the first place.
The success and failure of the sellers’ salto mortale determine their encounters with themselves, that is, the commodities they are selling, and with others. A commodity is shown to be valuable and useful to the other only after the exchange is successful. The other is encountered as an other for whom one’s own commodity is useful only after the exchange is successful. Hence, the sellers of themselves, racing after themselves, can only encounter themselves as valuable commodities on the market and useful to the other, once they have successfully sold themselves. The other can also only be encountered as an other for whom they are useful after they have successfully sold themselves. When their sales fail, they encounter themselves and the other differently. They encounter themselves as valueless in exchange and useless to the other they have attempted selling themselves to. They encounter the other as an other for whom they are useless. When their sales do not occur as expected, that is, when they are sold for different sums of money than they expected, their encounters with themselves and the other are also different. They no longer encounter themselves as commodities which are as valuable as they expected. They no longer encounter the other as an other who found them as useful as they expected.
In more interpersonal terms, upon successful sales of themselves, the sellers of themselves find their “places” in capitalist society as valuable commodities, with respect to others who recognize them as useful commodities. They form their social identity. On the other hand, if their sales fail, they are dislodged from their positions. Their social identity is shattered. If their sales attract different sums of money than were expected, they are disturbed in their positions. Their social identity is also disturbed.
The following remarks may also be made concerning the positions and social identities of the sellers of themselves in capitalist society. First, these positions and social identities have a material component: money. Money is the equivalent or the material where the values of the sellers’ commodities, they themselves, are expressed. It is therefore the sellers’ “badges”, their “identification documents”, which mark them out as commodities which are valuable in exchange and recognized by the buying other as useful commodities.
Second, the positions and social identities of the sellers are not only positions and identities, as commodities, with regard to others who recognize their usefulness. They are also positions and identities, as commodities, with regard to other commodities, and the others who sell them. This is so because through money the sellers encounter not only their own values on the market, but also other commodities they can buy with this money, that is also to say, other commodities which have the same value as them. Hence, their positions and social identities can be expressed by a combination of the money and expanded value form16placeholder: I = 15 US dollars (from the pocket of the buying other who recognizes me as a useful commodity for an hour) = 12 cans of beer (sold by another other) = 2 bottles of body wash (sold by another other) = … Buying 12 cans of beer, then, can be seen as self-actualization, conditioned, of course, by a prior successful sale of oneself. It is, also, total self-actualization in the sense that I realize my full value with the purchase. It is, at the same time, only partial self-actualization in the sense that I am also worth as much as 2 bottles of body wash and other quantities of other commodities.
Third, with regard to the possibility of the shattering and disturbance of the sellers’ positions and social identities, we may draw a distinction between the sellers’ “imagined” positions and identities, and “realized” positions and identities, as well as “unrealized” positions and identities. The material component of “imagined” positions and identities is not money, but the price.17placeholder Prices are the monetary values sellers expect themselves to sell for. They are the positions and identities the sellers expect they would assume if they successfully sold themselves. These prices and expected positions and identities, however, are realized only after the sellers have successfully sold themselves, and there is no guarantee that their sales would be successful. When their sales do succeed, they are sold for the value they expected themselves to be sold for. They assume their “imagined” positions and social identities in reality. The material component of their “realized” positions and identities is money, their “badge” or “identification card” marking them out as the valuable and useful commodities they expected themselves to be. When their sales fail, their “imagined” positions and identities are not realized. They receive no money, no “badge” or “identification document”. The shattering and disturbance of the sellers’ positions and social identities, in a large way, can be understood in terms of the sellers’ realization, or, rather, failure to realize their “imagined” positions and social identities in capitalist society.
Assuming now also the position of Awareanalysis, as the sellers of themselves position themselves differently in capitalist society, they also encounter the discourses of others differently. The words of a man the worker would have dismissed in every other occasion become undismissable when this man is their employer, to whom they have sold their labor power commodity. As the worker encounters the discourses of others differently, the moral judgments and actions they take towards their own feelings, which are informed by the discourses of others, change as well. The worker who fell into despair over ever becoming “employable” enough may, have been inspired in the past by the encouraging words of colleagues, managers, and life coaches, but, in their despair, all these words ring hollow. One may only hope that this gives them the courage to finally pass the death sentence on their compulsion to maximize productivity, and to remorselessly execute this sentence on every instance of this compulsion. For the influencer, after their mishap, they may try to make amends while suffering insults from across social media, death threats in their mailbox, and so forth. Eventually, under mounting verbal and written pressure from “fans” and “haters” alike, they “snap”. They no longer see any point to maintaining their career and leave for good.
Rather than letting things run their course, it is also possible for these sellers of themselves to become exposed to a new kind of discourse of the other (e.g. counselling), which enables them to pass new moral judgments and take new moral actions towards their own feelings. Better yet, the sellers of themselves may be invited to engage in noncapitalist exchanges with others, which, at the level of economic relations, alter the sellers’ encounters with themselves and others. It allows them to assume new positions with respect to others and other commodities, and build new, noncapitalist social identities for themselves. For one, in noncapitalist commodity exchange, where every seller sells only what they produce, not their labor power commodity, they encounter themselves and the buying other as properly equals. The hypocrisy of capitalist society, where the worker and the capitalist are equals on the market, but servant and master outside in the workplace, is extinguished. The hypocrisy of the “formal freedom” of the worker on the market, who, owning nothing but themselves, can only “freely” sell themselves in order to live, is, extinguished as well. In a noncapitalist market, the rule of “Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham”18placeholder is genuine. Everyone confronts the other as free, equal, propertied, and self-interested individuals. In general, the position assumed by a seller in a noncapitalist market is different with respect to others and their commodities from the one assumed by a seller of themselves under capitalism. Their social identity is different. This means their encounters with the discourses of others are also different, and the moral judgments and actions, informed by these discourses of others, are different as well.
Returning now to burnout and depression, following Han’s argument and the studies on the concept of “employability”, burnout and depression occur in the self-reference of a worker racing against themselves to achieve a culturally constructed ego ideal, and failing to do so. This race is also, from a Marxist position, a sale of oneself. A failure to achieve one’s ego ideal is a failure to sell oneself or sell oneself at the value one intended. This failed sale determines how the worker encounters themselves and others. It disturbs, dislodges even the worker from their position in capitalist society. It shatters and disturbs their social identity.19placeholder Recovery from burnout and depression requires then that the self-reference of the worker be transformed. This self-reference should be seen as both a race after a culturally constructed ego ideal, and as a sale of oneself which positions oneself in capitalist society with respect to others and other commodities. To transform this self-reference means that, first, the worker must form a new relation to their ego ideal. From the position of Awareanalysis, this means the worker must develop, through exposure to a new kind of discourse of the other (e.g. counselling), new capacities for moral judgments and actions, towards their compulsion to race after their ego ideal.
Second, if we wish to deal thoroughly with burnout and depression, we must also transform the economic existence of the worker. “Behind” the moral judgments and actions taken towards their own feelings are not only discourses of others informing these judgments and actions, but also economic relations which position the worker with respect to others and other commodities. Additionally, these economic relations often position the worker in such a way that the discourses of others affect the worker the way they did. Seen this way, capitalism, or, more precisely, capitalist economic relations, are the “base” of burnout and depression. If we do not confront these relations and dedicate ourselves to exclusively developing new kinds of discourses which help burned-out and depressed workers recover, we are expending our energy on palliatives. The more effective course of “treatment” would always be a course of “treatment” which addresses both the “base” of burnout and depression, and the “superstructural” elements of discourse and social identity. In other words, a course of “treatment” which attempts to change the economic relations of the worker, while at the same time exposing the worker to new kinds of discourses under which the worker may form a social identity less prone to the self-reproach and autoaggression characteristic of burnout and depression.
On the most basic level, this means providing counselling services free of charge to workers, while reforming the employment system into one which does not penalize workers for taking time off to attend counselling sessions, and, in general, take care of their mental health. This is not only to ensure that mental care does not become an economic burden to workers, but also so that the worker can position themselves with regard to others who are not their buyers, i.e. the counsellors rendering them service free of charge. This way, their social identity can be transformed through a transformation of the economic relations which position them. Of course, the transformation is minimal, so this kind of “treatment” is only “treatment” on the most basic level. On a more advanced level, a course of “treatment” which addresses both the “base” and “superstructure” of burnout and depression means establishing worker cooperatives which have branches dedicated to counselling. It may also mean the establishment of revolutionary vanguards, which, in addition to all the functions attributed to revolutionary vanguards by Lenin, and all the functions existent vanguards have played, must also provide counselling to their members and the masses.
These worker cooperatives and revolutionary vanguards must also work to bring about wider transformations of capitalist economic relations. For as long as capitalism remains, the social identity of the worker remains partially capitalist the worker continues to position themselves with respect to others who remain in the capitalist market, and their commodities, as well as to others who are with them, in worker cooperatives and revolutionary vanguards, and their commodities. It is not difficult to imagine a “quirky” communist, stalwart against capitalism in every regard except for their one, glaring weakness for Apple products. In their social identity, our “quirky” communist positions themselves with respect to their comrades, global capitalists, and sweatshop workers in developing countries. We may also assume that their social identity is constructed in such a way that the discourses of others who remain in the capitalist market continue to appeal to them. The speeches delivered by Steve Jobs, and now Tim Cook, at every release event, stir their soul. They, recognizing full well the exploitation of labor on a global level behind every Apple product, can nevertheless not help but buy them. Returning now to the burned-out and depressed worker, having a partially capitalist social identity, also means that their social identity remains partially in the state which has induced burnout and depression in them. If the worker continues to sell themselves on the capitalist market, their social identity remains susceptible to the same shattering and disturbance upon the failure of a sale, which has produced self-reproach and autoaggression in them. How this may prove an obstacle to recovery, I think, is self-evident.
Other forms of social action, insofar as they take aim at both the “base” and “superstructure” of burnout and depression, are also viable. This is the conclusion of Awareanalysis.
All references to Berkeley, Norinaga, and Marx aside, there are, to my understanding, very few theories of the human mind today, which do not see the human mind as something shaped by its linguistic, cultural, historical, ideological, economic, and so forth, environment. Likewise, there are very few theories today, which see this environment as something unchangeable. Therefore, it seems to me a sign of practical impotence that when we are confronted with such concrete issues as burnout and depression, we often turn “inwards” and content ourselves with only transforming the burned-out and depressed individual’s “point of view” and “life narrative”, medicating their brain processes, and so forth. The issues of burnout and depression demand social action.
Works Cited
Bloom, Peter. “Fight for your alienation: The fantasy of employability and the ironic struggle for self-exploitation”. Ephemera, vol. 13, no. 4 (2013): 785-807. https://ephemerajournal.org/contribution/fight-your-alienation-fantasy-employability-and-ironic-struggle-self-exploitation.
Han, Byung-Chul. The Burnout Society. Translated by Erik Butler. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015.
— . “The Tiredness Virus.” The Nation, December 8, 2021. https://www.thenation.com/article/society/pandemic-burnout-society/.
Marx, Karl, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy Volume 1. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1887. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/index.htm/.
Vanheule, Stijn, An Lievrouw and Paul Verhaeghe. “Burnout and intersubjectivity: A psychoanalytical study from a Lacanian perspective”, Human Relations, vol. 56, issue 3 (2003): 321-338.
Vanhaeule, Stijn and Stuart T. Hauser. “A narrative analysis of helplessness in depression”. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, vol. 56, issue 4 (2008): 1309-1330.
Žižek, Slavoj. Pandemic! Covid 19 shakes the world. New York and London: OR Books, 2020.
Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy Volume 1 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1887), https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch06.htm.
Strictly speaking, for Marx, this is so on any market. When commodity exchanges, first, began on the boundaries of communities based on collective ownership, already, the owners of commodities entered into exchange, bearing “a tacit understanding…treat[ing] each other as private owners of…alienable objects, and by implication as independent individuals”. What distinguishes a capitalist market from precapitalist markets, it seems to me, is its dramatis personae (i.e. workers who own nothing but their labor power commodity, and capitalists who own the means of production and subsistence), their relations in the market (i.e. workers’ sale of their labor power commodity to capitalists, and the capitalists’ subsequent sale of commodities produced by workers, in a Fordist society, back, to workers), and their relations outside of the market (i.e. workers’ submission to capitalists at work, and their reproduction of their labor power commodity after work). Ibid., https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch02.htm.
Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, trans. Erik Butler (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015), 1.
Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, 1.
Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, 42.
Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, 47.
Slavoj Žižek, Pandemic! Covid 19 shakes the world (New York and London: OR Books, 2020), 23.
Peter Bloom, “Fight for your alienation: The fantasy of employability and the ironic struggle for self-exploitation”, Ephemera, vol. 13, no. 4 (2013), 787.
Peter Bloom, “Fight for your alienation: The fantasy of employability and the ironic struggle for self-exploitation”, 794-795.
Peter Bloom, “Fight for your alienation: The fantasy of employability and the ironic struggle for self-exploitation”, 797.
Peter Bloom, “Fight for your alienation: The fantasy of employability and the ironic struggle for self-exploitation”, 802.
In East Asia, there are other kinds of work and student cultures, too, which, in South Korea and Japan, produce extremely high numbers of suicides every year. It is also commonly observed that Japanese office workers, for all the overtime work they do, are, actually, not very productive.
Byung-Chul Han, “The Tiredness Virus”, The Nation, December 8, 2021, https://www.thenation.com/article/society/pandemic-burnout-society/.
In the third chapter of the first volume of Capital, Marx discussed the relation between price and money. The price of a commodity is fixed when the commodity is “equate[d]…to gold in imagination”, but “to enable [this commodity] to render to its owner the service of a universal equivalent, it must be actually replaced by gold”. “A price therefore implies both that a commodity is exchangeable for money, and also that it must be so exchanged”. Marx, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch03.htm.
Other than Han’s approach which sees burnout and depression as the result of internal struggles, burnout and depression have also been studied as something relational. A sizable literature, by Stijn Vanheule, has been written on burnout, which considers burnout with respect to how the burned-out worker positions themselves, with respect to the other, in work relations. One Lacanian study, which subjected over a thousand educators to burnout screening via questionnaire, found that those with the highest burnout score “generally identify themselves with a role…with which they completely merge and that is complementary to the role assumed by the other”. Depression, or, rather, the helplessness often experienced by depressed individuals, has, also, been studied with regard to disturbing encounters with the other, and the “unbearable riddle” of the other’s intentions. These studies are the inspiration for my relational, Marxist approach to burnout and depression. Stijn Vanhaeule and Stuart T. Hauser, “A narrative analysis of helplessness in depression”, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, vol. 56, issue 4 (2008), 1316. Stijn Vanheule, An Lievrouw, and Paul Verhaeghe, “Burnout and intersubjectivity: A psychoanalytical study from a Lacanian perspective”, Human Relations, vol. 56, issue 3 (2003), 334-335.