\n<\/p>\n
Many of my patients would like to see the category of \u201ccapitalist depression<\/a>\u201d in the next DSM<\/a>. <\/p>\n They say things such as, \u201cI don’t think 90% of the people who I interact with today\u2014\u200abesides family members and a few friends\u200a\u2014\u200acare if I live or die. Most of my business associates would be too busy to attend my funeral. They wouldn’t even read the second paragraph of my obituary unless it was performed as an interpretive dance by my daughter on TikTok<\/a>. Sometimes I feel like a wallet with legs.”<\/p>\n In hyperspeed late capitalism, authentic empathy has become a luxury commodity. If you have a boss, you know that she wants to report to her boss that she is squeezing the most productivity<\/a> out of you and paying you the least wages possible. It\u2019s her job to maximize efficiency. That\u2019s what she gets paid to do. Even if she and you hug the same tree during the annual company retreat and wear matching vests with the company insignia next to your hearts, she would fire you faster than you can say Jiminy Cricket if it resulted in a bigger Christmas bonus.<\/p>\n The Leave It to Beaver<\/em> illusion of company loyalty is a product long ago discontinued, replaced by MBA consultants helping your company merge and acquire or be merged and acquired.<\/p>\n \u201cMergers and acquisitions\u201d has the same outcome as a \u201cperformance improvement plan\u201d: it means that someone is getting fired. The only job security today is a golden parachute.<\/p>\n It has become a \u201cwinner take all, survival of the ruthless\u201d society.<\/p>\n Yesterday, a patient told me of someone whose partner has cancer who was \u201cdownsized\u201d after 20 years.<\/p>\n We are being increasingly siloed\u2026 if not into status tribes then settling for the\u200a \u200achase-the-dragon\u200a dopamine<\/a> hits of individualized scrolling\u2026 cramped in solo conference rooms Zooming fellow two-dimensional pale faces while nursing our emotional support water bottles\u2026<\/p>\n The whipping post of Western civilization, Karl Marx, proposed that capitalism would fail because workers are estranged from the fruits of their labors and would ultimately revolt. If you plant carrots, peas, tomatoes, and lettuce, water them, watch them grow, pick them, and make a salad and eat it, you enjoy the fruits and vegetables of your labors. If you toil on a digital assembly line increasing shareholder value for billionaire investors who live supposedly much cushier lives than you lead, doesn\u2019t that breed resentment?<\/p>\n Could this estrangement, resentment, and emotional alienation correlate with rising depression rates? Could it be labeled as its own type of \u201ccapitalist depression\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n And really look at the lives of the finest workers alive today: an odd combination of stress<\/a>-inducing crisis management<\/a> mitigated by the ephemeral solace of taste-bud-enhancing meals in exotic destinations followed by alcohol<\/a> or drug-induced relaxation. Then do it all over again tomorrow.<\/p>\n The problem is that there is currently no solution, no way out, no way up, no way down, no way back, and no way forward envisioned. It\u2019s a strange dystopia of bottom-line efficiency and zero-sum finance that we are living in. In a world where authentic connection, empathy, compassion, and secure attachment<\/a> are rationed at the will of the market, what can we do to humanize late capitalism and make it less depressing? <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n