If you really think about it, in your heart of hearts, you know that 90% of the people with whom you interact today on the Internet, in stores and restaurants — besides family members and a few friends — do not really care if you live or die.
When push comes to shove, you’re the one under the bus.
Similarly, most of your busyness associates would be too busy to attend your funeral. They would even struggle to find the time to read the second paragraph of your obituary unless it was performed as an interpretive dance by your daughter on TikTok. Strip away the cashflow and see what remains of Homo Economicus.
This may sound depressing, but the majority of fellow humans see you as a wallet with legs.
For coworkers, employees, employers or those pesky LinkedIn and social media contacts (trying to get you to $ign up for their online services to teach you how to be as “successful” as they are) — the depth of their caring about you is probably on par with their knowledge of your middle name. In hyperspeed late capitalism, authentic empathy has become a luxury commodity with a negative ROI (return on investment), one reserved for 55 minute psychotherapy sessions, primarily conducted via screens and with a fee.
If you have a boss, you know that she wants to report to her boss that she is squeezing the most productivity out of you and paying you the least wages possible. It’s her job to maximize efficiency. That’s 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’d fire you faster than you can say Jiminy Cricket if it resulted in a 10-X Christmas bonus.
Late capitalism is heartless.
The “Leave It To Beaver” 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.
“Mergers and Acquisitions” has the same outcome as a “Performance Improvement Plan:” it means you’re getting fired. Your only job security today is a golden parachute. But even that will only temporarily temper the feeling of betrayal that tears your heart to pieces.
So it has become every person for herself. Winner take all. Survival of the ruthless.
Yesterday I heard of someone whose partner has cancer who was “downsized” after 20 years.
I obviously cannot mention store clerks… sometimes it feels like the last time someone made eye contact with me in public was during a White Tantra workshop in the 1990s. I guess I should be grateful if they even remove their headphones when taking my money.
We are being increasingly siloed… if not into status tribes then settling for the — chase-the-dragon — dopamine hits of individualized scrolling…
…cramped in solo conference rooms Zooming fellow two-dimensional pale faces while nursing our Emotional Support Water Bottles…
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’t that breed resentment?
Could this estrangement, resentment, and emotional alienation correlate with rising depression rates?
Does a betrayal of being fired or having your protégé quit for a more lucrative opportunity ever heal?
Oh yeah… sad fact about the 1%: they’re not happier than the hoi polloi. In fact, wealthy people can only be friends with a small group of similarly wealthy people in gated communities with increasing security from fear that other humans might want something from them, like money… or food. They want to be loved for “who they are” and are afraid people are only around for the long financial tails. Are depression rates lower for rich people or are they just microdosing more high quality ketamine?
And really look at the lives of the finest workers alive today: an odd combination of stress-inducing crisis management mitigated by the ephemeral solace of tastebud enhancing meals in exotic destinations followed by alcohol or drug-induced relaxation. Then up and at ’em again in the morning!
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.
Yeah, there’s a handful of Intentional Communities out there but they have their problems too.
It’s a strange dystopia of bottom line efficiency and zero-sum finance that we’ve created. Human beings have become a blight to the planet and our pointless competition for natural resources might result in the war to end all wars or unimaginable natural disasters.
In a world where authentic connection, empathy, compassion and secure attachment are rationed at the will of the market, what can we do to make late capitalism less depressing?
Or was this all inevitable?
