The privatisation of stress

The privatisation of stress is a perfect capture system, elegant in its brutal efficiency. Capital makes the worker ill, and then multinational pharmaceutical companies sell them drugs to make them better. The social and political causation of distress is neatly sidestepped at the same time as discontent is individualised and interiorised. Dan Hind has argued that the focus on serotonin deficiency as a supposed “cause” of depression obfuscates some of the social roots of unhappiness, such as competitive individualism and income inequality. Though there is a large body of work that shows the links between individual happiness and political participation and extensive social ties (as well as broadly equal incomes), a public response to private distress is rarely considered as a first option. It is clearly easier to prescribe a drug than a wholesale change in the way society is organised. Meanwhile, as Hind argues, “there is a multitude of entrepreneurs offering happiness now, in just a few simple steps”. These are marketed by people “who are comfortable operating within the culture’s account of what it is to be happy and fulfilled”, and who both corroborate and are corroborated by “the vast ingenuity of commercial persuasion”.

Mark Fisher

1968 - 2017