Sometime between 16 and 20 (I'm 32 now), I decided that I wasn't going to take part in the rat race.
I had already noticed something which I would later confirm through my studies in sociology and socio-psychology: Buying and owning stuff only would make me happier for a pretty short amount of time. That new computer, that expensive pair of shoes, even my first car - a few weeks later and that's my new normal, my new neutral point. Sure, I could now do things which I couldn't do before - play fancier games, drive wherever I wanted instead of relying on public transportation - but I didn't feel any more or less content.
I had, however, also noticed that below a certain degree of financial means, I'd have to deal with the kind of anxiety that comes with not being sure how to pay the rent next month or if eating would be an option next week. Since I started living on my own when I was 15 years old and I couldn't officially work a lot but also didn't qualify for official unemployment benefits, I had plenty of opportunity to observe the effects of monetary scarcity on my life.
So, I was going to make sure I'd get a decent education and that would allow me to put a minimum of working hours into making enough money to afford a modest lifestyle. Rent, food, clothing, utilities, internet and phone. Maybe some new hardware from time to time if I saved up for it, or new strings for the guitar. As far as happiness goes, that would come from other fields of life. Spending time with friends, finding a loving partner, being creative, finding useful ways to spend time in charity work or similar endeavours.
And the life happened. I developed serious depression and social anxiety issues, probably an effect of a not-so-easy childhood with an abusive stepfather. Suddenly I was drinking a lot. University wasn't an option anymore (too many people, hung over brain doesn't like learning complex shit), my creativity suffered (depression) and now I was poor and unhappy and lonely. Dealing with these issues took me a couple of years of therapy - which means at 32 I am just now finishing my university education. But I'm better now. Ready to finally live my life as I envisioned it when I was much younger. Except...
Capitalism is everywhere. It is everywhere in very direct ways - as in, there is a rapidly shrinking domain of non-monetized common goods. Our absurd monetary fiat system demands infinite growth to allow for payment of interest (and thus, further accumulation of capital), which in turn means that a price tag needs to be attached to everything. Politics happen within the framework dictated by financial markets and well capitalized special interest groups (and individuals).
Our laws and policy reflect that state of affairs. So many absurdities are built into our understanding of justice. "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread" is not a modern state of affairs.
People either play the financial system, work themselves into burnouts (which is considered being lucky) or are forced into precarity and the kind of financial distress which does affect quality of life through a perpetual state of crisis management. Pretty much what you'd expect with the kind of wealth distribution we are dealing with. 1% owning 50% of global wealth while the remaining 99% compete for the other half. 10% owning about 66% in my country (Germany), while the lower 30% have either nothing or are in debt and the middle 60% own the constantly shrinking about 34% piece of the cake.
Even if the conditions are right, it is quite hard to find a job where my work doesn't actively involve screwing people over in some way or another. It is hard to find a job that doesn't contribute to maintaining the system which is actively destroying the planet we live on if I really think about it. I can't do these jobs for long before the cognitive dissonance becomes too much. I've tried. I really have.
Money can be converted into practically everything. It buys friendship, love and respect. May not be the real thing, but as long as the cash keeps flowing, you certainly couldn't tell the difference. Respect and love and kindness of heart certainly aren't going to pay for a new pair of shoes, though.
But that's only the obvious stuff. It's the less obvious capitalistic mentality which gets me. It has subverted every field from art to language to relationships. Everything is being converted into metrics which can be measured, accumulated or denied. We want to accumulate social capital. We want to "count on" people. We are advised to regard our relationships as a ratio of our investments and returns into them. We allow different systems of evaluation of people's behaviors based on their "net worth". I'm not really saying this process is absolute, there are some areas of life which have not been totally conquered just yet. But, near as I can tell, we are getting there. Depression actually seems like a pretty sane reaction sometimes.
Last but not least, turns out I'm all but impervious to the constant onslaugt of marketing messages and class warfare (from above) publicity campaigns. Compared to most people currently living on the planet, I'm rich. I own a PC, a laptop, a guitar. There's enough money in my pocket to go out and get something to eat when I'm hungry. But I find myself longing for more. Despite knowing that it won't make any difference to my well-being, I want a Thinkpad with an I5, not the 2008 core2duo I have now. I want a fancy Martin guitar, not the one that was gifted to me.
I actively have to surpress my envy when I see people driving around in their cars while I'm waiting for the bus with my girlfriend's kids. And, whenever my relationship to my girlfriend seems to become demanding, when I deal with her difficult moods, when the kids are getting on my nerves... I catch me asking myself "Am I getting enough out of this to justify the investments I am making?!. As much as I am disgusted by the casual way in which (especially people from the US, it seems?) judge people by their (lack of) wealth, I can easily find myself passing judgement on the drunk guy begging in the streets.
Turns out, capitalism is me. I don't know how to deal with myself and the world.
I am sincerely asking: How do you?
Deepflows, I identify with a lot of what you are saying. I too struggle with depression. I too am angered by the way the logic of financial capitalism has invaded almost every facet of our lives. I don't have any answers; I'm struggling too.
I am, however, a good bit younger than you. I'm going to university myself, not because I have a passion for study, but because that's what I have to do to get a job that pays a living wage outside of the service sector. I've looked for paths; I took last year off to work, travel, do my own kind of studying. I dabbled with the hitchhiker/couchsurfer siubculture, which appears liberating from outside, but the rhythms of which I found deeply alienating. I've settled back into the safe path; two more years and I'll have a bachelor's degree in Political Science, or maybe History, or some other social science. Then...?
I don't know what next. The past of least resistance would seem to lead me to Washington D.C. to work in the non-profit sector. Maybe take on more debt to get a masters degree and try to make my way in the federal bureaucracy. My very Green sister-in-law visited last week; I joked maybe I'll end up as a lobbyist for Monsanto. I was only half joking. I don't see how to make a life for myself that is comfortable yet pure, in the sense we're talking about. And if I don't do it, if I don't become a lobbyist for Monsanto or work as a campaign consultant for a repulsive politician or write propaganda for the capitalist press, somebody will. By stepping aside, maybe I maintain some personal moral high ground. But what is that good for?
I don't really know what to tell you, but thanks for replying :)
I'd love to say something like: "Well, see, that's the problem. If EVERYONE wouldn't follow that logic of >>someone else is going to do it if I don't<<, the world would be a better place." Except you are right. Someone else is going to do it. In fact, the majority of people is probably not going to see anything wrong with lobbying for Monsanto - and even if they do, they'll comfort themselves with their paycheck, thank you very much.
Question is, are you that pragmatic? From experience, people who actively question the conditions they're living in, and especially people who possess the kind of sensitivity that makes them open to depression, are not terribly good at doing the wrong thing for the right price. I know I can't do it, and as I said, I tried.
But maybe you can, or maybe (and most likely) you'll find a lesser evil that you'll be okay with. I don't think there's anything wrong with it either way.
I don't think I'm that pragmatic, as you put it. I think I'd just be more depressed. So I'm looking for something else to do. And I'm trying to rip that market logic out of me. I'm trying to get to a place where ending an introspective post like this with the phrase "but what is that good for?" feels out of place, irrelevant. I'm not there yet, but I think I'm on the path. Another thread on Hubski has gotten me considering taking next summer off from school to go backpacking through South America. A change of scenery should do some good. Learning a second language to fluency has to be useful. And I hear Chile, Uruguay, and the rest of that region has a vibrant anti-capitalist scene.
I want to start by thanking you for making this thread. It's not easy to put yourself out there, and you've already sparked some great discussion.
Now, I'm 21, US, have struggled with depression quite a bit, and have spent the last year and a half in a job I absolutely hate in order to pay for school (Just so you can get a sense of where my perspective comes from). Every second has been worth it. See, whenever I get down about the whole "capitalism / money " issue, I always keep two things in mind:
1) Champagne in a penthouse is still drinking alone. 2) Everything will be OK, even if it's not OK, it will be OK.
The first one you seem to have a fantastic grasp on, even if you haven't quite internalized it enough to allow you to stop the envy and all else.
The second is something my mother used to say to me when I was a kid. What she meant by it is that we do, as you say, always find a new "neutral point", but that goes down as well as up. The human mind can get used to anything and everything.
How I deal with capitalism, and the world, is I mostly compartmentalize and ignore it. I've found friends, and it's taken me a while, but I've found friends who don't think in social capital. They'll be there for me when I need them, and I'll be there for them when they need me, but not because of any social capital. We'll be there for each other because we genuinely like and respect each other as human beings. Finding this takes some doing. I've burned a lot of bridges I maybe didn't need to on the way. But, it's all been worth it, because now I can call up friends halfway across the country and they'll pick up. I'd say surrounding yourself with good people is the single most important step to battling whatever darkness you face.
When it comes to money, I've found that I can get a job with enough to pay the bills. I'm left with a modest amount left over after that. I'll put a small bit of it aside to save up for whatever shiny toy I might want, and the rest of it I use to buy experiences. It's not a bad deal at all, if you do it that way. Most of my money goes out to bars, skydiving, pool, things I'll remember. Yeah, maybe it sucks that I have to pay for that things, but at some point you just accept that this is how the world works, and there's been some form of it around since we invented wealth.
Other than that, I've found hobbies. Hobbies I can sustain for free. My biggest one is writing. It costs me the price of notebooks and ink. And I can do it for hours. Finding something you enjoy, you truly love and have a passion for is an incredibly important part of both getting past living in a world ruled by little green pieces of paper, and my depression.
Finally, to address the jealousy, I find that at some point when you have the other things, you just let it go. After a certain point in time, your happiness is an internal action. Not an easy one, mind you, but an internal one nonetheless. When you've got friends, and experiences, and hobbies, you stop feeling the need to keep up with the Johnsons, because his car might be nice, but hey, I got to look at a cool car today, so I've got that. It comes down to spinning things positively, and accepting that what you have is more than enough. It's not easy to do, and there's no shortcut to it, I'm afraid, but it's worth it.
Sorry for the rambling route this took. Thanks for the post, deepflows, it's really made me think about some stuff.
Century of Self is a documentary about the use of psychology to manipulating people into thinking, buying things will make you happy. The later parts are focused on Britain. My friend showed it to me when I kept wondering, why is it so expensive to get psychiatric services, but you can turn on the TV and have psychologists fuck you up for free.
I also have the depression that comes with understanding and thinking about this world. I am bipolar, so I also have megalomaniac phases, where I have to do something to fix everything. To be a bit more precise, my official diagnosis is schizoaffective, because I also have had psychotic periods, where I was completely unglued from reality. I also have auditory hallucinations, if I don't take my medication. Not to try to one up you, schizophrenics have at the least decades before the functional ones can admit that, and not scare people. Civil rights are a long way off.
My boyfriend has a son. I wonder about the stepparent thing too. So much drama.
>why is it so expensive to get psychiatric services, but you can turn on the TV and have psychologists fuck you up for free
That's fantastic!
I watched The Century of Self about five years ago, but I still find myself referencing it in conversations about advertisements and political talking points. Definitely worth a watch.
Adam Curtis is pretty amazing. You can't really dispute, people admitting to their crimes on camera. It is hard to make a documentary like that, if you tell the people that is what you are doing. BBC archives can tell the whole story much better.
Hey, I'm some kind of bipolar schizo too!
The problem isn't capitalism, and I say that as a pinko living in the free market paradise that is the American Southeast. Capitalism is a very effective system for sustaining an increasing population. It also motivates people with incentives, even for kids who work at McDonald's. Communism is the only modern alternative I know of and it's failed, sometimes spectacularly and brutally, every time it's been tried. China is an exception I guess but it's some weird Communist/market hybrid now.
The problems he's having seem to come from human nature, not Capitalism specifically, Capitalism has just become very effective in the last century at exploiting human nature. I get jealous and resentful, I want nicer things, but so does everyone and our economic system and its marketing and advertising arms are set up to leverage that into purchases. This drives most people to settle into a life path where they will be able to live comfortably and have nice things and that's not a bad thing. Everyone wants to live comfortably and the average person in America and the Western world can do that on $50,000 a year or the equivalent.
As for the human interaction capital, well that's nothing new even if it's framed here to support a viewpoint that putting a price on everything is a huge problem. Money really doesn't buy friendship and if you can do a cost benefit analysis of a relationship and find out you're getting short changed then leave. People have been doing that for a long time even if the phrase "cost benefit analysis" wasn't part of vernacular.
The biggest salient point he makes is the struggle many people have just to get onto that path towards a comfortable life. There's no real solution to that without reforms and I don't see any politicians coming forward with a solution. Helping the poor is a toxic topic in United States politics. Poverty, illness, race can all be stumbling blocks towards success and to fix the problem we need to reform within what we've developed, not rail against what's become a system that's in many ways too effective. The comfortable majority is too self absorbed to really care what happens to anyone less fortunate so I don't see effective political reforms any time soon. No one's life is easy. American politics can turn into a pissing match over who has it easy and who needs to just, who worked hard for success and who needs to work harder. It's ridiculous and gets nothing done.
It's easy for people who aren't seeing the benefits to look around them and be jealous or resentful, I work with middle aged women every day who want pretty pictures for their walls and too often I'm seething inside at how vapid they seem to be. I'd advise anyone in this position to seek a meaning to life outside of the day-to-day business of life. I'm an artist so that's easy for me but find something to keep you going, to look forward to, to come home to and say "that other stuff doesn't matter because I have this one thing that brings me back to who I am apart from my petty basal feelings."
That got long and meandering. Sorry.
I've heard "it's not capitalism, it's human nature" a lot. I wouldn't call that wrong, but I would call it an incomplete picture. Capitalism seems to take the worst parts of human nature and reinforce them while devaluing our less selfish and competetive aspects.
I'd also argue that communism has never been really tried. There have been dictatorships calling themselves communism, and it was to both sides advantage to accept that label. I'm not saying communism is the solution. It'd be a nice utopia, though. Fact is, sane alternatives to capitalism have not simply failed. They have been dealt with either through means of economic warface (and economic hitmen) or through actual violence. "Terrorism of the western world" is a good introduction on the subject.
Marketing / advertisement don't just leverage desires into purchases. I'm convinced they artificially create desires. I also wouldn't call people selling their time and work for a pittance so the shareholders of a huge fastfood corporation or soulless callcenter #22312456 can rake in the profits "incentivation". I'd call it extortion. I've also never seen a stuy suggesting that external rewards lead to better performance or greater fulfillment. Intrinsic motivation beats pay every time. Most people won't find intrinsic motivation to flip burgers, though, I get that. Fortunately, as a society we are entirely capable of automating this kind of work.
I also don't think capitalism is terribly good at distributing wealth or at improving peoples conditions. It certainly creates growth for a while, but that is bought with inevitable concentration of the wealth which is created and eventually, the system seems to need to reset itself in order to function - war seems to be a sufficient reset mechanism, especially since you can have a lot of growth afterwards. We live in a state of socialism for corporations and capitalism for the poor and the "third world", anyways. I pretty much agree with everything Chomsky has to say about that matter.
As far as distribution goes, I don't believe you need capitalism for that. It's useful to have markets. You don't need people accumulating disproportionate amounts of capital for these, though. Worker owned factories can compete just fine. Markets and a well regulated form of "capitalism" may make for a decent engine for growth. But I think you need socialism at the helm if you don't want to have that engine drive you into a wall. Since we are not dealing with actual scarcity anymore but in fact the problem is really crappy distribution, it seems entirely possible to me that markets actually have outlived their usefulness. Capitalism certainly has.
Oh well, I'm perfectly happy to agree to disagree about any of these points. Arguing the merrits of capitalism was not really what I created this thread for, anyways. "I deal with it by being well integrated and regarding capitalism as the best system currently known" is a coping strategy I already knew. Just doesn't work for me.
Edit & PS:
It's entirely possible that I'd be singing a different tune if I had a few millions in the bank. I can be an opportunistic bastard like that. I hope I wouldn't, but it's possible.
I have certainly noticed that I have tended towards being an apologist for the status quo after my financial situation became comfortable.
In that role, I'd say that capitalism has been responsible for a ton of wealth creation. First world people are materially far better off today than any group of people ever has been in the past. This isn't just gold watches and fast cars either. WIthout modern medicine I would have probably died as a young teen. Without modern transportation I couldn't have afforded to move 2300 miles to take the chance at getting my dream job. Without modern telecommunications we couldn't be having this conversation.
That said, I also believe that we should not settle for something that's merely less awful than the past. Capitalism, like feudalism, has resulted in a very skewed wealth distribution. That alone would not bother me were it not for the fact that hundreds of thousands of people die every year for lack of an inexpensive antimalarial interventions. We have jobs that suck the personality and individuality out of people. You can get rich selling drugs, or scamming people. The US will bomb a group of people coming home from a wedding party because there's a moderate chance that they're enemies and through a very abstract chain of reasoning they could be a threat.
I don't yet know what a solution to any of those problems would look like, but I'm gonna keep looking.
I have to be entirely honest.
I don't, not really.
I just pretend to do - do what I need to do - to keep those around me afloat.
But as soon as I don't need to anymore? I'm already fucked halfway-to-there enough so that when I have the money, I'm just going to buy things - materials, tools, better hardware - to just forget how fucked this whole thing is. And when I can't distract myself anymore, I'm not sure I'll want to be of this world anymore.