Our right to liberty in this hyper-productive culture; Why we are losing our humanity in the age of productivity
What you're doing right now—is it a distraction or helping you achieve your desired outcome?
We are immersed in a routine, habit, productivity, self-improvement economy. I can't emphasize this enough: you are not a Fortune 500 company; you do not have to improve every quarter! You do not have to please shareholders or a CEO regarding your growth, profit margins, or capital when it comes to you as an individual. You are a fuck'n human being.
You are a person that needs a social life, relaxation, leisure, and recovery.
You are not a machine; you are not a company; you don't have to grow or have higher outputs.
"But in order to possess and exploit something, you must first regard it as an object." - Jason Hickel
Did you feel guilty reading that first line of this essay?
Did you feel like you should have been working, reading, writing, working out, or engaging in some other activity aside from reading this? That guilt you were feeling is on purpose; it's by design. Lovely propaganda that has been a part of your childhood, your parents', and your grandparents'. It's called internalized capitalism. This is the feeling we get when we are not creating money, helping create wealth, making money, producing, making, or outputting.
If we are not improving, working, or in some kind of hurry, then we are lazy by capitalistic standards. If you don't make money, you are not important.
Wealth as virtue, the historical shift in Western Christianity
In the 1700s, these ideas united into a system of values: idleness became a sin, where productivity turned into a virtue. In Western Christianity around this time, wealth became a sign of moral success and salvation.
To maximize profit and incentivize the people, they were encouraged to organize their lives for maximum output. Those that fell behind the rat race and had fallen from grace, into poverty, were branded with the stigma of sin; they must have done something wrong.
Poverty was no longer regarded as unfortunates [1] but as a sign of personal failure. [2]
It's not your fault you feel like this, and I feel like this on a daily basis.
If I slip into poverty, it's not because of the system, but because of my own doing.
How can someone do wrong with the abundance of choices we have with open markets? If there are no jobs, we can create our own. We have this freedom. But do you realize that this way of thinking has no humanity in it? And this is what I believed for so long. And now that culture has turned hyper-functional, it's no longer just about building a highway to get to work quicker, but also about having a morning smoothie full of greens, taking calls, and answering emails after work.
It's in everything, and we are constantly told we are not doing enough or not consuming enough, breeding enough. We are not enough.
The deliberate design behind unbalanced lives
So why can't we afford a life that is balanced?
Why can't we own a house on a single income wage? The scary thing is this is by design. After the Great Depression, there were higher wages, unions, and social programs like public health and education. But these institutions brought about greater well-being and high standards of living. Because of this higher standard of living, labour costs also went up.
But for capital, this higher rate of labour cut into their profit margins. So they had to go. [2]
And with the internet age, we are all bouncing off each other because the internet is the greatest wealth creator in history to ever be made. Someone with a phone or a laptop can become a millionaire if they create a product, service, or even just entertain. With the internet comes connection; our social groups get bigger, and our standards go up. No longer do we want a minimum-income partner; no, at least half a million should suffice. Or a relationship can start and end with a single swipe of a finger. The need to grab people's attention has skyrocketed. If it's not on Instagram, did it happen?
The guilt that manifested from modern productivity
We have commoditized ourselves; we are now the product, and that is why we have greater guilt when we are not creating, making, or producing.
All you need is a phone, and you can become rich. So if we aren't part of the rat race, it's our fault. It's our fault we are struggling to pay rent and also put food on the table. But it's not your fault; it's just a system that no longer works for us. And if we can't make money with our time anymore to sustain ourselves, why not just do what we want instead? Why not just relax, chill? Some of us have realized this with the rise of many trends like bed-rotting (involving staying in bed for extended periods of time—not to sleep, but to do passive activities). [3]
The new self-care is spending our weekend recovering so that we can be productive for our employers, and we feel guilty because of this.
This perpetual wheel, this carrot in front of us, is unattainable for many.
And they will say, "No, you're wrong; this person did it, or they made it." But out of 7.8 billion, only 59 million made it. [4] That's a success rate of 0.75%. When we take a step back, we can see the forest from the trees. And we are people who need a life that is worth living, and we have earned it just by being alive.
So if you feel guilty in the evening for relaxing or having a weekend to just enjoy your leisurely pleasures, know you earned it (there I go again, inserting capitalistic values into my conclusion).
Footnotes
Great Thinkers by Alain de Botton
Less is More by Jason Hickel
