Are You Depressed Or Just A Poor Capitalist?
“There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
For many people who are not homeless and dumpster-diving to find their next meal, capitalism is somewhat of a game. And the pandemic and remote work has greatly exacerbated the gamification of capitalism.
Being a system fundamentally based on maximizing exploitation of labor in order to return surplus value $ to shareholders and owners, our economic system, which to date remains the finest on the planet, inherently consists of cats and mice.
Workers, in general, want to put in the least amount of time and maximize their pay; owners want to pay laborers the least amount possible in order to maximize profits.
However, what I am noticing in my psychotherapy practice is that many Gen Z-ers quickly ride their escalators to their own level of mediocrity and then become trapped in bronze handcuffs. Nobody would shed a tear for Generation X-ers trapped in golden handcuffs with possible golden parachutes; however I have noticed many young people handcuffed to uninspiring conveyor belts of digital widgets yet earning just enough to make it difficult to quit.
Maybe they quietly quit with the hope that their bosses will pay them huge severances in exchange for glowing LinkedIn recommendations?
But quiet quitting is a Pyrrhic victory. For many of my patients it is soul-crushing. And they often show up in my office claiming to suffer from depression.
Here’s the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for a major depressive episode:
Five (or more) of the following symptoms present during the same two-week period and represent a change from previous functioning; at least one of the symptoms is either (1) depressed mood or (2) loss of interest or pleasure.
- Depressed Mood
- Markedly diminished interest or pleasure in most or all activities
- Significant weight loss (or poor appetite) or weight gain
- Insomnia or hypersomnia
- Psychomotor retardation
- Fatigue or loss of energy
- Feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt
- Diminished ability to think or concentrate, or indecisiveness
- Recurrent thoughts of death (not just fear of dying), or suicidal ideation
Note: The symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning; and the episode is not attributable to the direct physiological effects of a substance or another medical condition.
If we remove the soul-crushing job, would my patients meet five of the above nine criteria for depression? Could these symptoms of depression be situational (the situation being a soul-crushing job)?
The word “poor” in the title of this article does not relate to financial impoverishment; the word “poor” relates to workers’ ability to suspend disbelief in a system that inherently precludes them from meaningfully contributing to humanity and the planet while lightly rewarding them for fattening the digits on their bosses’ screens.
If that doesn’t sound depressing, then maybe it is time for a new diagnosis of “Situational Depression” or “Occupational Depression” in the next DSM. Because here is what seems to be the current choice for some of my patients: change the situation (quit the job), or medicate themselves so that they can endure the soul-crushing bronze handcuffs.
And yes, some people’s brains are chemically imbalanced and need to be medicated. But games have winners and losers and spending 90% of one’s waking hours in front of a screen doesn’t sound like much of a winning proposition.
