Liviu Poenaru, Mar. 10, 2025

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The modern economy does not merely regulate production and exchange; it has become a totalizing framework that shapes thought, emotion, and perception. As Sylvain Piron demonstrates in Généalogie de la morale économique, the logic of the market is not a self-evident rationality but the product of a long history of theological and philosophical constructions. What we now consider economic “truths” are, in fact, inherited moral structures that have undergone a process of secularization, making them appear natural and inevitable. This process of naturalization functions as a form of unconscious conditioning, shaping desires, anxieties, and even the fundamental experience of time and value (Graeber, 2012; Han, 2015).

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At the heart of this conditioning is the moralization of work. For much of human history, labor was considered a means to an end—whether for the sustenance of life or the pursuit of the vita contemplativa. Over time, however, particularly with the rise of Protestant ethics and later industrial capitalism, work became a moral imperative, a measure of one’s worth rather than a practical necessity (Weber, 1905). This transformation has had profound psychological consequences. The contemporary subject no longer works merely to survive or to secure well-being but out of an internalized sense of obligation, where productivity is equated with moral virtue. The inability to work, or even the refusal to submit to certain forms of labor, is thus experienced not simply as a material hardship but as a personal failure, leading to feelings of guilt, inadequacy, and self-recrimination (Ehrenberg, 2010; Berlant, 2011). The logic of capitalism has not only made work inescapable—it has made it unquestionable.

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This moralization of work is directly connected to the increasing prevalence of mental and physical health issues, including burnout, chronic anxiety, depression, and various psychosomatic disorders (Schaufeli et al., 2009; Rose, 2018). When labor is no longer seen as an activity but as a moral duty, individuals internalize their economic performance as a measure of self-worth. This creates a perpetual cycle of self-discipline and self-punishment, where failing to meet productivity expectations leads to emotional distress. The increasing prevalence of workplace exhaustion and stress disorders is not simply a side effect of demanding jobs but a structural outcome of an ideology that ties personal dignity to economic contribution (Rosa, 2013). Individuals are conditioned to believe that to rest is to fail, to slow down is to fall behind, and to opt out is to become socially invisible. The consequence is a crisis of exhaustion, where people experience profound fatigue, cognitive overload, and emotional depletion while feeling unable to disengage (Han, 2015).

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The economic colonization of life, as analyzed by Piron, echoes Marx’s concept of alienation, which describes the ways in which capitalist production estranges individuals from their labor, their sense of self, their fellow human beings, and their relation to the world (Marx, 1867). In a system where work is both a moral obligation and an economic necessity, labor ceases to be an expression of human creativity and becomes an external force imposed upon the worker, one that serves the reproduction of capital rather than personal fulfillment. This alienation is not merely economic but deeply existential, as individuals are deprived of the ability to see themselves as agents outside of their productive function (Braverman, 1998). The increasing abstraction of labor in financialized economies intensifies this detachment, as workers often no longer engage with tangible products or meaningful social interactions but instead perform tasks that feel fragmented, repetitive, and devoid of purpose.

 

This estrangement extends beyond the workplace, shaping social relations and self-perception, as people begin to view their worth primarily through their market value, productivity, and capacity to generate profit. As a result, alienation contributes to a widespread sense of disorientation, disempowerment, and psychological distress, reinforcing feelings of emptiness, anxiety, and self-exploitation, as individuals struggle to reconcile their imposed economic function with their deeper human needs (Fisher, 2009).

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The economic occupation of time is particularly insidious because it does not merely consume hours—it fundamentally restructures how individuals relate to themselves, to others, and to the world (Crary, 2014). Historically, time was divided into multiple spheres: sacred and profane, labor and leisure, political engagement and communal life. But in contemporary capitalist societies, time has been almost entirely colonized by economic imperatives. Work is no longer something one does; it is something one is. The self is measured by its capacity to produce, optimize, and remain competitive. Any time that is not monetized is seen as wasted, and individuals are encouraged to manage their schedules with the same efficiency as corporations manage supply chains.

 

This economic occupation of time is a primary driver of rising individualism, as the subject is led to believe that their survival, success, and even happiness depend solely on their personal economic performance (Dardot & Laval, 2013). The social fabric that once provided a sense of belonging, mutual responsibility, and shared purpose is weakened, replaced by a culture of self-reliance that erodes collective solidarity. Under this logic, struggles that are fundamentally systemic—such as job insecurity, financial stress, and social inequality—are reinterpreted as personal failings. The result is a profound distortion of beliefs, where individuals feel responsible for conditions they did not create. This belief in absolute self-sufficiency leads to isolation, as people internalize the idea that asking for help is a sign of weakness, rather than a basic human need.

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This epistemological order functions as an ontological and epistemological straightjacket, restricting how individuals conceptualize reality, knowledge, and even their own existence. The market is not only presented as the optimal system for organizing resources but as the fundamental lens through which all aspects of life must be understood (Brown, 2015). Knowledge itself is increasingly measured by its utility within the economic system, privileging fields that produce marketable skills while devaluing disciplines that foster critical thinking, historical inquiry, or alternative ontologies.

 

This epistemological reductionism creates a closed system of thought, where economic logic is not up for debate but is taken as a given, a self-evident truth rather than a historically contingent construct. The result is an ontological foreclosure, where alternative ways of being, organizing society, or experiencing time become not just unfeasible, but unthinkable. In this way, capitalism does not merely structure material life; it polices the boundaries of what is knowable, desirable, and real, ensuring that any deviation from its logic appears as irrational, naive, or impossible. This intellectual and existential confinement makes resistance difficult, not only in economic terms but at the very level of imagination, where the possibility of an outside is gradually erased (Jameson, 1990).

 

Bibliography

Berlant, L. (2011). Cruel Optimism. Duke University Press.

Braverman, H. (1998). Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century. Monthly Review Press.

Brown, W. (2015). Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. MIT Press.

Crary, J. (2014). 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep. Verso.

Dardot, P., & Laval, C. (2014). The New Way of the World: On Neoliberal Society. Verso.

Ehrenberg, A. (2010). The Weariness of the Self: Diagnosing the History of Depression in the Contemporary Age. McGill-Queen's University Press.

Fisher, M. (2009). Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Zero Books.

Graeber, D. (2012). Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Melville House.

Han, B. C. (2015). The Burnout Society. Stanford University Press.

Jameson, F. (1990). Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Duke University Press.

Marx, K. (1867). Capital, Volume I. Penguin Classics.

Rosa, H. (2013). Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity. Columbia University Press.

Rose, N. (2018). Our Psychiatric Future. Polity Press.

Schaufeli, W. B., Leiter, M. P., & Maslach, C. (2008). Burnout: 35 Years of Research and Practice. Career Development International, 14, 3, 204-220.

Weber, M. (1905). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Routledge.

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