B (16:12)

I think there's a constant interdependence there where the job and one's feelings about the job sort of feed each other in this loop. But I feel that people are often increasingly without senses of meaning in their work and their workplace and their missions and the mission of their workplace. And this steadily and perniciously undermines their sense of satisfaction with themselves, with their feelings, with their everyday because they spend so much time at work, the demands are so high, increasingly high, and the sense of purpose increasingly rare that it creates a problem. It creates an estrangement from people to their sense of meaning and purpose. Feeling good, feeling necessary, and mostly I think feeling connected.

A (17:00)

Is it, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but is it in a sense that people have that they're just a cog in some big anonymous machine whose purpose is beyond making money for somebody else? Seem to be clear that they don't seem to be compelling. Am I getting that?

B (17:17)

Yes, I think that's exactly right. I think many people feel reduced to being a cog, which is objectifying and dehumanizing. So you're not a cog, even if you're part of a many armed operation, you're a person with the feelings and experiences and all the personal attributes we embody. And so it's undermining. It turns us into feeling robotic, like Automatons. It takes away the complexity and the emotional sort of basic experience that we embody. It takes all of that away to feel reduced to just being a piece of a piece of a piece. Especially if one doesn't feel particularly satisfied from the entire mission of their workplace or whomever for whomever they work.

A (18:04)

Also, in our capitalist system, things are organized hierarchically. All the interesting questions and problems, design of the business goals, mission, that's all done by a handful of people at the top, and that excludes the vast majority of people. So in a sense, the way we've organized businesses produces the very. I'm just a cog in a vague machine mentality.

B (18:30)

Yes. And there's all sorts of labels that different workplaces enforce. Some of them give numbers. I had heard that Amazon people had numbers. The six was higher than the five and so on. If you talk about the reduction, the objectification and the dehumanization of saying like, oh, this is my friend, fill in the blank. She's a three, but I'm a four. Oh, here's a five. It really turns people into different heights. It's very, very reductive. And I think it undermines one's senses of connectivity to self, to other, to workplace, to one's time.

A (19:05)

There's a joke that I've come to borrow from. I don't know who that talks about trying to be funny. That that thing after work that we stopped to do at the bar on the way home is called a happy hour, which kind of tells you what the other hours must be like to make that distinction. Is that joke's notion of unhappy, like what you mean that it can be depressing to be a worker in our system.

B (19:34)

It's extraordinarily and particularly depressing, I think, for human beings to feel asked to partake in things that have nothing to do with them on a repeated, lengthy basis. I think there's something terribly wrong when we feel that we have to participate in something that has no regard for us, no regard for our humanity. There's a splintering of a sense of self and self esteem and coherence internally that starts there. And I think it's very widespread. I think our society, contemporarily speaking, has normalized the notion of, oh, you're an artist. What do you do to make it? What is your job that you don't like? What do you really do? What do you really want to do? All of this has been normalized as though we should somehow make peace or accept the idea that we, we're going to spend an inordinate amount of our times, the time at work doing something for which we have no particular affinity, with which we have no particular relation. You know, this terribly lonely making for the majority of people.

A (20:38)

You know, as an economist, here's a question. Isn't it reasonable to suppose that workers depressed for all the reasons you've just gone over, are not gonna be as productive or efficient as they might otherwise be if they had a different relationship to their job?

B (20:55)

Oh, definitely. I think there's been studies about this on working on Friday and the four day work week and all the discussions there. Because it absolutely results in less productivity in all sorts of measurable and less measurable ways in terms of the attitude with which one presents at work in terms of camaraderie, solidarity, in terms of just care that someone might give for a mission for which they might not have to feel. Great relationship, but something. You know, when you take away people's humanity, you take away their capacity to give humanely too.

A (21:27)

This is extremely important because what you're saying in so many words is that the capitalist way of organizing production, top down hierarchical, a tiny number of people making all the key decisions is, isn't necessary, isn't efficient, can't be justified by some notion of productivity requiring it. It's justified because those people want to keep getting the bulk of the money out of it all and reduce everybody to exclusion from that. And the end result is we all pay in less productivity.

B (21:58)

Absolutely, absolutely. And it's a self spinning cycle because people get more depressed and they get more and more likely to accept depressing work circumstances. So you can certainly stretch and widen someone's tolerance for mistreatment by slowly depressing them over and over again into inactivity and all sorts of other problematic states.

A (22:24)

What about the logical next question? How does the depression that comes out of your work situation impact your personal life, your family life, your, your romantic relationships and so on?

B (22:36)

I mean, countless ways in which people. Because at base we first have a self relationship and then from our self relationship as people, every other one of our relationships is informed. So very first is how we relate to ourselves because we're our first mirror and a reference point and all of these things. And then we relate to other people. It's not that the relationships are all identical, they aren't to self or the other particular relationships and their respective qualities. It's more that first we have to have connection to how we feel and what we think and what's going on with us. Then we can connect to other beings. And so when that's undermined by an estranged relation to work and workplace, workplace mission, we start separating from what means something to us. Because in order to go to the same job over and over again, you have to start separating. It's a coping mechanism. Otherwise you just weep all day and you can't be acceptable. And that can then result in people connecting less with spouses, with partners, with friends, with children, with colleagues, with all manners of contacts.

A (23:38)

Yeah, it's what some of us have seen on the job. When you begin to notice one or another of your co workers kind of fading out, turning inward, becoming a little less of a social being and less present and less present even to themselves.

B (23:53)

Absolutely. And less emotionally available for whatever may be happening. You know, positive, negative or neutral. There's just less availability if you're distracted or dissociated. When people are in pain physically, sometimes you see them and their faces sometimes are a little pinched. Sometimes there's a little bit of sort of withholding energy that comes from them when they're in pain, when they're trying to navigate, sitting or walking or doing whatever they are when there's pain. And the same thing happens on an emotional level. It's just imperceptible and not often discussed. So there's a part of them that already isn't there. Even before they walk in, even before they might be spacing out at this or that part of the work, they're already kind of less available. And then there's less and less availability after that.

A (24:36)

Let me push you on this. Would you say that people are or are not in general, based on your practice and your life? Are they aware of being depressed when they in fact are? Is there an understanding in the United States that depression is a burden we carry because of the way we've organized work?

B (24:59)

There's some, but not much. I think there's an ambivalence that resides in a lot of people who feel simultaneously dissatisfied with workplace situations and self blaming about that dissatisfaction. So there's a sense that one is selfish for wanting more or entitled or they ought to be happy with what.

A (25:22)

They'Ve got, or they're just whining.

B (25:24)

Yes. This positivity culture that's been, I think, hijacked by a lot of corporations also adds to it that we're supposed to be in a good mood and we're supposed to plaster a smile on our face and be glad we're not like this and that and this person who have it worse and on and on and on which are ways of shaming people and taking from them their, you know, rightful honest states.

A (25:44)

Well, now, the kind of the conclusion, because we have limited time in your practice, what would you advise a person whether or not he or she is depressed or aware of it, but if they are, in your judgment, depressed by their work, what do you do about it? What would you advise a person who wants to cope maybe better than happy hour or something else with this problem? What might you suggest?

B (26:13)

I mean, there's a lot of things. I think one is there's certain literature you can read, there's certain things you can do if you can afford and are interested in therapy that can help group or individual. There's all kinds of therapy out there. I think one of the things is to really understand that wanting to have a job to which you relate, in which you feel you are present and from which you feel you can learn is a very healthy normative thing. And it's also a very healthy normative thing to have a sad reaction when those things are lacking, especially more and more lacking to understand the validity, to talk about things, including things that are difficult, especially things that are difficult, because then you can hear other people nod and say, me too, which is a very powerful two word sentence. And this can start to normalize, you can start to make different demands. But people have to first be interested in how they feel, recognize the depression and then open up about it so that it can be validated and shared.

A (27:14)

You know, it's the same recipe as across the board. If you want to change society, you got to first be honest about your own experience that makes you come to a position of wanting to change society. Because if you can communicate that to others, it's the best organizing tool ever invented. Just sharing and, and enabling other people to share that kind of perspective.

B (27:37)

Absolutely.

A (27:38)

How do you feel about the United States, given your practice and given what we've talked about?

B (27:43)

Very sad, but also hopeful. And, you know, I clutch at the little pieces of hope because there's so much, you know, destructive stuff happening and there's so much destructive energy. And people are depressed and they're inactive. And it's understandable that they're inactive because they're depressed. But it feeds on itself. And so we really have to grab at the pieces of positivity. People who look like they're gonna be honest leaders, people amidst us in all of our places, we can look to them also for these kinds of honest discussions. If we feel depressed, if we feel disconnected at the workplace, I think it's incredibly important to talk and to take risks.

A (28:24)

Thank you so much, Tess. I know the time has gone fast, but that's partly when things are interesting, and we hope they are for others, too. Thanks again, and to all of you, thank you again for joining us. I want to particularly thank our Patreon community, as always, for their invaluable support. And I want to conclude by saying that I look forward to speaking with you all again next week.