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The Forum > Article Comments > Sleep no more: capitalism and insomnia > Comments

Sleep no more: capitalism and insomnia : Comments

By Sam Ben-Meir, published 4/8/2022

Neoliberalism wants to convince us that life itself is simply reducible to working life and that work will provide life with 'its best opportunities for joy.'

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What shines from this article is the individuals overvalued sense of worth.

I agree with Zuckerberg, get over yourself, ship up or ship out!

From this realistic approach, the pressured individual may take a different view when they front up to the bank asking for a loan which will purchase a status symbol called a home.

At this point, there is all the less to lose when reality of overvalued self worth at work is accepted. Much better to accept our valueless status.

Dan.
Posted by diver dan, Thursday, 4 August 2022 7:51:25 AM
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Excellent essay.
The many references featured on this site confirm the authors thesis.
http://www.dabase.org/GCF.htm
As do the various essays and paragraphs featured on this site:
http://www.beezone.com/whats-new
Posted by Daffy Duck, Thursday, 4 August 2022 9:26:47 AM
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And of course Diver Dan's screed is essentially an auto-biographical description of his own benighted ignorance.
Posted by Daffy Duck, Thursday, 4 August 2022 9:28:20 AM
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Agree unreservedly with the article and its message. We get much more from employees that we value as members of our family.
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Thursday, 4 August 2022 11:03:23 AM
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Zuckerberg is a stupid and his ship up or ship out rational proves just that!

Speaking as a former employer, got much more from my employees via praise for work well done, and a few beers with a (family) BBQ at weekends.

In a co-op all the workers own a piece of the action and as the profits grow so does their personal reward. And the drones are quickly sent on their way. And any bottlenecks in production eliminated. Ditto sales and distribution.

Co-ops stood almost alone as the one private enterprise free market business model to survive the great depression largely intact. And in the forthcoming deep recession, NB Zuckerberg, likely to do likewise!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Thursday, 4 August 2022 1:22:22 PM
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The problem with this article, as with most attacks on so—called “neoliberalism”, is that the ideology it purports to critique simply doesn’t exist. No-one believes that “life itself is simply reducible to working life”, or advocates that we should be “constantly either working or consuming”, or that capitalism should capture, colonize and conditioning our inner lives. Such ideas have been fiercely rejected by every strand of liberal thought, including neoliberalism, which evolved precisely to reject the totalitarian ideologies of socialism and fascism in the 20th century.

There is a set of ideas that can perhaps legitimately be describes as “neoliberal” (though as far as I know no influential thinker has ever described themselves as such), drawing on the thoughts of economists and philosophers such as Hayek and Friedman, but they bear no relation to the grotesque and implausible portraits of neoliberalism painted by authors such as this.

A fairly balanced critique can be found here:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neoliberalism/

I would agree that increasingly “the present-day enterprise wants subjects who strive of their own accord according to its norms.” But this is not the ideology of neoliberalism, and would be totally anathema to the likes of Friedman and Hayek. Ironically, this expansion of control beyond normal employment and contractual relationships is most evident in the emergent “woke” capitalism that seeks to force employees to become agents of its own virtue signalling - such as the Manly Sea Eagles requiring rugby players to wear rainbow jerseys, or the paying of respects to aboriginal elders “past, present and emerging” as is now de rigueur at almost every public gathering.

(To be clear, I fully support LGBTQ+ rights and have cheerfully worn rainbow colours to indicate solidarity and support. But I'd be outraged if my employer tried to force me to do so.)
Posted by Rhian, Thursday, 4 August 2022 7:56:39 PM
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