Khaberni - In a world that only recognizes numbers as a language, the capitalist system reshapes human perception of themselves and the world, reformulating their mental and psychological health in the language of calculations. Thus, the frantic desire to achieve and evolve turns into a trap that many fall into without truly understanding the close relationship between continuous productivity and elevated levels of anxiety and depression, turning many into merely a "number" producing another "number" amid feelings of inadequacy or satisfaction.
Invisible Traps
Many daily motivational messages such as "Invest in Yourself," "Develop Yourself," and "You Can Always Start Anew," while enticing with the promise of more learning and striving for a better life in a fast-paced world, quickly turn into traps that impact mental health through invisible pathways suggested by Karim Batash, a researcher in social and cultural psychology at Hong Kong University, China, in a study titled "The Crisis We Don’t Name: The Psychology of Capitalism."
Among the most notable traps:
• The trap of entrepreneurship, where the self becomes a commodity and the desire to learn becomes a pattern described by the research paper as "Profit Priority Syndrome," a syndrome that begins when the self becomes a brand that must be constantly improved and developed to stay relevant in the job market, accompanied by constant pressure, causing high levels of stress, anxiety, and psychological burnout in the face of endless self-improvement attempts, turning any pause into an investment loss.
• The trap of "Return on Human Relations," where the researcher considers this to be one of the most dangerous unseen paths of capitalism’s control over people’s minds, when the language of investment and improvement moves from offices to bedrooms and personal lives, starting to invest in relationships instead of living them, calculating the "return" on friendships, and viewing family commitments and the needs of those around as burdens that hinder progress and continuation. This has led to the erosion of bonds and transformation of relationships into fragile utilitarian models, as well as the spread of a social isolation epidemic.
• The trap of "Zero-sum Competition," which according to Batash is a syndrome that makes everyone against each other; inside the work environment, others are seen only as threats, and their success signifies more danger, creating a hostile environment linked to the deterioration of empathy, increasing risks of mental health problems because it usually ties well-being and success to overcoming others rather than cooperating with them.
• Privatization of suffering, thus the problems stemming from the economic system are turned into "personal flaws" that require "capitalist" interventions as well. This normalizes disorders such as anxiety, depression, and psychological burnout, and misleads those afflicted into thinking that the solution might be in practicing mindfulness, paying for a psychological resilience course, or perhaps time management. Instead of recognizing anxiety as a rational response to a flawed system, it is treated as an individual failure in self-improvement, deepening feelings of guilt and inferiority.
• The trap of "Proprietary Identity," which links human value to what they possess and can display of successes as a synonym for self-actualization, but studies confirm that those who prioritize material success as a top priority register higher levels of depression and lower satisfaction with life.
Psychological Diseases or Side Effects?
In a study titled "The Political Economy of the Mental Health System," Professor Joanna Moncrieff assumes that the current mental health system, based on diagnosis followed by treatment and medication, is not entirely neutral but rather linked to and serves the capitalist system in one way or another. The study, published in 2022 in the "Frontiers" journal in Sociology, criticizes the common notion that depression and anxiety are always due to a biological imbalance in the brain, pointing out that many mental health issues arise from life circumstances, most notably work pressure, poverty, a sense of instability, and competition, which are usually linked to medical diagnoses like:
Depression.. Anxiety.. Psychological Burnout
Moncrieff considers the prevalence of what she calls the "culture of fear and blame" in work settings, with the increase in tasks and constant monitoring of performance and the so-called "target," has eliminated the sense of security within work environments, causing psychological burnout and a decline in morale. At a time when workers are asked to be more flexible, efficient, and compliant with commands continuously.
Through her controversial study, she emphasizes that the capitalist system, which some of its practices are linked to suffering, is the same system that often transforms suffering into what she calls "the disease deceit," where the problem becomes "individual" and not "communal," and expands the portrayal of feelings of sadness or dissatisfaction into what is termed "chemical disorders" that need drug treatment. Thus, the pharmaceutical market flourishes, and the spread of antidepressants and anxiety medications often occurs unnecessarily, aiding in the system's stabilization instead of changing it, isolating the individual from their social context, and depicting misery as a malfunction in the brain.
Moncrieff does not argue that all psychological disease diagnoses are deceit nor that medications are generally just a capitalist tool, but she points to a form of misuse, and the expansion of interpreting suffering as only biological disorders, which facilitates prescribing many sufferings as "capitalist diseases."
Thus Escape the Vicious Circle
True, there is no magical solution to lessen the psychological impacts of the global economic system, yet there are realistic ways that diminish its psychological effect, based on understanding the issue, the most prominent of which are:
• Renaming suffering and addressing problems caused by the economic system as "responses" rather than "diseases" or flaws in brain chemistry.
• Building strong social connections, prioritizing them over others, fostering mutual trust and empathy, as these bonds are a natural antidote to the anxiety and depression stemming from capitalist isolation.
• Allocating space for activities that have intrinsic value such as creativity or non-profit volunteer and charitable deeds.
• Reducing the linkage between self-worth and material possessions, focusing instead on deeper goals such as profound psychological connections and forming stronger family relationships, which are linked to higher levels of well-being.
• Seeking work environments that support policies such as comprehensive health care, stable employment, and affordable housing as they empower individuals to make decisions based on wellbeing rather than "desperate survival."
• Purging personal language of market terms and stopping the view of the self as a brand or thinking with the logic of return and investment in relationships, and using human language to describe life.
• Recognizing that "failure" is not a personal defeat and that will is not a guarantee for strong results.
• Dealing with feelings of sadness, frustration, and dissatisfaction as motivation to understand reality more deeply rather than as a self-contained psychological illness always needing treatment.
