Our Corporatized Culture: Chronic Stress and Depression (article)

Neurochemical Amelioration of Intensified Socio-Economic Stress

Several decades ago, responding to the growing market for improved anti-depressant drugs, several drug companies developed selective-serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs such as Prozac, Zoloft, etc.). While under its exclusive patent (20 years), a new drug is expensively priced, thus generating huge profits for its maker. (This accounts for the constant introduction of new drugs which, despite claims to the contrary, may not be any more effective than their now-generic precursors.)

Why, by the end of the highly industrialized 20^th century, did a serotonin deficiency in the brain exist for countless millions? Surprisingly, few researchers seemed interested in answering this question. Depression had become so endemic, almost the norm of everyday living, that the traditional ideal of living a happy life was rapidly becoming a quaint anachronism. Sociologists focused on the very real transformations in the quality of daily living—notably

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the ever-changing, increasingly demanding conditions imposed by the now-reigning mega-corporations of a plutocratic order—as the primary cause of chronic stress (see Howard Stein’s 2001 book, Nothing Personal, Just Business).

The physiological and endocrinological reactions to stress were first systematically studied by biologist Hans Selye in The Stress of Life (1956). Adrenalin (epinephrine) surges in response to sudden fight-or-flight dangers. However, the most activating stress hormone is cortisol (a natural steroid not to be confused with synthetic cortisone). In conditions of prolonged stress, the overproduction of cortisol may continue indefinitely.

All-Encompassing Corporate Control and High-Stress Demoralization

Of course, the stress-inducing institutional structures that shape our daily lives are simply taken for granted as the environment in which we live and to which we must somehow adapt. The subjective feelings of freedom, dignity, and peace of mind (another anachronism?) have been crushed by oligopoly capitalism with its endless mergers, outsourcing, automation, collusive price-fixing (inflation), and even algorithmic marketing invasions of the once-hallowed domain of private life.

Family farms were replaced by giant agro-corporations. Working in small neighborhood businesses where camaraderie, informality, and a relaxed pace of work existed was replaced by anonymous, sped-up work in Big Box stores and warehouses. On the white-collar level, to become employed by such giant, impersonal corporations requires humble compliance to all their arbitrary demands: suitable college majors/grades, up-to-date IT expertise, indignities such as drug tests and mandatory indoctrination sessions, as well as the lengthy high-speed commute in congested traffic to the worksite. With the new technologies, such companies can relentlessly monitor, speed up, and constantly evaluate each employee’s “performance” (e.g., “This call may be monitored and recorded for quality assurance”).

To survive, a person must endure daily stressful pressures that insidiously undermine his dignity and sense of autonomous control over his own life (e.g., arbitrary work overloads, sped-up jobs requiring unfailing accuracy, subtle forms of humiliation, and possible job loss at any time within the “employment-at-will” prerogative of those owning the private worksite) wherein the employ-

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ee forfeits virtually all of his human rights. With the government allowing big banks (i.e., real estate) to limit supply and thereby intensify demand, millions of couples are forced to take out mortgages on wildly overpriced houses, “extravagantly large for their inhabitants … [who] seem to be only vermin which infest them” (Thoreau, 1854/1999, p. 115).

Privacy, once the cherished birthright of the homeowner, is another value insidiously being undermined, if not destroyed, by constant, stressful intrusions (telemarketing, smartphone surveillance, even gadgets that observe and record one’s daily habits, etc.). Children, an easy target for the data merchants, are manipulable for marketing purposes by algorithmic-devised entertainment, Instagram-induced insecurities, etc. For the adults (usually in another room), daily watching of the news—an exercise in self-torture—is guaranteed to maintain those high cortisol levels.

Still, incredibly enough, career-oriented parents continue to impose on their children the “success imperative,” an extremely banal, contemptible goal in a profit-driven corporatocracy, basically, to maximize their future market value. Children, deprived of the carefree fun and improvisational creativity that is their birthright, are saddled with excessive schoolwork, homework, and extracurricular activities—all to attain the privilege of being “admitted” into sacrosanct, ivy-enshrouded halls of “learning.” Meanwhile, if a child seems unwilling or unable to cope with such demands, he may be forcibly placed on Ritalin or Zoloft (despite the black box warnings!). This may induce the predictably machine-like behavior required to “get into a top-ranked college.” (In startling contrast, 50 years ago, the humanistic educator John Holt, perspicacious critic of dehumanizing classroom pedagogy, advocated a liberated educational experience: non-coercive, entirely child-centered, and ideally at home.)

Also, what about role conflict as a daily source of stress? Stay late at the office—missing time with the family—or risk the boss’s displeasure. Or stay late on purpose—to avoid “the problems at home.” Like almost all commercialized human interactions in the modern world, marriage is a contract. Mutual obligations are explicit or presumed: most notably, mandated sexual fidelity, with harsh sanctions against any violation of the exclusive right to sexual relations. But foremost, of course, is the obligation to earn a sufficient income, generally requiring one or both partners to have transport, wardrobe, marketable degrees, references, and consistently outstanding “performance reviews.” Ultimately, of course, to afford to live in a “good neighborhood,” with a few consoling luxuries, such as a Jacuzzi, expensive wines, and a big-screen TV.

This brief sketch of the stress-ridden, overly-complicated, work-driven cage mistakenly called one’s “life” merely outlines today’s socio-economic structure, in which the individual constant-

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ly struggles to adapt and “succeed” (with the necessary palliative of mood-regulating drugs). Simply to maintain his status quo, the individual undergoes countless daily ordeals—from the alarm clock and traffic-choked commute to the relentless demands and problems—to be wrestled with at work and home.

Sixty years ago, Herbert Marcuse (1964) wrote that “the idea of ‘inner freedom’ … designates the private space in which man may become and remain ‘himself’” (p. 10). A true sense of well-being requires a solid pride in one’s autonomy and freedom, which allows for self-directed, personal growth, and most critically, in my opinion, for sympathetic identification and the generosity of spirit that strives to help others struggling daily, with unappreciated courage, against seemingly insuperable difficulties. But equally crucial is the right to uninterrupted, quiet solitude—now only possible by discarding the gadgets that chain us to the arbitrary demands and impositions of others.

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