Karl Marx and Depression?
How Marx predicted that alienation and depression would be rampant under capitalism
Depression within our society is widespread, in the United States for example, “diagnoses of major depression have risen dramatically by 33 percent since 2013”. Throughout the globe, the level of depression has also seen a rise of 18.4% between 2005 and 2015, with the pandemic evidently making things much worse.
On top of that, job satisfaction is also at all-time lows with more than half the American workforce feeling unhappy in their employment, citing feeling unfulfilled and not being paid what they are worth (which is a crucial part of Marx’s analysis).
People like the late David Graeber have also spoken about the dissatisfaction within the workplace with the emergence of “bullshit” jobs. Graeber saw “a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case.”
