Capitalism Can’t Tell You What You’re Worth
A reminder for hard economic times
My friend was laid off in May because of COVID-19. Since then, he’s become deeply depressed. “I have nowhere to go now,” he told me recently. “There’s no reason to get out of bed in the morning. I’m not a contributing member of society. I’m worthless.”
This is what I said to my friend, and I’m guessing there are others out there who need to hear it, too: Your job does not determine your worth as a person. Your title, the letters behind your name, and how much money you make do not determine your worth as a person. That is a bullshit story sold to you by a cruel and confused society.
As Foucault and others have pointed out, every system of oppression comes with belief systems that justify it. Racism, colonialism, heteropatriarchy, imperialism, slavery, feudalism, and capitalism are all propped up by stories. These stories explain why it is only good, right, inevitable, or natural for certain kinds of people to own, discipline, displace, exploit or exterminate others.
It isn’t only the oppressors who believe these stories, however. Oftentimes the oppressed believe them, too. As Paulo Freire skillfully articulated, the oppressed “are at one and the same time themselves and the oppressor whose consciousness they have internalized.”
My friend believed the capitalist story that says “your location in the economy is indicative of your value as a person. If you have no job, no money, no property, and no status, you are essentially no one.” It’s not his fault he believed it. This story is everywhere and has been with him since he was young. I myself believed it. And just like him, I will have to consciously resist it for the rest of my life.
The thoughts he shared with me about himself didn’t originate inside him. He wasn’t born thinking this way about himself. He learned to think this way. Through the media and educational system, capitalists taught him to conceive of himself in this way.
Deep down, most of us know this is a bullshit story. We know that how we make money is not, as capitalism would have us believe, the same thing as how we contribute to our communities. Our jobs do not necessarily align with our values, nor with how we actually want to participate in society. In fact, they are often opposed: we show up for our families, friends, and communities in spite of our jobs, not through them.
Deep down, we know that our value is not and cannot be determined by the market. Our lives are not reducible or quantifiable. Time is not, in reality, money. Time is life. Our time and our lives are valuable unto themselves, inasmuch as every life is precious and sacred.
What do we do beyond, against, and in spite of our jobs? Who are we to our family and friends? Who are we to our neighbors and communities? How do we show up for ourselves? How do we relate to the land, rivers, oceans, and air? How do we treat our non-human kin? What do we create? What are our passions and talents? What are we curious about? What inspires awe, reverence, and wonder in us? What is the content of our hearts and minds? What do we find good, true, and beautiful? How do we want to live? How do we want to die? These questions point the way to understanding our worth, not “what is my job?”
Life under capitalism is strange, painful, and thankfully, time-bound. Humans existed before it and will exist after it. The impulse to ask someone “so, what do you do?” rather than any of the aforementioned questions is a sign of the times, not of human nature. We will ask those questions of ourselves and each other again someday. And we can begin now.
