I have to apologise to keen followers of WIRTW – I haven’t written one of these in a while. Over the last eight weeks, I’ve been doing back-to-back interviews as part of the research for my next book. I’ve now spoken to hundreds of people from all over the world about what it’s like to live in hyper-competitive, hyper-individualistic societies. These conversations have been fascinating, revealing – and often heartbreaking.
We’ve built an economy that not only exploits people’s labour and the planet, but also manipulates their insecurities and fears to maximise profits for the few. This psychological exploitation often operates imperceptibly, but it affects our attitudes to work, relationships, and everything in between. From a young age, we learn that we’re all part of one big competitive game – that we live in a free market system, and must compete to survive. If you work hard, you’ll get ahead. And if you fail, it’s no one’s fault but your own.
When you buy into this ideology, you become far easier to exploit – as many of my interviewees ultimately realised. Like the hard-working son of migrant workers who spent years on poverty wages in the hope of securing a permanent contract, only to be overlooked for a promotion and then summarily fired. Or the young tech worker who pushed herself so hard to succeed that her marriage broke down and she became chronically ill.
When you believe the lie that we live in a meritocratic system that rewards hard work and intelligence, you push yourself to breaking point to succeed, and blame yourself when you fail. The only way to escape this cycle is to recognise that we live in a rigged economy: one in which the wealthy and powerful work together to maintain control over society’s most important resources, while telling the rest of us that we live in a ‘free market’. Capitalism functions by promoting cooperation for those at the top – and ruthless competition for everyone else.
My research is based on one-to-one interviews with people who have experienced the psychological torment created by competitive individualism – as well as those who’ve found ways to resist. If you’re reading this and thinking “I recognise that,” please get in touch – I’ll be conducting interviews for a few more weeks and would love to hear your story.
Books
World Eaters: How Venture Capital is Cannibalizing the Economy by Catherine Bracy
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