The Paradox of Capitalism

“For example, how many retirees can relate to Jack Nicholson’s professional exile in About Schmidt, a film about a man trying to find purpose after a career as an actuary, when the title character returns to the office one day in a pathetic last-ditch effort to show he is still relevant?”

Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of short essays by Merion West contributing editor Jonathan Church exploring the idea of capitalism, as practiced today in the United States.

As fear of a potential recession continues, it is easy to be reminded once again that income insecurity often entails a persistent and frightening cloud of anxiety that hangs over many people in the age of “neoliberal capitalism” that we are said to be living in. Losing a job in the United States, where two-thirds of people live paycheck to paycheck and the wealthiest 10% of Americans own 93% of stocks, can induce immediate, suffocating worry about not being able to pay rent, meet mortgage payments, buy food, obtain health insurance, make car payments, or keep the lights on. Or, in the case of high-earning spendthrifts who also live paycheck to paycheck, they might not only be unable to make ends meet but also be unable to keep charging up the credit card to live large.

Dire as this is, however, people must also cope with the emotional disorientation of job loss as they try to survive in a bourgeois society where dignity and self-respect feel inextricably and thoroughly intertwined with having the privilege of routinely punching the clock in exchange for a paycheck (and a thank you if one is lucky), otherwise known as “gainful employment.”

The angst of layoffs, furloughs, and terminations can feel almost like a form of exile. Moreover, even retirees with a pension and maybe a cushion of savings cannot count on spending their golden years without a sentimental yearning for the perfunctory self-esteem derived from being able to list an occupation when filling out paperwork at the doctor’s office. This may also be true, perhaps even more so, for those retirees who have been fortunate enough to have sustained a remunerative career without being ruined by the risks of a dynamic capitalist society (with a fickle stock market) that scoffs at a comfortable safety net lest it give people permission to relax.