A Class In Anxiety

The dry mouth, sweaty palms and a sense of impending doom, are symptoms we can all relate to. Anxiety and stress are natural parts of protecting ourselves from danger, but they can also be debilitating. The individual may be overwhelmed and their reality perverted, sapping them of confidence and making it difficult to go on.

Rock solid confidence and the will to keep going are essential aspects of the capitalist system. The market demands that if an individual is going to survive they must compete to win. With the stakes being high even with “petty” transactions, individuals are dependent on taking risks and leaving their comfort zone. Whilst the champions of capitalism and their supporters would maintain that this success is a simple case of individual choice, studies suggest that a person's success has more to do with their background. Those who are confident are those who succeed, thus creating class.

A person who sees the world as a threatening and worrisome place has all their decisions colored by this world view. This anxiety is a trait for the individual. Not willing to take a chance those with high trait anxiety are less willing to take risks when competing than those with low trait anxiety.

The results of which maintain class boundaries and social inequalities, even when society has freed the individual from the constraints of regulation and allows the market to run free.

In this relationship, the winners are the capitalists whose low trait anxiety means they can risk competing and thus make gains. The working classes lose in this circumstance, as their situation is conducive to high anxiety. Material wealth means security, it means having a backup it if all goes wrong, and being less dependent on other people. Without, the benefit of either material wealth or a family with material wealth, members of the working class are stuck in a situation of perceived high risk and high anxiety.

The position of the anxious working class allows for the dominance of the capitalist class.

Whilst the capitalist class bolsters their position in society, so increases the instability of the working class. This insecurity in its most basic form is materialistic. It is in the capitalists' interest to have their workers worried about their jobs. The more insecure the conditions of employment the more the capitalist class benefits.

The simple fact is that without a means of feeding, housing, and clothing themselves members of the working class are dependent on taking the route of least risk. This route means staying in the low paid job or even accepting ever worsening working conditions. By not allowing a fair share of the value a worker produces the capitalist makes sure that they will have a pliable workforce in fear for their future.

Repressed the working class faces a decision to accept their sentence or revolt. Revolt, if it is to be sustainable, must go beyond the individual and their anxiety, it must be a collective action. The capitalist class knows the potential of such a collective action and as a result, aims to break up the solidarity of those who sell their labor. Methods such as union busting, individual wage bargaining, and employment of agency, to name a few, aid in maintaining the grip of the capitalist class through creating instability and the subsequent anxiety that goes with it. Whilst the capitalist class may talk about choice and freedom of the individual, they are merely creating a diversion. This diversion diverts the attention of the competing workers, blinding those who can keep their head above the water and drowning those who can’t.