Our Corporatized Milieu: From Chronic Stress to Depression

In the United States today, everyday life has become for many an anxiety-driven race to nowhere, a stress-filled sprint on the work-and-spend treadmill. Under such dehumanizing conditions, people try to cope with such chronic stress through compulsive access to mood-altering drugs, food, alcohol, TV, the Internet, shopping, pornography and sex.

Several decades ago, responding to the growing market for improved anti-depressant drugs, several companies developed “selective-serotonin (re)uptake inhibitors” (SSRIs). Prozac and Zoloft, no longer under the 20-year patent and therefore cheap, have quickly been superseded by new, expensive SSRIs which, despite claims to the contrary, may not be any more effective than their now-generic precursors.

Since the late 20th century, the increasingly demanding conditions imposed by reigning mega-corporations have produced daily conditions of chronic stress. Such prolonged stress neurochemically activates an elevated secretion of the stress hormone cortisol. Oligopoly capitalism–with its endless mergers, outsourcing, accelerating automation, and workplace surveillance–has undermined subjective feelings of freedom, dignity, and peace-of-mind. To survive, a person must increasingly endure daily stressful pressures that insidiously undermine her dignity and sense of autonomous control over her own life. Magnify all this with the lurking fear of job loss: under U.S. law, continued employment is entirely determined by those who own the workplace (their “employment-at-will” prerogative).¹

Role-conflict also strains the coping strategies of people, often to the limit. Stay late at the office–missing time with the family–or risk the boss’s displeasure. (Or stay late on purpose–to avoid problems at home.) Even at home, constant, stressful intrusions further undermine one’s sense of autonomy (telemarketing, smartphone surveillance, even appliances that observe and record one’s daily habits). Children, an easy target for the data merchants, are manipulable for marketing purposes by algorithmic-devised entertainment, Instagram-induced insecurities, and so forth.

It is critical to remember that Homo sapiens thrives in a sunlit, open-air milieu: both ample sunlight exposure (vitamin-D synthesis) and vigorous physical activity optimize serotonin secretion, which is subjectively experienced in feelings of serenity and well-being. By contrast, chronic stress, with its neurochemical excess of cortisol, has been linked to a corresponding diminution of serotonin levels in the brain.

In other words, while SSRIs are designed to inhibit or delay the “(re)uptake” of brain serotonin back into the bloodstream, stress-induced, elevated cortisol results in the opposite. Thus, in a notable research study, “Can Stress Cause Depression?”, psychiatrist H.M. van Praag concluded that “depression research should shift from depression per se to the neurobiological sequelae of stress.”²

Sixty years ago, philosopher Herbert Marcuse wrote that “the idea of ‘inner freedom’…designates the private space in which man may become and remain ‘himself.’”³ A true sense of well-being requires a solid pride in one’s autonomy and self-direction, which allows for balanced, personal growth. And equally crucial is the right to uninterrupted, quiet solitude–perhaps now only possible by discarding the gadgets that chain us to the arbitrary demands and impositions of others.

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This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by William Manson.