[freeman]

Dissecting the Hustle Culture Narrative:

• The video argues that the self-help industry, self-optimization, and hustle culture are all manifestations of a neoliberal capitalist ideology, that serves as a form of psychopolitical social control
• The pressure to optimize oneself leads to mental health issues such as mental collapse, burnout, anxiety, and depression.
• Hustle culture and positive psychology both promote toxic productivity and toxic positivity, respectively.
• Ideology and fantasy are the two main components of the psychopolitical function of getting people to enslave themselves to capital.
• The gig economy is characterized by unstable work, intensified productivity, lack of worker benefits, benefiting capitalist enterprises while making the life for the average worker increasingly miserable.
• The lack of worker benefits and labor rights has increased the demand for motivational self-help content, which basically coaches people on how to climb up the capitalist hierarchy, which ultimately is not sustainable for the society as a whole.
• Self-help gurus foster delusions that extra grind will eventually manifest into desired outcomes, turning people’s aggression and alienation against themselves.

The video argues that capitalism by its very nature always demands upward/infinite economic growth, productivity and profits. What good is billions and billions of dollars in profit for some corporations at the expense of the people who do the real work? This insanity does not automatically lead to a better society for humanity, unless people demand changes.

A post-capitalist society where life’s basic necessities are all guaranteed as human rights, the work day and week are reduced, and what is produced is owned by those who put in the actual work to produce it is necessary to escape this capitalist prison.