Spent? Capitalism’s growing problem with anxiety | ROAR Magazine

Spent? Capitalism’s growing problem with anxiety | ROAR Magazine:

About six months ago, Moritz Erhardt, a 21-year-old intern for Bank of America Merrill Lynch in London, died after working for 72 hours straight without sleep. Journalists found a strange bravado among City workers, reflected in their tributes to a value-system of drive, resilience and regularly ‘pulling an all-nighter’ beyond all normal measures of exhaustion. That’s nothing. As one said, “On average, I get four hours’ sleep about 70% of the time … [but] there are also days with eight hours of sleep. … Work-life balance is bad. We all know this going in. I guess that’s the deal with most entry-level jobs these days.” Coupled to ambitions to succeed in careers scarcely worth the reward is a fatalism about expecting any change. That’s how it is.

 

  

In today’s turbo-charged and
austerity-ravaged economy, anxiety and insecurity have become the new
normal. How did this happen — and how do we fight back?