Happiness Denied

10/10/2024

Culture • Books • Psychology • Sociology

By MARCIO SALES SARAIVA*

Commentary on the book by Domenico De Masi.

“What do men ask of life and what do they want to get from it? The answer cannot be ambiguous. Men strive to achieve happiness; they want to become happy and to remain happy.” This statement by Sigmund Freud coincides with ancient philosophies, from Plato to the utilitarians. Humans want to be happy and each one has his own idea of happiness or well-being.

In the social field, it is fair that we seek a socioeconomic, cultural and legal-political structure that guarantees equal access to well-being. It is important that each person has the opportunity to build their own path to self-realization, even if psychoanalysis reminds us that we are desiring beings, lacking and with an unsolvable hole.

Italian sociologist Domenico De Masi, in Happiness denied, reflects on the possibility of socially fulfilling the desire to be happy in this life. Perhaps it is more reasonable to talk about achieving well-being.

In a critique of the blind developmentalism of capitalism, Domenico De Masi states: “There is no progress without happiness, and one cannot be happy in a world marked by the unequal distribution of wealth, work, power, knowledge, opportunities and protections. This inhuman inequality does not occur by chance, but is an intentional objective and the definitive consequence of an economic policy based on selfishness, competition and unhappiness. Karl Marx had already realized this: a society in which the majority suffers is not happy […] social misery is the objective of political economy. […] Political economy is driven by greed and competition” (p. 8).

Domenico De Masi, with a very Eurocentric view, identifies three major fields of interpretation regarding current global capitalism: “The global effect is a contrast between two extremes: the uncritical enthusiasts, who see progress as a ‘violent assault against unknown forces, to subjugate them to man’, as the Futurist Manifesto advocated; and the hypercritical pessimists, who see progress as the cause of the devaluation of man. To these, we can add those who deny the existence of progress, lamenting the absence of ‘half-seasons’.” (p. 10)

Neoliberals are the uncritical enthusiasts, while the neo-Marxists of the Frankfurt School represent the hypercritical pessimists. For Domenico De Masi, these groups competed, in the Western ideological field, for the challenge of building a happy or socially well-being society: “In the West, the Frankfurt School and the Vienna Neoliberal School exerted great influence. The first, interested in a fairer distribution of wealth and power, appealed to the collective and trusted in state intervention. The second, focused on concentrating resources and power in the dominant elite, appealed to the individual and minimized the role of the state. The dispute between these two visions lasted for decades, but today the Viennese group (the neoliberals) appears to be the winner, with devastating consequences for the well-being of millions of people. Their intellectual dominance, now global, is the result of a struggle between opposing conceptions of the individual, society, the economy and human needs” (p. 11).

In the 1970s, neoliberals began to defeat their adversaries (Marxists, neo-Marxists and social democrats) in the ideological and socio-political fields, sometimes using coups d’état and military dictatorships. But all progress is ambivalent, as it “produces both well-being and oppression, that is, unhappiness” (p. 28). Thus, neoliberalism will be harshly questioned and defeated in some countries in the XNUMXst century. Even so, after its last incarnation as a “third way”, it re-emerges with a new face, sometimes aligned with far-right populism (see Bolsonarism).

The truth is that neoliberalism has never been an ally of democracy, classical liberalism, or the collective pursuit of happiness (or well-being). “As a good neoliberal, Ludwig von Mises accused Stuart Mill of being 'the greatest advocate of socialism.' With Mises, other members of the Vienna School abandoned the pursuit of happiness and focused on the pursuit of wealth, going so far as to consider it legitimate to advise a dictator like Pinochet” (p. 40).

In fact, neoliberalism is the ideology of bourgeois domination, especially in the financial sector. It plays an important role in destroying the emancipatory (revolutionary or reformist) possibilities of the working class.

“Just as workers became a proletarian class with Marxism, the bourgeoisie also needed a doctrine suited to its interests. This theory was given by the Vienna School and came to be called neoliberalism, as opposed to both 48th century liberalism and the planned systems that the Viennese identified with socialism and even Keynesianism” (p. XNUMX).

For neoliberals, everything that is not neoliberalism is communism, socialism, collectivist dictatorship or “state theft”. The nickname “leftist” applies to Keynesians, social democrats, greens and even classical liberals. They claim to be the sole defenders of “freedom” against all others. They pose as “heroes” of free expression and “entrepreneurship”. However, the concrete results of neoliberalism, in the countries where they have governed, are disastrous. Empirical data contradicts this propaganda.

Domenico Masi says: “Based on the experience of the last 70 years, it is difficult to argue that neoliberalism, with its sacrosanct market that is supposed to be a balancer, ensures well-being, freedom, equality and solidarity for the greatest number of people: that is, ensures the preconditions for happiness” (p. 113).

Only a violent ideological machine, fueled by a lot of money, can convince people, especially the poor, that neoliberals are “the best” to manage public affairs. And that is what happens, unfortunately.

“In short, the Western society of work gives way to the anarchic poverty of Brazil, where informal and precarious jobs prevail. The ‘Brazilianization’ of work implies that each person becomes their own boss, but in a context of total precariousness. ‘Precariousness’ is the watchword of post-Fordist work.” (p. 120)

On the other hand, the tragic social results of the global expansion of financialized capitalism will generate, in the medium term, either a dystopian collapse (the “Brazilianization” of the world?) or the reconstruction of society on new bases. In this reconstruction, the right to work, creative leisure and happiness will need to be reclaimed against the chaos.

Domenico De Masi's book hopefully supports the second option. He suggests five paths to a well-being society: strengthening the third sector, multi-activity and culture, civil commitment work, degrowth and/or creative leisure, all based on a universal basic income.

Could this society of creative leisure be a form of democratic socialism for the 21st century? A new type of social democracy? The result of a process of institutional reforms or the fruit of a revolutionary rupture? Domenico De Masi does not say, but his ideas are worth reading.

*Marcio Sales Saraiva, sociologist, he is a PhD student in psychosociology at UFRJ.

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