Title: Marx and Mental Health: Alienation in a Post-Fordist era 

Abstract: In this talk I focus on experiences of mental illness and disablement in a post-Fordist era, with an emphasis on this era’s heavy reliance on cognitive and emotional labour. My interest lies in how Marxian conceptions of alienation can clarify how these cognitive and emotional demands shape increasingly widespread experiences of mental illness and disability. I begin by considering some existing Marxian accounts of mental illness which suggest current experience is largely determined by marketing from pharmaceutical companies. I argue such accounts are overly reductionistic and mainly function to erase vital aspects of the reality of mental illness and disablement. I then draw on the concept of alienation to help propose an alternative account that helps make sense of experiences of both mental illness as something one “has” and neurodivergent as something one “is”. I clarify this difference as depending – in significant part – on different material and social relations and thus different forms of alienation. Finally, I synthesise the two issues I highlight by proposing that our current phase of capitalism traps each of us in a cognitive-emotional double bind, between alienation on the one hand and disablement on the other. Under these conditions most of us become ill or disabled, and few of us are able to thrive.

This seminar will take place entirely online, via Teams. Please email Sebastian at sasb1@st-andrews.ac.uk for a link to the meeting.