Chapter 3 - The Emotional Misery of Capitalism

Summary

The chapter discusses how leftists analysed the emotional plight capitalism was causing. It argues that alternative leftists created an emotional knowledge about how capitalism produced specific feelings such as fear, loneliness, and boredom. Making use of William Reddy’s concept of the ‘emotional regime’, the chapter proposes that by analysing capitalism in such emotional terms, leftists effectively created an emotional regime themselves, which had, in direct effect, powerful emotional effects. The multiplicity of texts that discussed and described what capitalism did to feelings – that is, how it damaged personalities and intimate relations – should not be misread as a mere analysis of emotions under capitalism. Rather, these texts had a productive function, as they themselves created an emotional regime, which the chapter explores in four steps: first, it analyses leftist discussions about fear in capitalism; second, it turns to the critique of damaged personalities and damaged relations; third, it explores leftist critiques of urban life as dull and isolating; and finally, the chapter outlines the practical implementation of this emotional regime within the leftist scene.