Recovery From Schizophrenia: Psychiatry And Political Economy

44 BACKGROUNDchanges in blood-clotting and serum cholesterol that increased their risk of heartattacks and strokes. 81 A study comparing heart-attack victims and a matchedcontrol group of healthy people, all of whom were employed in the sameSwedish nationwide chain, found that workers suffering heart attacks hadexperienced many more stressful life events before falling ill—but the events thatwere more common in the heart-attack victims were all job-related. The stressfulevents included major changes in working schedule or conditions, undertakingmore responsibility at work or having trouble with the boss. 82 The same researchgroup studying members of the Swedish construction workers’ trade union foundthat increased responsibility at work was the only life-change measure amongdozens examined that predicted an increased risk of heart attack in this sample. 83One important piece of research, the Framingham (Massachusetts) study of riskfactors in coronary heart disease, found no correlation between job-related stressand the presence of angina pectoris and other indications of heart disease. Thisfinding may well be due to the fact that all of the heart patients in this studysuffered from relatively chronic illness and were heart-attack survivors; suddendeathvictims were automatically excluded. 84 On balance, the evidence is strongthat the stresses of working are important precipitants of heart attack.One of the most widely embraced of Karl Marx’s theories is his concept ofalienation. The concept is well enough accepted, in fact, that the US Senate in1972, concerned about the apparent spread of job dissatisfaction among workersand the threat of falling productivity, commissioned a study of alienation in theworkplace. 85 Illustrated in the popular imagination by the assembly-line workerwho is so disgusted and bored that he willfully damages the car on which he isworking, Marx’s theory of alienation covers this phenomenon and more. Marxdescribed the estrangement of the worker from the creative process and from theproduct of his or her labor, an alienation from his or her essentially humancharacteristics, and from his or her fellow human beings. This condition, arguedMarx, is the inevitable consequence of commodity production, wage work andthe division of labor—a result of converting labor into a commodity. 86The experience of working-class men and women offers numerous examplesof what Marx meant. Many auto workers despise the cars they build.” ‘What’dyou buy this piece of shit for?’ “demands a young General Motors worker ofauthor Barbara Garson, kicking her car—a machine he might have helped buildhimself. 87 The work process may be regarded with derision. “There’s a lot ofvariety in the paint shop,’” reports another Lord-stown worker.” ‘You clip on thecolor hose, bleed out the old color, and squirt. Clip, bleed, squirt, think; clip,bleed, squirt, yawn; clip, bleed, squirt, scratch your nose.’” 88 The boredom canbe dehumanizing—” ‘You forget you’re not a machine,’” 89 says a copy typist.The close supervision is oppressive—a steelworker complains,” ‘I would ratherwork my ass off for eight hours a day with nobody watching me than fiveminutes with a guy watching me.’” 90 Job-status differences estrange co-workers.”‘What is this “Yes, sir” bullshit?’ “yells the same steelworker at his foreman.” ‘Icame here to work, I didn’t come here to crawl’” 91