Det dominerende politisk-ideologiske perspektiv på årsager til psykisk mistrivsel pga. arbejdsbelastninger eller ledighed

"Det er din egen skyld"... eller borgeren har altid hele ansvaret. Men hvorfor er det kommet dertil?

Tendensen til at bebrejde den enkelte borger - uanset om borgeren er i beskæftigelse eller ledig - for sin ofte vanskelige situation og medfølgende psykiske mistrivsel, tog fart med neoliberalismens ideologiske drejning mod individualisering, fra starten af 1990'erne i Danmark, og det er stort set blot taget til. Desværre har dele af den hastigt voksende behandlerstand fulgt trop ift. at anlægge et individorienteret perspektiv på problem, årsag og løsning i kontekst af arbejde og ledighed, hvilket ikke er overraskende if. Karl Marx, der hævdede at ethvert barn ved, at en 'social formation' dvs. f.eks. en beskæftigelsesform udøvet af flere, som ikke reproducerer betingelserne for produktionen på samme tid som den producerer, ikke vil overleve 1 år [2]

Så i stedet for i langt højere grad at anvende den solidaritet, som sås f.eks. efter den formelle strejke blandt sygeplejerskerne, og som tidligere, har karakteriseret fagforeningernes primære midddel til at sikre bedre betingelser for såvel de i arbejde, som de uden for, trækkes "problem, årsag og løsning" nu ofte ind i det terapeutiske rum, hvor problemstillingen individualiseres og 'emotionaliseres' i stedet for at blive generaliseret og politiseret. Sagen gøres til noget andet, noget ikke-strukturelt, fordi der er opbygget en forståelse af problemstillingen, der passer til den økonomiske struktur, der skaber og understøtter forståelsen.  Man accepterer, at det "nok er den enkelte lønmodtager den er gal med". Men det kan jo f.eks. ikke passe, at alle sygeplejersker der er utilfredse med løn- og arbejdsforhold bare hver især skal til en tur til psykolog, og så kan de klare betingelserne igen!

Hvad gør man så som psykolog i et felt, der handler om lønarbejde og at være sat uden for lønarbejde? Et felt, der på alle områder er politiseret. Man starter med ikke at lyve for sine klienter om de faktiske samfundsbetingelser, der gør, at begge parter nu sidder her!

[2]. Marx to Kugelmann, 11 July 1868, Selected Correspondence, Moscow, 1955, p. 209.

"Diskussionen om borgerens ansvar er ikke ny:

»Jeg tror, at man ved at gaa denne Vej at give Understøttelse i stor Maalestok til arbejdsløse i Virkeligheden vil svække den enkeltes Ansvar over for Forpligtelsen til at søge Arbejde og søge Arbejde i den Form, hvori han kan faa det.« Ordene er konseilspræsident Hugo E. Hørring fra partiet Højre, som i 1897 afviste Socialdemokratiets lovforslag om statsstøttede a-kasser. 10 år senere havde man i Danmark en Dagpengekommission, som i en betænkning skrev: »Der kan næppe være synderlig Tvivl om, at det nu til Dags er den almindelige Mening, at man lige saa lidt kan rette nogen Bebrejdelse mod den Arbejder, der bliver arbejdsløs og kommer i Nød, fordi Fabrikker, Værksteder og Arbejdspladser lukker eller indskrænker deres Arbejdsstyrke, som den Arbejder, der bliver brødløs, fordi han ved et Ulykkestilfælde er bleven Invalid.« "

https://kulturoginformation.dk/perspektiv/fagmagasinet/2018/perspektiv-7/borgerensansvar

However, it is not enough to ensure for labour power the material conditions of its reproduction if it is to be reproduced as labour power. I have said that the available labour power must be 'competent', i.e. suitable to be set to work in the complex system of the process of production. The development of the productive forces and the type of unity historically constitutive of the productive forces at a given moment produce the result that the labour power has to be (diversely) skilled and therefore reproduced as such. Diversely: according to the requirements of the socio-technical division of labour, its different 'jobs' and 'posts'.

How is this reproduction of the (diversified) skills of labour power provided for in a capitalist regime? Here, unlike social formations characterized by slavery or serfdom this reproduction of the skills of labour power tends (this is a tendential law) decreasingly to be provided for 'on the spot' (apprenticeship within production itself), but is achieved more and more outside production: by the capitalist education system, and by other instances and institutions.

What do children learn at school? They go varying distances in their studies, but at any rate they learn to read, to write and to add - i.e. a number of techniques, and a number of other things as well, including elements (which may be rudimentary or on the contrary thoroughgoing) of 'scientific' or 'literary culture', which are directly useful in the different jobs in production (one instruction for manual workers, another for technicians, a third for engineers, a final one for higher management, etc.). Thus they learn know-how.

But besides these techniques and knowledges, and in learning them, children at school also learn the 'rules' of good behaviour, i.e. the attitude that should be observed by every agent in the division of labour, according to the job he is 'destined' for: rules of morality, civic and professional conscience, which actually means rules of respect for the socio-technical division of labour and ultimately the rules of the order established by class domination. They also learn to 'speak proper French', to 'handle' the workers correctly, i.e. actually (for the future capitalists and their servants) to 'order them about' properly, i.e. (ideally) to 'speak to them' in the right way, etc.

To put this more scientifically, I shall say that the reproduction of labour power requires not only a reproduction of its skills, but also, at the same time, a reproduction of its submission to the rules of the established order, i.e. a reproduction of submission to the ruling ideology for the workers, and a reproduction of the ability to manipulate the ruling ideology correctly for the agents of exploitation and repression, so that they, too, will provide for the domination of the ruling class 'in words'.

In other words, the school (but also other State institutions like the Church, or other apparatuses like the Army) teaches 'know-how', but in forms which ensure subjection to the ruling ideology or the mastery of its 'practice'. All the agents of production, exploitation and repression, not to speak of the 'professionals of ideology' (Marx), must in one way or another be 'steeped' in this ideology in order to perform their tasks 'conscientiously' - the tasks of the exploited (the proletarians), of the exploiters (the capitalists), of the exploiters' auxiliaries (the managers), or of the high priests of the ruling ideology (its 'functionaries'), etc.

The reproduction of labour power thus reveals as its sine qua non not only the reproduction of its 'skills' but also the reproduction of its subjection to the ruling ideology or of the 'practice' of that ideology, with the proviso that it is not enough to say 'not only but also', for it is clear that it is in the forms and under the forms of ideological subjection that provision is made for the reproduction of the skills of labour power.

But this is to recognize the effective presence of a new reality: ideology.