Aidan Vanhoof

Why achievement is existentially disturbing even for those who have achieved: a psychoanalytic perspective on the division of labor

Aidan Vanhoof

8 min read

Jun 21, 2025

I’m young, naive, a little bit optimistic. The world, as my older friends and coworkers have told me, hasn’t crushed me into a pulp. I’m glad, and I hope I won’t lose this slightly stupid optimism, because, in the end, bathing in hopelessness will bring me and this species nowhere.

But, in time, as I have expressed in past articles, I believe this optimism will become increasingly hard to hold on to. The world will fight me and berate me until I harden into a rock and lose all personality. Debt, in particular, frightens me. I hate even thinking about this, but the notion of affording a house is a distant and idealistic dream and the student debt I’m already saddled with ensures that.

But there’s more to the story than debt. Debt can be paid off. Debt can go away. But labor doesn’t. Humans love, and need, to work — and it doesn’t have to be ‘work’ in the traditional sense. It can be a family, friends, anything really. Anything that gives us a purpose, because as social beings, we are fundamentally subservient, thus laboring, to the social world.

But labor in modern life lacks what makes such work so enjoyable and meaningful. It lacks soul. It’s shallow and drab. And for lack of a better way to articulate it, it makes me rather depressed.

I dream of being a journalist, and quite a good one, too. But what happens if the costs of living exceed what I’m paid? I’ll be trapped in a position in which I’m forced to proceed, not according to what fulfills me, but what fulfills a dying economy which lacks any concern for the people whom it serves. And where will the fruits of my labor go? Not to myself or those I care about, but an abstract representation of an abstract monetary system which represents abstract value systems, all so an oligarch can take a flight to space or pay off the politician I probably voted for. Labor, because of where and when I live, is less and less meaningful. And, will achieving my goals make me happy to begin with?

This isn’t a new problem. None of it is. The problem of what philosophers call the ‘alienation of labor’ has been a key theme across leftist theory for nearly two centuries now. But political theory has existed for thousands of years and philosophy concerning labor nearly equally long. So what gives? Why are philosophers now so concerned with ‘alienation’?

I’m beginning to suspect a consistent through line, especially since reading the most radical of them all: Karl Marx.

Karl Marx theorized that a principle issue in capitalist labor is its adversarial nature. From The German Ideology,

For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape.

And,

In a real community the individuals obtain their freedom in and through their association.

He built off German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel, who argued that, in order to be authentically self-conscious, we must also realize that we are observed, that we are something other than a ‘floating consciousness’ and an actual being. And, other humans do that observing. Thus, humans aren’t their fullest selves without other humans, which means humans need other humans to exist meaningfully, rendering us collectivist by nature.

Therefore, the individualistic and deeply competitive nature of the labor market leads a person to anguish; all because, instead of collaborating, they’re obligated to fight and compete and win or lose. We are thus alienated from society at large and delegated to our individual, subjective worlds. This is the problem inherent to the ‘meritocratic’ division of labor: it takes from people what makes life enjoyable. It ensures that each and every person beneath or ascending, and even those who have already done so, are isolated and alienated, divided from their fellow people and forced into a prison of meaningless, spiteful, and gamified work. The individualist work-ethic fails for this reason: it hurts the individual and it kills the collective — none win.

But, if we were to take the meritocracy seriously, decide the working-class deserves poverty and debt and focus only on the most successful of us all — declaring wholeheartedly that the successful deserve what they have — how does this affect them? It may hurt the ‘greater good’, if there is such a thing, but perhaps it’s necessary; perhaps it delegates the best to the best, the worst to the worst, and the average to the average.

Let’s assume this is true. What now?

I’d like, as I so often do, to reference psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Through his framework, we gain a better understanding of desire. From Lacan’s Seminar II,

Desire, a function central to all human experience, is the desire for nothing nameable. And at the same time this desire lies at the origin of every variety of animation. If being were only what it is, there wouldn’t even be room to talk about it. Being comes into existence as an exact function of this lack.”

If we were to apply this quote to ‘achievement’, the career-person, whose life revolves around their job and the identity they’ve built for themselves surrounding this career, is driven by a desire for further recognition. In that, they are driven to success because (1) they want to be seen as successful and (2) they want to have their identity which is defined by their career validated to the greatest extent it can be. 1 and 2 are effectively the same: the subject wants to be seen as the ‘epitome’ of their respective occupation. Their identity is their occupation, thus to feel ‘whole’ they must embody their occupation. The ‘best’ lawyer, the ‘best’ doctor, the ‘best’ CEO or investor: in each of these cases, the ‘best’ of a given occupation is a role only assigned to a person by other people. If they want to achieve success and feel successful — not merely make more money — they need to be seen as successful.

Who sees a person as successful? Who cares for the success of a lawyer, doctor, CEO or investor whom we have no relation to? Those who care most are the subordinates of the aforementioned, the people pushed as far down as possible, the people whose livelihood and recognition is valid only insofar as they recognize their own inferiority. As, to compete, one must first identify their adversary. This is the key reason why success is so appealing: it is, in essence, a ‘recognition pump’ — a constant and unending stream of identity-validation and confirmation.

Competition becomes the most powerful drug. But, with this, we land at yet another problem: the inferior may be unequal materially, but they often, though not always, live more meaningful lives. They strive, they fight, they struggle, all for a better salary and access to the coveted recognition pump.

Struggle is the greatest source for purpose in life, since desire is the driving force for human behavior, as to fulfill our desires could be considered among the worst things to happen to a person. After all, what now, having managed great success, does one have left to look for? What reason does one have to live if all that once made life appealing has been eaten away? One gets bored with success and they begin desiring once again.

Recognition is what we desire, but desire itself is what makes recognition appealing — because to feel whole we seek recognition, yet to be recognized only means the creation of new aspirations: we never truly feel whole. As to fulfill our desires is hell and to be recognized is heaven. They are each treated the same yet they are fundamentally incompatible.

The joys of hierarchy are nothing beyond a condemnation. Capitalism is made for the career-person; the man, woman, or in-between who dedicates their whole existence to the production of profit. In other words, the hardworking, rugged individualist: the exploiter being exploited, the servant to the servant, the weakest among the strong.

This is why so many successful musicians, actors, and other celebrities, who seemingly achieved all that they set out to do — whom we assume should be happy — end up depressed. They have nowhere else to go. Their life has plateaued. It has reached its end because there is nothing left to do or desire except what will soon grow boring and meaningless.

While the working-class wallows in debt imposed by the white-collar, the white-collar debtor wallows in nihilism. Each are equally alienated.

I may be idealistic in saying so, and I believe I am, but perhaps this is where we can find an important form of resistance: in living a life actually worth living; not in pursuing success, but in living for other people — the people who make success appealing, but remain crushed by it. For by doing so — by actually living — we are taking from capitalism what makes it so potent: its power to, not only exploit our labor, but to exploit our happiness. By living a life despite it, we are materially taking from the capitalist market its most necessary asset: the alienated laborer.

To answer the question of ‘why now’ I asked before: life is only getting worse and alienation is a more profound problem than ever. Industrial labor and white-collar labor alike are frustratingly arbitrary and absurd, guided increasingly by AI and information technologies; new technologies which turn the modern educated laborer into just another processor crunching numbers and ‘knowledge’ to translate their value as a human into profit. Existence becomes defined by social media, turning recognition universal, opening the door to premature recognition of success through curation and editing, stealing from recognition the very desire it exists to satisfy.

Our lives are more devoid of meaning than ever before, as the very foundation thereof has been destroyed. Your exploiter feels the same as you do, so don’t just blame them: blame what incentivizes them to exploit.

Labor alienation is how capitalism keeps the individual subservient: their labor means nothing, thus they find meaning elsewhere, growing complacent by the hour as they assume the fruitlessness of labor is a default state. Therefore, one’s misery is associated with the economy or politics — changeable conditions — yet they feel this misery is normal, they won’t fight it. After all, life’s life. Thus, what they feel is controllable — family, friends; i.e., collective, social activities — are left to the individual to control, while both greater society and themselves care little for the damage done to them. The individual in individualist society remains wounded — they’re merely more alone than before.

Capitalism forces repentance: it mirrors the self-sabotaging, self-punishing zealots of the Middle Ages, who beat and whipped themselves for mistakes they identified within. The modern laborer punishes themselves for deviating, for wanting something better, for working a healthy amount and longing for rewarding work. Because to rebel against labor means to cease one’s labor. If one doesn’t labor, they’re ostracized as lazy, unemployed, stupid, and so on; and they lose a source of income, thus they risk even death. Thus, they repent for their laziness before the oligarchical gods of capitalism, losing both self-esteem and the means to live.

So, not to beat a dead horse, but I must ask, how the hell am I free?