On the other, Berardi analyses the psychological side-effects of a discourse

over happiness at work that puts the entire responsibility and duty to be
happy on the shoulders of the individual.
The other side of the new economy is naturally the use of psycho-stimulant or
anti-depressive substances. This is a hidden, negated, removed side, but
absolutely decisive. How many, among new economy operators, survive
without Prozac, Zoloft or even cocaine. Dependence on psychotropic
substances, those one can buy at the pharmacy and those one can buy on the
street, is a structural element of the psychopathologic economy. When
economic competition is the dominant psychological imperative of the social
consortium, we can be positive that the conditions for mass depression will be
produced.[...]When in 1999 Alan Greenspan spoke of the irrational
exuberance of the market, his words were more of a clinical than a financial
diagnosis. Exuberance was an effect of the drugs and of the over-exploitation
of available mental energy, of a saturation of attention leading people to the
limits of panic. Panic is an anticipation of depressive breakdown, of mental
confusion and dis satisfaction and finally the moment of the Prozac crash
came.
28
28

Ibid
, p. 100 and p. 98

CONCLUSIONS
The practice of happiness is subversive when it becomes collective
A/traverso collective, Bologna, 1975
But where danger is, grows the saving power also
Friedrich Holderlin,
Patmos,

1802
Before drawing any conclusions on the issue of happiness at work, it is
necessary to clarifyan aspect of the division of labour in contemporary
enterprises.
Within mental labor as whole we need distinguish proper cognitive labor,
whereintellectual energies are engaged in a constant creative
deterritorialization, and mental labor of a purely applicative kind, which is still
prevalent quantitatively. Even within the mental labor cycle, we can
distinguish
brain
workers from
chain
workers.
29
It is clear that, today, the issue of happiness at work is only applicable for
brain workers ,while for chain workers nothing major has changed from the
time of old-school factories. And yet, it is undeniable that the discourse over
happiness at work is a key element for an understanding of current capitalist
strategies of control and for a development of new possibilities of (r)evolution
within contemporary society. In its attempt to insert itself inside the very heart
of human emotions, contemporary capitalism is transforming the nature of its
control from an external force exerted over the workers to an inner force that
lives inside the individual and that is exerted by the individual on to
him/herself. Thus, contemporary capitalism is revealing its ambition of turning
discipline into self-discipline and turning its rule into a belief. It is indeed
through an analysis of this phenomenon - of which the discourse over
happiness at work is an example - that we can notice capitalisms reinvention as a totalizing social religion .In doing so, capitalism is also
changing its materiality. If capital used to be a matter of stock and money, it is
now increasingly becoming a matter of immaterial resources. The reference
here is not to softwares and immaterial properties, rather, it is to the
conversion of emotions into capital itself. A prove of this could be found, once
again, in the discourse over happiness at work. As we have read in the first
chapter, one of the benefits of introducing happiness in a workplace is that the
money-is-everything mentality would disappear; people would be motivated
to(over)work by happiness-related benefits. Or, in other words, emotions
would become part of the workers wage. Thus, emotions start to become a

(commercial) value, to the point of partially substituting money. It must be

noticed, though, that this transformation doesnt come as a withdrawal from an
economic mentality: on the opposite, it keeps into account the fact that, while
monetary wages are only partially reinvested in the company by the workers
(through the purchase of company goods), emotional wages are completely
reinvested in the workplace and in the productive system through the process
of happiness at work. Alongside this considerations, though, we should not
to forget that this change in the nature of capitalism and in the methods of
production are also - at least partially - due to the claiming of rights to
autonomy and happiness issued by the countercultures from the 1960s and
70s. Itis undeniable that the desire for a happier workplace and for a greater
autonomy in ones work originate from deep, real human feelings amongst the
workers.
29

Ibid
, p. 87

What has to be addressed here is not the problem of whether the workplace
should be ahappy place or not. Rather, in order to turn capitalisms discourse
over happiness at work into a possible starting point for new strategies of life,
the main issue we should focus on isthe connection between happiness an
autonomy - with autonomy understood as self-determination. And yet, in
order for an authentic state of self-determination to be at all possible, we can
not avoid facing the issue of property first. Thus, in reference to the problemof
happiness at work and in the workplace, we have to deal, first of all, with the
issue of property of work and of the workplace. Likewise, in reference to the
problem of a totalmobilization - to use Ernest Jungers words
30
- of human emotions by capital, we have toface, first of all, the issue of
property over ones own emotions.This is not an easy task and requires a type
of economic thought that can only partially rely ontraditional marxism - as the
issue here concerns property over feelings rather than materialstock. And yet,
it is exactly this kind of urgent, unanswered question what is always hiding
behind some of the most valuable philosophical contributions to an

understanding of new possibilities of life in contemporary world. On example

above all could be Heideggers essay
The Question Concerning Technology
31
, in which the German philosopher warns the reader about the risks of a kind
of thought - what he calls modern technological thought or enframing - that
turns all objects and beings into standing reserves ready for exploitationor, as
Heidegger puts it, destining. Heidegger opposes the possibility of revealing
theworld through art to technologys attempt to enframe it. One of the main
differences of thosetwo different approaches - art and modern technology - is,
although not explicitly, thedifferent regimes of ownership that they require.
Technology needs to take possession of thereal, in order to enframe and
exploit it. Art, on the other hand, states the fact that realityshould own itself - it
is this indeed this otherness, this lack of possession over reality whatallows the
artist to reveal the world.Consequently, in reference to our topic, we should
start considering the issue of property over happiness and, consequently,
property over ones emotions. Obviously, this would require achange in the
use of economical thought and tools. For once, though, it wouldnt have to be
achange towards the new, but rather a movement towards the roots of the
concept. The wordeconomics, in its original Greek form
oikonomia
, refers to something very different from thecurrent regime of capitalism:
being composed by the words
oikos
(house) and
nomos
(order),
oikonomia
is the art of ordering ones individual world in harmony with the greater
harmonyof the World (the
nomos
). It is clear that, in order for this process of
oikonomia

to take place,it is necessary for the individual to have autonomous ownership

over his/her individual worldand a clear understanding of the World.What
could be, then, an
oikonomia
of ones own emotions? This is, obviously, a complexquestion that would
require adequate space to be investigated. However, we could certainlystate
that no
oikonomia
of ones own emotions is possible when the individual does not havecomplete
and autonomous ownershipover his/her emotions. Or, if we talk about a couple
or acollective, when the group of people sharing emotions does not have a full
(yet shared)ownership over them. Likewise, what could be the
oioknomia
of a workplace, if the workersthemselves do not have complete and
autonomous ownership over it?Finally, so to let an
oikonomia
of our emotions take place, it would also be necessary for theindividuals to
have a clear understanding of the World and its rule. Would it be possible
toconsider the World, here, as the social, that is the shared ground of
communication andinteractions between individuals? If this was thecase, then,
social critique and cultural studieswould have to be re-considered according to
another possible, different use.
30
see
Total Mobilization
in
The Heidegger Controversy. A Critical Reader.
Edited by Richard Wolin.Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press (1993),
pp. 122-139.
31
Martin Heidegger,
The Question Concerning Technology

, in
Basic Writings
, edited by David FarrellKrell, Routledge (1993)