I’m reading Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity. I must confess that I’ve been actively avoiding self-development manuals as much as possible. It’s partly because I don’t subscribe to the myth that we can “make it” all on our own. We must always acknowledge that we live in a society, connected to others, and that our choices are both shaped and conditioned by the systems in which we operate. But mostly, I find it difficult to enjoy the reading because of the insistent style of these zealous, postmodern Dale Carnegies, always ready to offer unsolicited, often banal advice based on the mastery of Sunday newspaper science columns. Yet I find myself enjoying Newport’s writing. I often put the book down in the middle of a paragraph to reflect on some of his insights.

I don’t consider myself a Marxist, especially when Marx himself mocked the “Marxists” of his time, who dogmatically misinterpreted his work. But I’m convinced that the (material, social, and systemic) conditions of our lives are fundamental determinants. We can hardly do anything without the infrastructure that supports us—especially when we’re talking about production, or even the intellectual labor of the knowledge economy.

Our ideas are part of the capital cycle. So, we shouldn’t shy away from old-school materialist analysis, which can offer us a kind of relief that self-help books rarely do: it’s not your fault. Or at least: you are not alone.

Surprisingly, Newport offers a number of concepts that can be useful even within this “materialist” framework for thinking about work. For instance, he introduces the concept of “administrative overhead,” turning it into a precise tool for measuring wasted time in knowledge professions. There’s no esoteric Human Resources jargon here—just a practical instrument, especially useful when addressing Newport’s critique of traditional models of work analysis, which are based on the industrial era. He doesn’t outright reject Marxism (though I suspect he might lean in that direction—at least in the context of self-development), but he highlights the crucial point that in the knowledge economy, it’s not the manager who controls us. Instead, we suffer under the scourge of self-regulation.

This, of course, isn’t new. It’s in line with current thought on neoliberalism and the individualization of managerial responsibility in information technology. To put it simply: in the industrial era, we sold our labor; now, we’re selling ourselves. You are the brand, and most of the burdens of work have been outsourced to your private life.

But I’m reading Newport’s book as a kind of self-defense manual—one full of important reminders that help build confidence in the realization that, when discussing modern work conditions, we can hardly avoid psychoanalysis. Most of us are highly critical of the ailments of the information economy, but only a few of us admit that we’re complicit in them.

So, we can no longer rely on the old Marxian thesis that the morals of the proletariat are untainted.

Our minds, much like the earth, are contaminated.