Is It Really a Sisyphus Torture? Political Economy of Everyday Life

Abstract

For most of the modern people daily life represents a Sisyphus torture portrayed by Albert Camus. As in the myth, modern people rush to their jobs every morning and find them next morning almost untouched, like condemned Sisyphus. People tolerate this never ending torture because they are mostly unconscious about the descending rock. Only in rare cognizant moments this torture becomes visible, and this visibility uncovers the daily tragedy. Consequently, the daily tragedy of working men oscillates between these unconscious chaotic ascends and the occasionally conscious but regular descends. Radical philosophers, such as Henry Lefebvre, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer have extensive analyses on everyday life and its patterns. Horkheimer especially emphasizes the old philosophical question on this subject. This question is the “connection between the economic life of society, the physical development of individuals, and the changes in the realm of culture in the narrower sense.” These philosophers’ studies create a path between philosophy and political economy. Contemporary political economy as an interdisciplinary research area turned its attention previously neglected domains by neoclassical economics, including philosophy. Consequently, this study’s purpose is to follow this link and analyse the everyday life with its political economic patterns with a special reference to Lefebvre, Horkheimer and Adorno’s works.