What About Me?: The Struggle for Identity in a Market-Based Society

Abstract

Reviews the book, What About Me? The Struggle for Identity in a Market-based Society by Paul Verhaeghe (2014). The book discusses the link between neo-liberal society, identity, and mental health. While the title of the book suggests some role of market interaction, the author's main concerns relate to meritocratic incentive systems in modern workplace organization. In particular, the author points out the negative effects of performance measurement, competitive evaluation, and financial incentives. The book raises important questions about the endogeneity of preferences and attitudes with respect to the economic environment in which people grow up and about the trade-off between the potential material benefits and the mental costs of a meritocratic, competitive society. Unfortunately, it makes few attempts to provide answers to these questions, other than through weakly developed references to autonomy in the work place and to the return of a communal ethos and an ethics of self-control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)