One of the strange powers of the logic of debt, which pervaded first North Atlantic societies and then almost the rest of the world under the organizing principle of capitalism, is that people are under the pressure of the shame and humiliation that comes with being in debt. This causes a frenetic need to look and turn everything around them into a source of profit. And that’s what the industrious people are, the people who submit themselves to that logic. It’s a deeply dehumanizing logic, and it’s a terribly destructive logic. We have to break from that and we have to realize that those who refuse to submit themselves to that logic, even if it means continuing to be poor, have genuine values, like the values of caring for each other and spending time with each other, enjoying social relations, having fun, but also, that way of just living, really having life. It’s also critically important to evaluate this if you want to save the planet, because our problem today is not that we’re not doing enough work, it’s that we’re doing way too much.