I'm late in Burnout Society now and I think that the author is missing a key turn in his arguments. He recognizes that many activities in the modern world are being reduce from expert positions to mere labour1 but then goes on to say that burnout is the result of voluntary self-exploitation2. Exploitation framed as voluntary ignores the coercive conditions that constrain worker choice. How can exploitation be voluntary when your job is reducing you to a mere cog in the machine. If you're replaceable then you have no leverage to push back against exploitation when it comes your way.
Being a cog in the machine means that in the absence of strong worker protections at all levels of employment, your employer can use the threat of economic violence to push you into scenarios that to reduce your autonomy. If they let you go because you pushed back, how do you eat and where do you live? We don't have universal basic income to fall back on, which would put more power in the hands of workers, especially those at the lower end of the income spectrum. Many people have to stay at their jobs with abusive managers because the alternative is living on the street.
Even highly paid technology workers seeing there once secure jobs pushed towards precarity as mass layoffs are a thing and remote working is removed as a perk by many companies. I have at least one person I've known for years that has a job, but their boss is shit, pushing them into 70 - 90 hour weeks and weekends without extra compensation. They'd love to move, but are failing to find a job that will take them and has similar pay.
Much of what I read about people "letting" themselves overwork, totally misses the economic violence argument and that should be accounted for.
