hell

On the totalitarian side of relationships in the capitalist workplace.....

a political theorist (a socialist no less) might say in passing, in a theoretical frame of mind,
that capitalism is not, after all, hell on earth....

but that just doesn't fit my lived experience. I've had jobs that made me feel miserable,
that entailed almost constant degradation and submission--not physical, but mental suffering--and the bland theoretical remark that capitalism is not hell on earth is false to that experience

indeed, insofar as you argue for socialism because it fosters autonomy, i find the rhetorical concession disappointing.......it was autonomy that was denied to me in two or three or more jobs over a period amounting to five or six or more years.... and those jobs (if not my life outside of work) were often a sort of hell....

(at best those jobs included limited periods of relative autonomy or non-interference from management punctuated by brutal periods of repression, to remind me and all of my colleagues who was really running the show, and how powerless we really were...--or if not exactly activities of violent repression, activities that were degrading and represented psychological warfare, degrading mandatory activities which served to ensure that one's emotions and inner life conformed to the needs of the managers and owners.....I believe what I am describing is correctly termed "totalitarian".....)

even worse
what of those people who endure material distress on account of capitalism? today more than ever there are such people

Sartre was closer to the truth in saying hell is other people
because when one's daily interaction with other people is not respectful, that is simply painful
--but, I would revise Sartre to say that when your relationships with other people are inadequate (something I don't think is inevitable) then your life does become a sort of hell....

and the scientistic side of me might like to make a remark about how certain primitive parts
of the brain are activated by social exclusion.... and reject any suggestion that "mere" social exclusion or lack of autonomy are less painful than actual physical suffering...