Affective Feudalism · Research Series · 2023–2025
Sociology of Affect. Economics of Exhaustion.
An independent monograph series examining the mechanisms of emotional exploitation, occupational burnout, and class hierarchies in modern organizations — at the intersection of critical sociology, labor economics, and agent-based modeling.
About
Researcher, author, theorist of affective labor
Computational sociology & organizational diagnostics
Over a decade of corporate work in banking, finance, automotive, and call center sectors gave me firsthand insight into the mechanisms that most sociology only reads about. I create an independent monograph series under the Affective Feudalism brand.
I combine Bourdieu’s field theory, Hochschild’s sociology of emotions, and agent-based modeling (ABM) to describe how modern organizations produce exhaustion as an economic resource. I am currently developing an original organizational diagnostics framework — SOK.
2024 — 2027
SOK Framework & Commercialization
Organizational diagnostics · ABM · RAG
2023 — 2024
Affective Feudalism Series
Volumes I–V
2014 — 2023
Corporate Experience
Banking · Finance · Automotive
4
Published Volumes
1500+
ABM Simulations
8.6
Peer Review (avg)
New Release · Volume IV
Featured Reading
The Distinction of Affect
Available exclusively on the author’s website — affectivefeudalism.com
Combining Bourdieu’s field theory with Hochschild’s sociology of emotions, the book examines how control over emotions becomes a currency of the labor market and a mechanism for reproducing class inequalities.
„Legitimizing inequalities by presenting them as differences that are ‘natural’, ‘mature’, ‘compatible’, and ‘deserved’.”
Simulations ABM
H1·H2·H3 Confirmed
Format
My Books
Leveraging Boundaries
Leveraging Boundariesis a systemic diagnosis of burnout as a structural feature — not a malfunction — of late capitalist organisation. Szymon Woźnica’s central argument is deliberately provocative: your exhaustion doesn’t belong to…
Distinction of Affect
The myth of emotional authenticity is a class myth. The Distinction of Affect introduces the category of affect-capital — a class-inherited capacity to emit a socially digestible signal in interactions. It shows…
Middle-Class Homeostasis in the 21st Century: Trapped in Its Own Warmth – The Public Edition
Middle-Class Homeostasis is a work of critical theory and systemic diagnosis — a volume in Szymon Woźnica’s Affective Feudalism cycle. Building directly on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of doxa, the book argues that…
The Tired System – The Public Edition
The Tired System names Drift — late capitalism’s third attractor that Schmachtenberger, Han, and critical theory left unnamed. Neither catastrophe nor dystopia: a low-energy stability in which the system survives by privatising…
Research Project
Affective Feudalism
An interdisciplinary theoretical project examining the mechanisms of emotional exploitation as a system of class power. It combines critical sociology, agent-based modeling, and organizational economics into a coherent diagnostic framework.
The project comprises a series of 6+ monographs, original theoretical constructs (C-FAS, Ouroboros Index, affecto-capital, Tripartite Pressure Classification), and the SOK commercial diagnostic framework.
01
Affecto-Capital
Emotions as class capital subject to accumulation and exploitation within the organizational field.
02
Tripartite Classification
Hot / Cold / Stochastic — an original typology of psychological pressure mechanisms.
03
SOK Framework
Organizational diagnostics: communication fragmentation, burnout risk, ABM modeling.
04
Empirical Verification
Hypotheses tested across 1,500+ ABM simulations with Bootstrap CI and panel OLS.
Esseys & Blog
Shorter formats: theoretical analyses, commentary on current trends, methodology.
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The War Over Our Nervous System: On How Corporations Leverage Boundaries and Monetize Exhaustion
The sound of a Slack notification late at night, a casually thrown “ASAP” on Teams, or an informal meeting where you find out about yet another “urgent project.”…
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The Thermostat of Late Capitalism: Why the System Needs Our Exhaustion
One of the most poignant experiences of our time is not a spectacular crisis, but a permanent, quiet drift. We get the impression that everything around us is…
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The Dusk of the Middle Class. When Excel is Not Enough, and KPIs Become a Trap: From Affective Feudalism to the Personal Economy
For the past decades, the corporate middle class built its identity and sense of security on one seemingly unshakable skill: optimization. We were proud of how efficiently we…