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Dispossessed of any natural means of transforming his labour into his needs of life, the generic citizen of the capitalist world is reduced to selling his labour in order to survive. Whatever he may achieve - academically, professionally or socially - his only recognised value is the going rate for whatever useful economic function the market perceives him to be able to perform. And the going rate for his labour is set purely by supply and demand. The quality of his work - provided it be adequate for the purpose - is irrelevant. Neither the years of training, nor the intellectual effort these required, have any bearing.
Supply and demand is a ruthless and unpredictable master. Just because you are a highly specialised 'rocket scientist' does not automatically mean you will be in high demand. The market may not need you at the moment, or ever again. Just because you are an unskilled labourer does not mean you will be the last to get work. The market may need more than there are available right now. Just because you are a skilled specialist does not mean you will earn more than - or even as much as - an unskilled labourer. It depends entirely whether, and how badly, the market wants your skills.
This is even complicated by the fact that the market will not necessarily buy your skills, even if it is absolutely desperate for them. It will only buy skills it perceives you to have. If you are above a certain age, and people of your age stereotypically do not have your skills, the market will not buy them from you. I am an expert in leading edge computer software development, but the market will not buy such skills from me because I am 57. The stereotypical 50+ knows nothing about computer software. In fact nobody over 36 does. Markets are driven by fad and fashion. Even highly technical markets are steered by nothing more robust than authenticated hearsay or celebrity endorsement.
Convergence of global educational standards and the disparity in currency values has resulted in high-tech skills being cheaper abroad. Consequently, although your skills may be in demand, and though the market perceive you to have what it wants, you can still suddenly find yourself unemployable. Skills you have taken half a career to perfect can thus become useless over night. As globalisation proceeds, the livelihood of the individual will everywhere grow more precarious.
Capitalism is progressively herding the dispossessed into the constrictive glorified work camp called suburbia. This is not a natural or conducive habitat for the human animal. It crams neighbour against neighbour with no latitude, no freedom, no space to move or sit in peace. Each is desperate for his own space.
But his tenure, even in this horrible place, is fraught with uncertainty. In order to maintain its so-called economic health within the global economy, the capitalist state has to adjust economic parameters like interest rates as international exchange rates ebb and flow like ocean tides. But interest rates can have a devastating effect on the individual. They can land him in a state of negative equity which can result in his being ejected from the brick box he has striven for years to pay for. This permanent prospect adds to the stress laid upon him by the global skills market.
But what about the house itself, and all the things he needs to make it into a home? If it is anything like mine it is shoddily build at minimum cost for maximum price. The furnishings and appliances foisted upon him by capitalism in exchange for his labour are inevitably from a narrow range of artificially expensive, over-marketed consumer goods which are designed to look as cute as possible in the shop window and then wear out as soon as possible after the statutory minimum warranty period has expired.
Burdened with all these stresses and frustrations, it is little wonder that he so easily turns into such an irritable and inconsiderate neighbour.