Productivity as Common Sense: Power, Knowledge, and the Social Construction of Value

This paper challenges the assumption that common sense is neutral, selfevident, or devoid of power by situating it within relations of ideology and hegemony. Drawing on a ‘Sociology of Knowledge’ perspective, and building on insights from Antonio Gramsci and Satish Deshpande, it argues that common sense derives its power precisely from its ability to obscure its own conditions of production. Rather than being natural or universal, common sense is historically constructed and shaped by dominant social groups. The paper develops this argument through an analysis of productivity as a contemporary form of ideological common sense. It examines how media and digital discourses associated with hustle culture, circulate and normalize specific valuations of time, labour, and selfhood. In doing so, productivity emerges not merely as a descriptive category but as a normative framework that naturalizes and legitimizes hierarchies of labour. By foregrounding the discursive construction of productivity, the paper demonstrates how common sense operates as a site of power that structures both perception and practice in contemporary neoliberal contexts.