The key to success lies beyond performance. If you are not Marina Abramović, taking an ice bath will not make you a millionaire. Some contemporary trends in liberalism instrumentalize ancient philosophy to promote the idea that mere mental disposition predisposes one to acquire wealth. Ideology, understood as a false world of values intended to domesticate revolutionary drives within the subject, tends to mesh well with any ethical trend in philosophy that defends individualism and withdrawal from the world.
To understand the ideological instrumentalization of ancient philosophies, it is necessary to clarify that passing judgment on those philosophies is not the aim here. Rather, we must briefly trace their vulgarization—both historically and logically—into the famous ten (or so) tenets of contemporary Stoicism.
Stoicism thus appears as a psychological phenomenon that can be described roughly as follows:
“Yes, you are a winner. Muscles grow, and so do finances. You need a philosophy to legitimize your success. Here comes Stoicism! Build your inner temple. Emotions are under your control, not the world’s. So be cool and stoic. Alpha males and self-made billionaires follow its tenets: success is just around the corner…”
Stoicism, a Cool Trend
Like our own time, Stoicism was born in an era of empires in decline. Alexander the Great expanded the known world to the frontiers of India, but after his death, the empire was balkanized into successor kingdoms that warred among themselves. These were times of death and despair. The great systems of Athenian metaphysics proved largely useless for coping with uncertainty and loss. Hellenistic philosophies emerged to fill that void, offering solace to a devastated Greek world.
The three major Hellenistic schools, in one form or another, defended the concept of ataraxia—a serene calm urgently needed to endure constant warfare and instability. Among them, Stoicism proved particularly effective in addressing these conditions.
Of the main Hellenistic schools—Epicureanism, Skepticism, and Cynicism—only Stoicism provided a robust ontological grounding for ethical claims. Greek philosophy is deeply ethically charged, but the Stoic system’s division into physics, logic, and ethics offered a more realistic, structured, and discourse-based framework for moral decision-making than that of its rivals. Moreover, Stoicism provided consolation to both the lower and upper classes. It is therefore unsurprising that it became one of Christianity’s philosophical foundations.
This adaptability rests on four basic pillars: prohairesis, the view that only moral choices are under our control; oikeiosis, the recognition of what is one’s own, beginning with instincts of self-preservation and expanding outward to others (cosmopolitanism); and, finally, what Friedrich Nietzsche called amor fati, the rational acceptance of destiny. As can be seen, these tenets can be adapted by both the lowly peasant and the mighty emperor. Because they are largely phenomenological in nature, they can shape a manifold imago mundi without losing philosophical coherence.
As stated earlier, the task is not to comprehend the Stoic school itself, but rather its ideological deformation in the present. Although there are serious scholars working within the Stoic tradition, Stoicism has gained modern popularity primarily through authors such as Ryan Holiday, thereby becoming a self-help trend—one more opioid in the contemporary world. The true radicalization of this trend, however, lies in what might be called Silicon Valley Stoicism: a doctrine repurposed as a tool for personal productivity, mental resilience, and high-performance leadership.
You’re Not a Stoic
Stoicism has become a tool for success. Within this trend, wealth and social mobility are supposedly achieved through psychological means. To be stoic is to put effort into becoming rich; to be a billionaire is to be disciplined, focused, ripped—and, of course, to take cold baths. We are invited to bask in the Sydney Sweeney aesthetic, in the “jeanetic” superiority of the world’s billionaires. Myths aside, the actual process of amassing wealth more often involves cynical, systematic lack of scruples, tax exemptions, and outright criminal practices.
There is, then, a clear ideological structure at work. For Karl Marx, ideology is “false consciousness”: a distorted dimension of reality, logically ordained, with its own ethic and legality. Stoicism, like many philosophical traditions, has been absorbed into modern liberal ideology. The self-proclaimed “ten tenets of Stoicism” (sometimes nine, sometimes fewer) are a contemporary reinterpretation of the so-called “ten natural properties” in Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. This modern reading reeks of capitalist ideology. Despite superficial modifications, these so-called tenets are profoundly individualistic, atomizing the subject and rendering the domestication of capital all the more efficient.
1. The Dichotomy of Control
The central tenet of contemporary Stoicism is the distinction between what is “up to us” and what is not. We can control what is internal—opinions, intentions, desires. Ataraxia is achieved by recognizing the impossibility of controlling the external: the body, reputation, property, and the actions of others.
This distinction provides a zero ground for capitalist ideology: the mutilation of praxis. Inequality appears as the natural order of things—something to be endured rather than challenged. Workers’ exploitation and unjust wealth distribution are presented as the natural disposition of the world. Truly, amor fati: love your destiny.
2. The Primacy of Virtue
At first glance, no harm seems to arise from following this tenet. Yet virtue need not be Moralität but Sittlichkeit. For Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a purely subjective, Kantian dictum of morality is insufficient: virtue is ethical life. What is good can be realized only through the consensus of the community—and the community is the world.
Two possible ideological deformations emerge here. The first is a form of subjective morality that tramples others’ rights; it is often taken by pseudo-Stoic millionaires. The second is the collectivist distortion of ethical life into a Volksgeist, mistaking ethical life on Earth for narrowly defined national interests.
3. Living in Accordance with Nature
At face value, aligning individual reason with universal reason appears admirable. In practice, however, accepting the world often amounts to renouncing praxis. It is possible to align with social nature without resigning oneself to unequal wealth distribution. The fundamental problem with Stoicism lies in its treatment of socio-economic formations as external variables. By doing so, it renders the exploitation of dominated classes natural—and eternal.
4. The Discipline of Assent
Events do not disturb us; rather, a mental impression is paused before we decide on its truth or falsity. Your landlord evicts you, and yet this is supposed not to elicit an irrational emotion. You freeze in rat-infested New York City, but you keep your cool. Good for you!
5. Categorization of “Indifferents”
Only the pursuit of virtue is truly preferred. Classical Stoicism, like many pre-capitalist philosophies, does not place the pursuit of wealth among its central goals. It introduces the category of “indifferents”: states that are not necessary for the attainment of happiness (ataraxia, in this case). Although indifferents are neither good nor bad in themselves, some are preferred—such as health and wealth—while others are dispreferred, such as sickness and poverty.
Contemporary Stoics, of course, differ on this point. In practice, wealth often becomes the goal, while discipline (ataraxia) is reduced to a mere means. Some scholars—and even some trendy Stoics—recognize in Silicon Valley Stoicism a clear violation of the doctrine of indifferents.
6. Amor Fati (Love of Fate)
What ultimately remains, beyond a crude mixture of concepts and philosophical traditions, is the injunction to leverage every setback as a lesson. A setback is worth something only if it produces action, not mere contemplation.
7. Premeditatio Malorum (Premeditation of Evils)
Contemplating the worst-case scenario is meant to prepare us for adverse outcomes. Once again, however, such contemplation must elicit praxis rather than remain at the level of passive reflection. Above all, it should prompt us to ask where the inequality underlying the setback lies, and whether it can be resolved individually or only through collective, social means.
8. Memento Mori (Remember Mortality)
Remembering our mortality is supposed to orient us toward gratitude for the present moment—because what a moment it is to be alive.
9. The Reserve Clause
Our actions—particularly social practices aimed at erasing inequality—are to be undertaken only “if Fate permits” or “God willing.” This tenet anesthetizes outcomes in advance, displacing responsibility onto an ideological and false structure that is, in fact, always subject to change.
10. Cosmopolitanism
Finally, it is impossible to find even a trace of cosmopolitanism in a trend whose tenets are radically individualistic, almost autistic in their relation to the world.
As we can see, being a contemporary Stoic is being an idiot—etymologically speaking. An idiōtēs is one who concerns himself solely with private affairs, forgetting the interests of the Greek polis. Pseudo-Stoicism is nothing other than capitalist individualism given the ideological form of a “wise” philosophy.
Leave the Stoa, and Venture Forth into the Agora
The stoa was a kind of Greek portico that either provided access to the agora or was located within it, but it was never the agora itself. This topological and metaphorical distinction is crucial for understanding the point at stake. The stoa represents a necessary mental disposition for approaching the agora, the center of social and political life. Yet even though the agora contained stoas, a stoa could never become the agora.
Human beings are social beings. Otherness, shared norms, and the social contract are not obstacles to individual flourishing; they are the very conditions that allow us to thrive in the world.
So, inequality can be fought only as a collective whole. The individual is easily domesticated by ideology. To fight the Leviathan alone is to invite defeat—either by denying the necessity of the other or by retreating into a childlike withdrawal inside the internal stoa. There is no such thing as true social mobility. You will never be a billionaire; you lack the natural criminal disposition for it. The media confirms that most billionaires under 30 have inherited their wealth. Artists and athletes are rare exceptions, because neither talent nor disposition inherently confers wealth.
Ideologically, you are made to think you can be rich for three main reasons: first, to see billionaires and inequality as desirable and necessary; second, to consume in the hope of attaining status; and third, to despise those poorer than you—immigrants, the unemployed, and the working poor being the usual suspects blamed for economic woes.
Thus, inequality can be confronted only collectively; the individual subject is the ideological asset of capitalist culture.
Stoicism, like many other philosophical traditions, is a fascinating subject of historical study—but it is not, and should not be, a tool for contemporary economic success. Less gym, less slavish devotion to capital, less “mindfulness and resilience”—and more social awareness and class struggle. A human being can only be fulfilled in relation to others. To be a “good contemporary Stoic” is to do push-ups at home while your neighbor’s house is being raided by ICE.
