Drawing on fieldwork in Madrid, I argue that the growing redundancy of living labour power in the capitalist production process has translated, since the last decades of the 20th century, into surplus portions of the individual life-cycle. Capitalism’s promise of productivity, associated with adulthood, has shrunk to become a window of opportunity. Besides sheer luck, it takes protracted preparation to seize this opportunity and inordinate effort to retain it. Adulthood is the mystified representation of structural pressures on productive activity, as an elusive personal accomplishment whose curtailment is one’s own fault. Failure to realize it is further depoliticized as either a rejection of adulthood, or acceptance of besieged adulthood as a sign of maturity.

利用马德里的实地考察，我认为，自20世纪最后几十年以来，资本主义生产过程中不断增长的生活劳动力的冗余已转化为个体生命周期的剩余部分。与成年有关的资本主义关于生产力的承诺已经缩小成为机会之窗。除了运气好之外，还需要长时间的准备才能抓住这个机会，并付出巨大的努力来保持这一机会。成年是对生产活动的结构性压力的神秘表示，是一种难以捉摸的个人成就，其削减是自己的错。未能意识到这一点将进一步政治化为拒绝成年或接受被围困的成年作为成熟的标志。