Private Government Book Summary - Private Government Book explained in key points

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Private Government summary

Name: Private Government
Rating: 4.1 (67 reviews)
Author: Elizabeth Anderson

Elizabeth Anderson

How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don't Talk about It)

4.1 (67 ratings)

29 mins

Table of Contents

Private Government
summarized in 10 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 10

What’s in it for me? See modern employment in a whole new way.

Ever since the rise of capitalism in the seventeenth century, more and more people around the world have found themselves cut off from the traditional ways of making a living. Long gone are the days when most of us could support ourselves by tending to a little farm or running a small enterprise, like a butcher shop or a bakery.

Sure, these things still exist, and some people still do them. But for most of us, there’s one main answer to the question of how to put food on our plates: get a job. This puts our livelihoods at the mercy of employers.

But that’s okay, the defenders of capitalism assure us. After all, we live in a free-market society. That means workers and employers are free to make deals with each other as equal parties of a contract, and they’re free to walk away from those contracts if they don’t find them mutually beneficial. Ultimately, it’s a win-win proposition for both sides of the equation.

There’s just one problem with this rosy picture: it’s hopelessly outdated, and it fails to take into account the realities of employment in the modern workplace.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

why most of us are practically living in a communist dictatorship at work;
why your freedom to leave your company is barely any freedom at all; and
why many of us avoid talking about or even recognizing this astounding lack of freedom.

Most modern workplaces have highly authoritarian governing structures.

Imagine living under a government that organizes society like this:

Everyone is given a rank and divided into a pyramid-shaped hierarchy. At the top, there’s a single, unelected person who’s basically a dictator. Right below him, there’s a small group of likewise unelected “superiors” who get to issue commands to anyone below them. And then there’s you and everyone else – the “inferiors” who have to obey those commands without question.

Sounds like a deeply undemocratic system, doesn’t it? Well, wait, it gets even worse.

The key message here is: Most modern workplaces have highly authoritarian governing structures.

If you went back to the sketch of our imaginary society and replaced the words “dictator” with “CEO,” “superiors” with “managers,” and “inferiors” with “employees,” you’d have a pretty accurate description of most modern workplaces. Now, there are some important caveats to add here, and we’ll address them in the next blink. But first, let’s keep going with our analogy and see how far we can take it.

Alright, so we have the CEO who’s the unelected “dictator” at the top of a typical company’s “government.” Since this “government” is run by a “dictator,” we can rightfully call it a “dictatorship.” And, in fact, we can go even further and call it a “communist dictatorship.”

That might sound like a rather counterintuitive way to describe a capitalist enterprise, but think about it this way: the “government” of a modern corporation owns and controls all of the enterprise’s “means of production”– the various tools and resources employees need to do their jobs. Not only that, but a small group of powerful people within that corporate government make the big decisions and come up with detailed plans for what the workers should produce and how they should produce it. In other words, the government engages in “central planning.”

Are these not the hallmarks of a communist regime?

But the similarities don’t stop there. To make sure its workers are obeying their orders and complying with the company’s policies, a corporate government can engage in all sorts of surveillance and other violations of privacy. In the US, employers can read employees’ emails, record their phone calls, monitor their social media posts, search their personal belongings, and subject them to drug testing.

And the price of disobedience? “Exile” – also known as getting fired.

Within some broad limitations, employers have far-reaching dictatorial powers over our lives.

Depending on your political and economic views, you might be bursting with objections at this point. Or maybe you’re just a little skeptical and think it’s a bit hyperbolic to call a capitalist corporation a “communist dictatorship.”

To clarify the argument, let’s take a look at some of the main objections and add some caveats, too.

Workers have the right to quit their jobs, but their ability to do so is highly constrained.

“I’ll tell you the alternative,” a defender of capitalism might say at this point. “If you don’t like your job, you can just quit and find another one. Better yet, you can start your own business or become self-employed.”

Well, maybe in theory, but let’s be real here. Self-employment opportunities are limited, and most modern businesses require tremendous amounts of start-up capital, which most people don’t have access to. As for quitting your job and finding another one, that’s usually a lot easier said than done.

The extent of an employer’s power is much greater than many of us think.

“Wait a minute,” our defender of capitalism might respond. “Even if employers have so much power over employees, most of them don’t do anything nefarious with it. They don’t want to control your life; they just want to make a profit. That’s why they hire you — and generally speaking, all they’re asking of you is to do the work they’re paying you to do.”

But, unfortunately, that’s just not true for many workers, and it’s leaving some important facts out of the picture.

The problem with the modern workplace isn’t that it has a government; it’s the type of government it has.

“Alright, alright,” our capitalist might say. “Maybe the scope of an employer’s power goes too far. Maybe things like non-compete clauses should be rolled back. But that being said, what’s the alternative to companies having hierarchical governing structures that enable some people to give orders to others? We can’t just let everyone do what they want, whenever they want to do it. That would be pure anarchy, and nothing would get done.”

Well, that might be true – but it’s also missing the point.

The problem with the modern workplace is that it’s ruled by a private government, rather than a public one.

Some form of workplace government seems inevitable – and with it, so does the existence of some form of hierarchy and the ability of people to give each other orders to get things done. The three things come together. But if the problem isn’t having government, hierarchy, or orders, what is the problem?

The key message here is: The problem with the modern workplace is that it’s ruled by a private government, rather than a public one.

The solution to the problem of private government is to make workplaces more democratic.

The fact that modern companies are run by private governments is one of those problems that practically suggests its own solution: make them public.

Simple enough as a general statement – but the devil lies in the details. How exactly could a company’s governing structure be turned from a private one into a public one? What would having a public government even mean in this context?

Workplace authoritarianism often gets ignored because of a lack of public awareness.

Let’s go back to the thought experiment with which we began these blinks. Imagine if you lived in a society where the national government could do all of the things we’ve looked at: preventing you from going to the bathroom, telling you how to brush your hair, forcing you to submit to drug testing, and so on – not to mention threatening you with exile and destitution if you failed to obey its commands.

Many of us would probably be up in arms if this happened. At the very least, we’d be grumbling about it. And yet, when it comes to workplace authoritarianism, most of us are strangely silent about the problem. It’s rarely discussed in either academic or public discourse. Why is that?

Many of us remain captivated by antiquated ideas about how the labor market works.

The argument we’ve been exploring stands in stark contrast to the story of the labor market that we’re usually told in economics textbooks and university courses. It’s a lovely little place, that market – a place where workers and employers encounter each other as equally-footed buyers and sellers of labor power. The employer has a job it needs someone to do. The employee has the skills to get it done. Both sides are free to negotiate, free to strike deals, and free to walk away from each other. Thanks to all of this freedom, workers and employers are equal participants in a game where everyone can end up getting what they want, if they play their cards right.

But after all of the ideas and facts we’ve looked at in these blinks, this picture of the labor market seems laughable now. And yet it’s still the one that many of us have in our minds, and it’s still the one promoted by many academics and pundits.

The Industrial Revolution undermined the early promises of the capitalist market.

Once upon a time, the story of the market had a large grain of truth. With some very important exceptions aside, such as the continued existence of slavery, it really did cut through the bonds that kept many people unfree. Take artisans, for example, who were liberated from the constraints of guilds, which tightly regulated how they could sell their wares and who could enter their trades.

So, how’d this fairytale-like story of the market turn into the dystopian-like reality it is today?

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What is Private Government about?

Private Government (2017) boldly asserts a provocative thesis: most modern companies are run more like communist dictatorships than the “free enterprises” their often libertarian-minded owners, managers, and defenders believe them to be. Drawing on a wide range of ideas, facts, and data from economics, political philosophy, and history, Private Government backs this thesis up with a strong, compelling argument that’s well worth reckoning with.

Who should read Private Government?

Employees unhappy with their employment
Employers wondering why their employees might be so unhappy
Anyone else wanting to know what’s wrong with the modern workplace

About the Author

Elizabeth Anderson is a professor of philosophy and women’s studies at the University of Michigan. Her research encompasses a broad range of topics within political philosophy, ethics, and feminist theory, including egalitarianism, democracy, and market society. Her previous books include Value in Ethics and Economics and The Imperative of Integration, which won the American Philosophical Association's 2011 Joseph B. Gittler Award, for providing “an outstanding scholarly contribution in the field of the philosophy of one or more of the social sciences.”

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