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<p>Private Government</p><p>The UniversiTy CenTer for hUman valUes series</p><p>sTePhen maCedo, ediTor</p><p>A list of titles in this series appears at the back of the book.</p><p>Private</p><p>Government</p><p>how employers rule our lives</p><p>(and Why We don’t Talk about it)</p><p>elizabeth anderson</p><p>introduction by</p><p>stephen macedo</p><p>Princeton University Press</p><p>Princeton and oxford</p><p>Copyright © 2017 by Princeton University Press</p><p>Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work</p><p>should be sent to Permissions, Princeton University Press</p><p>Published by Princeton University Press,</p><p>41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540</p><p>In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,</p><p>6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR</p><p>press.princeton.edu</p><p>Jacket image courtesy of Shutterstock</p><p>All Rights Reserved</p><p>ISBN 978- 0- 691- 17651- 2</p><p>Library of Congress Control Number 2017933364</p><p>British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available</p><p>This book has been composed in Adobe Text Pro and Helvetica Neue</p><p>Printed on acid- free paper. ∞</p><p>Printed in the United States of America</p><p>10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1</p><p>v</p><p>Contents</p><p>introduction vii</p><p>Stephen Macedo</p><p>author’s Preface xix</p><p>1 When the market Was “left” 1</p><p>2 Private Government 37</p><p>Comments</p><p>3 learning from the levellers? 75</p><p>Ann Hughes</p><p>4 market rationalization 89</p><p>David Bromwich</p><p>5 help Wanted: subordinates 99</p><p>Niko Kolodny</p><p>vi contents</p><p>6 Work isn’t so Bad after all 108</p><p>Tyler Cowen</p><p>response</p><p>7 reply to Commentators 119</p><p>Elizabeth Anderson</p><p>notes 145</p><p>Contributors 183</p><p>index 185</p><p>vii</p><p>introduction</p><p>stephen macedo</p><p>The two lectures that are the centerpiece of this volume call</p><p>for a radical rethinking of the relationship between private</p><p>enterprise and the freedom and dignity of workers. They de-</p><p>scribe— in broad but vivid brushstrokes— a centuries- long de-</p><p>cline in free market progressivism. They argue that, from the</p><p>time of the English Civil War, in the mid- seventeenth century,</p><p>to Abraham Lincoln, two hundred years later, there were good</p><p>grounds for optimism about the capacity of free markets to</p><p>promote equality of status and standing. That optimism gave</p><p>way— with the Industrial Revolution, and for reasons described</p><p>later— to pessimism concerning rising inequality and domina-</p><p>tion in the workplace. As opportunities for self- employment</p><p>declined drastically, workers had fewer alternatives to man-</p><p>agers’ arbitrary and unaccountable authority. The breadth of</p><p>that authority is extremely wide, leaving workers vulnerable</p><p>to being fired for speech and conduct far removed from their</p><p>workplaces. Today’s free market thinking— among scholars,</p><p>viii introduction</p><p>intellectuals, and politicians— radically misconstrues the con-</p><p>dition of most private sector workers and is blind to the degree</p><p>of arbitrary and unaccountable power to which private sector</p><p>workers are subject.</p><p>Just how this happened is the subject of Elizabeth Ander-</p><p>son’s important and timely Tanner Lectures on Human Values,</p><p>first delivered at Princeton University in early 2014. Anderson</p><p>is one of the world’s foremost political philosophers: the author</p><p>of widely influential books on Values in Ethics and Economics</p><p>(1993) and The Imperative of Integration (2010). Among her</p><p>many articles, the pathbreaking “What Is the Point of Equal-</p><p>ity?” (1999) shifted the attention of social philosophers beyond</p><p>a sole focus on inequalities in material distribution toward</p><p>equality in social relations. Professor Anderson’s long- standing</p><p>concerns with social equality of authority, esteem, and standing</p><p>are at the center of this book.</p><p>The two lectures are followed by four pointed commentaries</p><p>originally delivered, and revised for publication, by eminent</p><p>scholars who draw on their expertise in history, literature, polit-</p><p>ical theory, economics, and philosophy. The volume ends with</p><p>Professor Anderson’s response to the challenges of her critics.</p><p>The remainder of this introduction offers a brief overview</p><p>of each of these contributions.</p><p>In her first lecture, Elizabeth Anderson argues that free mar-</p><p>ket political and economic theory— nowadays associated with</p><p>libertarians and the political right— originated as an egalitarian</p><p>and progressive agenda: from the Levellers in England in the</p><p>seventeenth century through the American Civil War, “market</p><p>society” was often understood “as a free society of equals.” An-</p><p>derson ably sketches the highlights of the free market egalitar-</p><p>ianism of the early modern period, focusing on the Levellers,</p><p>John Locke, Adam Smith, and Thomas Paine, among others.</p><p>introduction ix</p><p>Economic liberties and free markets were opposed to social</p><p>hierarchies in the economy, politics, religion, society, and the</p><p>family. As she nicely summarizes:</p><p>Opposition to economic monopolies was part of a broader</p><p>agenda of dismantling monopolies across all domains of so-</p><p>cial life: not just the guilds, but monopolies of church and</p><p>press, monopolization of the vote by the rich, and monop-</p><p>olization of family power by men. Eliminate monopoly, and</p><p>far more people would be able to attain personal indepen-</p><p>dence and become masterless men and women.</p><p>It was only in the nineteenth century that free market think-</p><p>ing drifted away from its earlier egalitarian moorings. Following</p><p>Paine, free market thinkers increasingly regarded the state as</p><p>an abuser of power in the name of special interests. The other</p><p>cause was the Industrial Revolution.</p><p>In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, thinkers such</p><p>as the Leveller John Lilburne and the great political economist</p><p>Adam Smith assumed that free men operating in free markets</p><p>would be independent artisans, merchants, or participants in</p><p>small- scale manufacturing enterprises. Smith’s “pin factory”—</p><p>which illustrated the division of labor— had ten employees.</p><p>Thomas Paine and the American Founders, who favored eco-</p><p>nomic as well as political liberty, assumed that the bulk of the</p><p>population would be self- employed. In late eighteenth- and early</p><p>nineteenth- century America “free market wages were high”</p><p>given “chronic labor shortages,” and “self- employment was a</p><p>ready option for nearly all” white men. Thus, it made sense to</p><p>equate economic liberty, free markets, and independence.</p><p>Free market egalitarians of old were, moreover, far from</p><p>doctrinaire libertarians in their policy proposals. Many, like</p><p>Smith and Paine, advocated public education, and Paine “pro-</p><p>posed a system of universal social insurance, including old- age</p><p>pensions, survivor benefits, and disability payments for families</p><p>whose members could not work,” as well as a universal system</p><p>of stakeholder grants.</p><p>Summing up the free market egalitarianism of the seven-</p><p>teenth to the mid- nineteenth centuries, Anderson observes that</p><p>Smith’s greatest hope— the hope shared by labor radicals</p><p>from the Levellers to the Chartists, from Paine to Lincoln—</p><p>was that freeing up markets would dramatically expand the</p><p>ranks of the self- employed, who would exercise talent and</p><p>judgment in governing their own productive activities, in-</p><p>dependent of micromanaging bosses.</p><p>The Industrial Revolution dramatically altered the assumptions</p><p>upon which free market egalitarianism had rested. “Economies</p><p>of scale overwhelmed the economy of small proprietors,” and</p><p>“opportunities for self- employment shrank dramatically.” It</p><p>“dramatically widened the gulf between employers and em-</p><p>ployees in manufacturing,” and, in addition, “ranks within the</p><p>firm multiplied.”</p><p>The radical changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution</p><p>for most workers, and the consequent mismatch between free</p><p>market theory and reality, gave rise, says Anderson, to a “sym-</p><p>biotic relationship between libertarianism and authoritarian-</p><p>ism that blights our political discourse to this day.”</p><p>In her second lecture, Anderson advances her central and</p><p>most arresting claim: that the modern industrial firm amounts</p><p>to a system of arbitrary and unaccountable “private govern-</p><p>ment” and “dictatorship”:</p><p>x introduction</p><p>Most workers in the United States are</p><p>advance for</p><p>equality. It is a deeply humane vision.</p><p>Egalitarianism before the Industrial Revolution:</p><p>From Paine to Lincoln</p><p>Imagine a free market economy in which nearly everyone either</p><p>is self- employed as a yeoman farmer, artisan, or small merchant</p><p>when the market was “left” 23</p><p>or else is a worker in a small firm with high and rising wages,</p><p>sufficient to enable enough saving so that one could purchase</p><p>one’s own farm or workshop after a few years. Markets would</p><p>be perfectly competitive, so no one would enjoy market power</p><p>over others. Profits would be low and everyone would have to</p><p>work for a living, so labor would not be despised. Material in-</p><p>equality would be limited to individual differences in personal</p><p>labor effort and skill, not to inequalities in birth, state- granted</p><p>privileges, capital ownership, or command over others’ labor.</p><p>Everyone would meet on an equal footing with everyone else.</p><p>All would enjoy personal independence. No one would be sub-</p><p>ject to another’s domination. Would this not be close to an</p><p>egalitarian utopia, a truly free society of equals?</p><p>Egalitarians thought they saw such a utopia emerging in</p><p>America. This is hard to imagine today, given that the United</p><p>States is by far the most unequal among the rich countries of</p><p>the world. Yet from Smith’s day to Lincoln’s, America was the</p><p>leading hope of egalitarians on both sides of the Atlantic.</p><p>To be sure, slavery was a monstrous blot on that hope.62</p><p>But in the heady years of the American Revolution and the</p><p>early American republic, optimism reigned. The Northwest</p><p>Ordinance of 1787 had prohibited the spread of slavery to the</p><p>northwestern territories. By 1804, all the Northern states had</p><p>passed laws to abolish slavery. Many thought that slavery was</p><p>headed for a natural death as an inefficient form of production,</p><p>as Smith had argued.</p><p>In the age of revolutions, America offered opportunities to</p><p>free workers unlike any other country in the world. The great</p><p>majority of the free population was self- employed, either as a</p><p>yeoman farmer or an independent artisan or merchant. Jour-</p><p>neymen had a good chance of owning their own enterprise after</p><p>a few years. In the North, not only slavery, but other forms of</p><p>24 chapter 1</p><p>unfree labor, such as apprenticeship and indentured service,</p><p>were in steep decline.63 The future appeared to promise real</p><p>personal independence for all.</p><p>Thomas Paine was the great advocate of this vision in the</p><p>revolutionary era, in three countries. Raised as a Quaker and</p><p>apprenticed as a stay maker, Paine despised social hierarchy</p><p>and dedicated his life to political agitation for equality. He was</p><p>a hero of the American Revolution for writing Common Sense,</p><p>the most popular and influential political pamphlet up to that</p><p>time. Common Sense rallied the colonists not simply around</p><p>independence, but around the idea that America, as a republic,</p><p>would show the world how a free society of equals would look.</p><p>During the French Revolution, he was elected to the National</p><p>Convention. He was also lionized by American and English</p><p>labor radicals, who read his writings well into the nineteenth</p><p>century. The Chartists, active from 1838 to 1848, put him on</p><p>their reading list.</p><p>Paine’s economic views were broadly libertarian. Individu-</p><p>als can solve nearly all of their problems on their own, without</p><p>the state meddling in their affairs.64 All improvements in pro-</p><p>ductive technology are due to enterprising individuals, who</p><p>hope that government will just leave them alone.65 A good gov-</p><p>ernment does nothing more than secure individuals in “peace</p><p>and safety” in the free pursuit of their occupations, enjoying</p><p>the fruits of their labors, with the lowest possible tax burden.66</p><p>Paine was a lifelong advocate of commerce, free trade, and free</p><p>markets.67 He argued against state regulation of wages, claiming</p><p>that workers should bargain over wages on the free market.68</p><p>Against populist suspicion of finance, Paine was a leading advo-</p><p>cate of chartering the Bank of North America, in part to supply</p><p>credit for artisans, in part as a defense against the state’s issuing</p><p>too much paper money.69</p><p>when the market was “left” 25</p><p>Most problems, he argued, are the result of government. Ex-</p><p>cess printing of paper money (not hoarding, as popular crowds</p><p>supposed) was the cause of inflation. So he criticized demands</p><p>for price controls during the Revolutionary War inflation, and</p><p>argued against price controls at the French National Conven-</p><p>tion.70 He called for hard money and fiscal responsibility.71 In</p><p>most states— England was his chief example— government</p><p>is the principal burden on society, waging war, inflating the</p><p>debt, and imposing burdensome taxes. Government spending</p><p>is mostly wasteful. Taxation is theft; government is a “system</p><p>of war and extortion.”72 People living off government pay are</p><p>social parasites, oppressing the industrious.73 Government is</p><p>also the chief cause of poverty, due to “the greedy hand of gov-</p><p>ernment thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of indus-</p><p>try, and grasping the spoil of the multitude.”74 He proposed a</p><p>plan to eliminate poverty in England by rebating the oppressive</p><p>taxes the poor were forced to pay. Cut taxes drastically, and the</p><p>poor will do fine, while the better off will no longer have to pay</p><p>poor rates to support the welfare system.75</p><p>Paine’s views on political economy sound as if they could</p><p>have been ripped out of today’s establishment Republican Party</p><p>playbook.76 How, given these positions, could he have been</p><p>the hero of labor radicals in the United States and England for</p><p>decades after his death in 1809? He shows enormous faith in</p><p>free markets and does not display a trace of the anti- capitalist</p><p>class conflict that characterized nineteenth- century politics.</p><p>The answer is that labor radicals saw access to self- employment</p><p>as central to avoiding poverty and attaining standing as equals</p><p>in society. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,</p><p>the most radical workers were not the emerging industrial pro-</p><p>letariat, but artisans who operated their own enterprises.77 As</p><p>such, they were simultaneously capitalists and workers: they</p><p>26 chapter 1</p><p>owned their own capital, but also had to work for a living. As</p><p>operators of small businesses, they favored commerce and open</p><p>access to markets and credit. America, with nearly universal</p><p>self- employment either actually realized or a seemingly realistic</p><p>prospect for free workers, offered proof of concept. Paine was</p><p>the greatest popularizer of the American experiment.</p><p>In an economic context in which the self- employed find</p><p>their status and opportunities threatened by powerful insti-</p><p>tutions, it does not make sense to pit workers against capital-</p><p>ists. Popular politics instead pits the common working people</p><p>against elites— that is, whoever controls the more powerful in-</p><p>stitutions. It may also pit the common working people against</p><p>idlers— those who, like aristocrats, do not have to work for a liv-</p><p>ing, but live off the labor of others. The Levellers saw the state</p><p>as underwriting all kinds of oppressive private governments—</p><p>of landlords, the established church, guilds, patriarchy. In</p><p>Paine, however, the pre- industrial egalitarian vision narrowed</p><p>to focus on the state. Nearly all states, other than the United</p><p>States, were corrupt. Corruption exists whenever the state fa-</p><p>vors elites at the expense of ordinary working people— when it</p><p>acts “by partialities of favor and oppression.”78 Paine enumer-</p><p>ated several forms of unjust favoritism that oppressed ordinary</p><p>working people. Idle landlords received special representation</p><p>in the House of Lords, and a separate set of laws applicable only</p><p>to them.79 The state gave charters (monopolies) to elites, at the</p><p>expense of the right of all people to engage in trade, and at the</p><p>cost of economic growth.80 It taxed working people to lavishly</p><p>fund the king and his court of idlers.81 It handed out sinecures</p><p>to buy the votes of members</p><p>of Parliament, and provide places</p><p>for the worthless younger sons of aristocrats who, under primo-</p><p>geniture, would receive no inheritance.82 The worst corruption</p><p>by far was the state’s waging of bloody and colossally expensive</p><p>when the market was “left” 27</p><p>wars to support plunder and imperialism, at the cost of ex-</p><p>ploding tax burdens and public debt. Because the aristocracy</p><p>controlled the system of taxation, they exempted themselves</p><p>from most taxes and placed the burdens of funding these wars</p><p>on working people, through oppressive sales taxes.83</p><p>Paine’s low- tax, free- trade libertarian agenda made consid-</p><p>erable sense for an export- led agricultural economy facing high</p><p>grain prices, as was true for late eighteenth- century America.</p><p>“The commerce by which [America] hath enriched herself are</p><p>the necessaries of life, and will always have a market while eat-</p><p>ing is the custom of Europe.”84 Free market wages were high in</p><p>a country suffering from chronic labor shortages, and in which</p><p>self- employment was a ready option for nearly all.85 When the</p><p>bulk of the population is self- employed, pleading for relief from</p><p>state meddling is quite a different proposition than it would</p><p>be today. There is not much call for employment regulations</p><p>if there are few employees, and virtually all have a ready exit</p><p>into self- employment. When no enterprises are large enough</p><p>to have market power, there is no need for anti- trust regulation.</p><p>When land is abundant and practically free, land use and pol-</p><p>lution regulations are hardly needed because people are spread</p><p>out and environmental effects (as far as people understood at</p><p>the time) minimal. When people can appraise the quality of</p><p>virtually all goods for sale on inspection, and nearly everyone</p><p>grows what they eat, there is little need for laws regulating the</p><p>safety of consumer goods. Arcane financial instruments could</p><p>not bring an economy to its knees in an era in which banking</p><p>was primitive and much of the economy was not monetized.</p><p>So there was little need for complex financial regulation. In the</p><p>absence of any notion of central banking or modern monetary</p><p>policy, the gold standard was a better policy than one allow-</p><p>ing states to issue paper money at will— a practice that led to</p><p>28 chapter 1</p><p>destructive inflation in Paine’s day. Paine’s America probably</p><p>came as close as anywhere in the world to avoiding market</p><p>failures, as contemporary economists define them.</p><p>One issue, however, continued to bother Paine near the end</p><p>of his life: widespread poverty. In The Rights of Man, he argued</p><p>that poverty in England could be solved by rebating the taxes</p><p>the poor paid to support England’s king, court, sinecures, mili-</p><p>tary, and colonial system. Roll back this wasteful spending, end</p><p>the poor rates, and there would still be a surplus that could be</p><p>rebated to the poor or spent on educating their children, which</p><p>would prevent their falling into poverty as adults.</p><p>Implicit in his thinking was a more systematic appreciation</p><p>of the causes of poverty. It could not be simply due to a corrupt</p><p>state oppressing the poor with excessive taxes to fund wasteful</p><p>spending, or to monopolizing and other forms of state favoritism.</p><p>People needed access to education to avoid poverty. In “Agrarian</p><p>Justice,” Paine went much further in questioning the adequacy</p><p>even of the system of nearly universal self- employment that he</p><p>saw in America. The great defect of such a system is that it makes</p><p>families depend on labor to avoid poverty. What happens when,</p><p>due to old age, disability, illness, or death, there is no one in the</p><p>family able to work? The rich had a stock of capital on which</p><p>they could live without working. To prevent poverty, everyone</p><p>would need something comparable. Paine proposed a system of</p><p>universal social insurance, including old- age pensions, survivor</p><p>benefits, and disability payments for families whose members</p><p>could not work. In addition, he proposed a system of universal</p><p>stakeholder grants for young adults starting out in life, which</p><p>they could use to obtain further education or tools, so their labor</p><p>would earn enough to avoid poverty. This was the first realistic</p><p>comprehensive social insurance proposal in the world, and the</p><p>first realistic proposal to end poverty.</p><p>when the market was “left” 29</p><p>Paine insisted that this did not represent an abandonment</p><p>of his principles of private property and free markets. Individ-</p><p>ualist to the last, Paine justified his social insurance system on</p><p>strict Lockean property principles. Revenues for social insur-</p><p>ance would come from an inheritance tax, which in his day</p><p>amounted to a land tax. This was just, because landowners, in</p><p>enclosing a part of the earth that was originally held in common</p><p>by all, had failed to compensate everyone else for their taking.</p><p>Even if they had mixed their labor with the land in the original</p><p>appropriation, this entitled them only to the value their labor</p><p>added to the land. They could not claim to deserve the value of</p><p>the raw natural resources, or the value of surrounding uses that</p><p>enhanced the market price of land. Each member of society was</p><p>entitled to their per capita share of these values. So, landown-</p><p>ers still owed a rent to everyone else. By this reasoning, Paine</p><p>justified social insurance as a universal right, not a charity.86</p><p>This emergence of a systematic economic account of pov-</p><p>erty, not tied to corrupt special favors dealt out by the state,</p><p>was to remain underdeveloped in Painite radical labor ideol-</p><p>ogy. English radicals such as William Cobbett and the Chartists</p><p>continued to focus on political corruption as the source of the</p><p>independent worker’s oppression. The idea of social insurance</p><p>as a systematic solution to a problem inherent in a system that</p><p>let free markets be the sole mechanism for allocating income</p><p>had to await the rise of socialism before it was taken up again—</p><p>and then, ironically, by socialism’s enemies. Bismarck, the no-</p><p>torious anti- socialist who banned the activities of the German</p><p>Social Democratic Party, implemented the first social insurance</p><p>program in the world.</p><p>Even as the Industrial Revolution was bringing the preso-</p><p>cialist era of egalitarian labor radicalism to an end in Europe—</p><p>Chartism breathed its last gasp in 1848— the dream of a free</p><p>30 chapter 1</p><p>society of equals built on independent small producers con-</p><p>tinued in the United States through the Civil War. This was the</p><p>ideal on which the antebellum Republican Party was founded.</p><p>Its central principle, anti- slavery, was based not so much on</p><p>the moral wrong slavery inflicted on the slaves (although this</p><p>was acknowledged), as it was on the threat slavery posed to the</p><p>self- employed worker. The central platform of the antebellum</p><p>Republican Party was to prohibit the extension of slavery in</p><p>the territories. The creation of gigantic slave plantations in the</p><p>territories would absorb land that would otherwise be avail-</p><p>able for free men to make it on their own as yeoman farmers,</p><p>and consign them to wage labor for the rest of their lives.87</p><p>President Lincoln articulated the view of his party. He rejected</p><p>the theory that all workers must either be wage workers or</p><p>slaves— either hired or bought by capital— and, if hired, “fixed</p><p>in that condition for life.” This he condemned as the “mud- sill”</p><p>theory of society— the idea, advanced by proslavery Senator</p><p>James Hammond of South Carolina, that every society needed</p><p>an inferior class of people consigned to drudgery, on which to</p><p>base civilization, just as every soundly built house needs to rest</p><p>on a mudsill.88 Lincoln advanced a rival view</p><p>that there is not, of necessity, any such thing as the free</p><p>hired laborer being fixed to that condition for life.... Many</p><p>independent men in this assembly doubtless a few years ago</p><p>were hired laborers. And their case is almost, if not quite,</p><p>the general rule. The prudent, penniless beginner in the</p><p>world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with</p><p>which to</p><p>buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account</p><p>another while, and at length hires another new beginner to</p><p>help him. This, say its advocates, is free labor— the just, and</p><p>generous, and prosperous system, which opens the way for</p><p>when the market was “left” 31</p><p>all, gives hope to all, and energy, and progress, and improve-</p><p>ment of condition to all.89</p><p>This progress of free labor to full self- employment is what the</p><p>“society of equals” was all about.90</p><p>Was the Republican promise truly “for all”? The Homestead</p><p>Act of 1862 was an attempt to fulfill that promise. However,</p><p>to masses of wage laborers in the big Northern cities, this</p><p>was already an unrealistic dream that did not speak to their</p><p>needs as workers. It was even more unrealistic for free blacks,</p><p>Chinese indentured servants, Mexican- American peons, and</p><p>American Indians, who occupied “halfway houses of semi-</p><p>free labor.”91 The Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished</p><p>slavery, attempted to advance that promise for nonwhites.</p><p>Under it, peonage and other forms of involuntary servitude</p><p>were prohibited— although litigation against various forms of</p><p>peonage continued well into the 1940s, long after the dream of</p><p>universal self- employment was dashed forever. More revealing</p><p>for our purposes is the fact that the Thirteenth Amendment</p><p>was the basis for the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which banned</p><p>racial discrimination in the sale and rental of property. That a</p><p>law banning slavery supported a right to buy land made sense</p><p>only given a background ideology that identified free labor</p><p>with self- employment, which required that the worker could</p><p>buy or rent his capital. Yet that promise was left unfulfilled by</p><p>the failure of the radical Republican’s vision of Reconstruction,</p><p>which would have divided the former slave plantations among</p><p>the freed people.</p><p>Even had the radical Republican program of Reconstruction</p><p>been enacted, its ideal of free labor was doomed. What began</p><p>as a hopeful, inspiring egalitarian ideal in the United States self-</p><p>destructed in three ways.</p><p>32 chapter 1</p><p>First, the ideal of universal self- employment never managed</p><p>to incorporate the unpaid domestic labor essential to family</p><p>life, which was performed overwhelmingly by women. Con-</p><p>gressional debate over the Thirteenth Amendment made it</p><p>clear that women were excluded from the promise of fully free</p><p>labor. Notwithstanding the amendment, husbands retained</p><p>property in their wives’ labor.92 This was a contradiction in-</p><p>herent in the free labor ideal, as the independence of men de-</p><p>pended on their command over their wives’ labor.93 Hidden in</p><p>the ostensible universalism and hyperindividualism of the ideal</p><p>was a presumption of male governance over their wives’— and</p><p>children’s— labor. The feminist movement, which arose from</p><p>the abolitionist movement, was to highlight this contradiction,</p><p>as women came to demand independent and equal standing in</p><p>the workplace and at home.</p><p>Second, the Civil War, which ended slavery in the name</p><p>of independent labor, ironically propelled the very forces that</p><p>put the universalization of that ideal further out of reach, even</p><p>for the class of white men. It was a powerful driver of industri-</p><p>alization, and hence of the triumph of large enterprises using</p><p>the wage labor system over the small proprietor.</p><p>Third, the ideal contained an implicit esteem hierarchy that</p><p>was ultimately to turn its egalitarian aspirations upside down. If</p><p>the only fully respectable labor is independent, self- employed</p><p>labor, if the way to attain recognition as an equal is to operate</p><p>one’s own enterprise, then what is one to make of those who re-</p><p>main wage laborers for their whole lives? Lincoln was clear: “If</p><p>any continue through life in the condition of the hired laborer,</p><p>it is not the fault of the system, but because of either a depen-</p><p>dent nature which prefers it, or improvidence, folly, or singular</p><p>misfortune.”94 Even in 1861, with the frontier still open, the</p><p>burgeoning pace of immigration and urban industrialization</p><p>when the market was “left” 33</p><p>was outrunning the flow of men out West. Lincoln’s disparaging</p><p>judgment of wage laborers is akin to blaming those left standing</p><p>in a game of musical chairs, while denying that the structure</p><p>of the game has anything to do with the outcome. Thus, what</p><p>began as an egalitarian ideal ended as another basis for esteem</p><p>hierarchy: to raise the businessman on a higher plane than the</p><p>wage worker.95</p><p>The Cataclysm of the Industrial Revolution</p><p>The Industrial Revolution shattered the egalitarian ideal of uni-</p><p>versal self- government in the realm of production. Economies</p><p>of scale overwhelmed the economy of small proprietors, replac-</p><p>ing them with large enterprises that employed many workers.</p><p>Opportunities for self- employment shrank dramatically in the</p><p>course of the nineteenth century, and have continued to shrink</p><p>to the present day. The Industrial Revolution also altered the</p><p>nature of work and the relations between owners and workers</p><p>in manufacturing, widening the gulf between the two.</p><p>There was a hierarchy of masters over journeymen and</p><p>apprentices in the small- scale preindustrial workshop. Ap-</p><p>prentices, in particular, without the right to a wage (like many</p><p>American interns today), were unfree. Yet several factors con-</p><p>strained this hierarchy. Masters worked side by side with jour-</p><p>neymen, performing the same labor while teaching apprentices</p><p>the same skills. The fact that they performed work of the same</p><p>kind as their subordinates, in the same workshop, softened the</p><p>conditions of work. Masters could not make their subordinates</p><p>labor in a shop whose conditions were so uncomfortable or</p><p>unsafe that they would be unwilling to work there themselves.</p><p>Nor could they impose a pace of work more relentless than</p><p>they would be personally willing to endure. The pace of the</p><p>34 chapter 1</p><p>typical artisanal workshop was relaxed, and included many</p><p>breaks. Masters fraternized with their journeymen. Alcohol</p><p>passed freely between masters and journeymen even during</p><p>working hours. Finally, in the United States through the early</p><p>years of the nineteenth century, skilled journeymen enjoyed a</p><p>reasonable expectation of being able to set up shop for them-</p><p>selves after a few years of wage labor, in the manner Lincoln</p><p>thought was the norm. With such a short, easy bridge from one</p><p>rank to the next, it was relatively easy for workers to reconcile</p><p>the hierarchy that did exist with egalitarian republican values.96</p><p>The Industrial Revolution dramatically widened the gulf</p><p>between employers and employees in manufacturing. Employ-</p><p>ers no longer did the same kind of work as employees, if they</p><p>worked at all. Mental labor was separated from manual labor,</p><p>which was radically deskilled. Ranks within the firm multiplied.</p><p>Leading executives might not even work in the same building.</p><p>This facilitated a severe degradation of working conditions.</p><p>Workers were subject to the relentless, grueling discipline of</p><p>the clock and the machine. Employers, instead of drinking with</p><p>their workers, preached temperance, industry, punctuality,</p><p>and discipline. Conditions were harsh, hours long, wages low,</p><p>and prospects for advancement, regardless of how hard one</p><p>worked, minimal.</p><p>The nineteenth century saw the spread of total institutions</p><p>across society: the prison, the asylum, the hospital, the orphan-</p><p>age, the poorhouse, the factory. Jeremy Bentham’s notorious</p><p>prison plan, the Panopticon, was his model for these other</p><p>institutions.97 Other liberals, such as Joseph Priestley, allied</p><p>with factory owners and social reformers to promote these</p><p>new types of hyperdisciplinary institution. Here lay the central</p><p>contradiction of the new liberal order: “Though these radicals</p><p>preached independence, freedom, and autonomy in polity and</p><p>when the market was “left” 35</p><p>market, they preached order, routine, and subordination in fac-</p><p>tory, school, poorhouse, and prison.”98</p><p>Preindustrial labor radicals, viewing</p><p>the vast degradation</p><p>of autonomy, esteem, and standing entailed by the new pro-</p><p>ductive order in comparison with artisan status, called it wage</p><p>slavery. Liberals called it free labor. The difference in perspec-</p><p>tive lay at the very point Marx highlighted. If one looks only at</p><p>the conditions of entry into the labor contract and exit out of</p><p>it, workers appear to meet their employers on terms of freedom</p><p>and equality. That was what the liberal view stressed. But if</p><p>one looks at the actual conditions experienced in the work-</p><p>ers’ fulfilling the contract, the workers stand in a relation of</p><p>profound subordination to their employer. That was what the</p><p>labor radicals stressed.</p><p>In this light, let us now return to the contrast between Smith</p><p>and Marx with which this lecture opened. It is often supposed</p><p>that their differing assessments of market society were based on</p><p>fundamentally opposed values. Yet both marveled at the ways</p><p>market society drove innovation, productive efficiency, and</p><p>economic growth. And both deplored the deskilling and stupe-</p><p>fying effects of an increasingly fine- grained division of labor on</p><p>workers.99 They differed rather on what they expected market</p><p>society to offer to workers. Smith’s greatest hope— the hope</p><p>shared by labor radicals from the Levellers to the Chartists,</p><p>from Paine to Lincoln— was that freeing up markets would dra-</p><p>matically expand the ranks of the self- employed, who would</p><p>exercise talent and judgment in governing their own productive</p><p>activities, independent of micromanaging bosses. No wonder</p><p>Smith’s optimistic representation of market relations focused</p><p>on the butcher, the brewer, and the baker— all independent</p><p>proprietors. Free market society could be championed as “left,”</p><p>as an egalitarian cause, so long as “by far the most important”</p><p>36 chapter 1</p><p>of its effects was “the liberty... of individuals... who had</p><p>before lived almost in a continual state of... servile depen-</p><p>dency upon their superiors.” With the Industrial Revolution,</p><p>the pervasiveness of markets in labor returned manufacturing</p><p>workers to an even deeper state of subjection to their superiors</p><p>than before. Smith, who despised selfishness, disparaged the</p><p>quest to accumulate vast fortunes, and cited “the disposition</p><p>to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful...</p><p>[as] the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our</p><p>moral sentiments” would not have approved.100</p><p>Preindustrial egalitarians had no answer for the challenges</p><p>of the Industrial Revolution. Their model of how to bring about</p><p>a free society of equals through free markets via near- universal</p><p>self- employment was shattered. Advocates of laissez faire, who</p><p>blithely applied the earlier arguments for market society to a</p><p>social context that brought about the very opposite of the ef-</p><p>fects that were predicted and celebrated by their predecessors,</p><p>failed to recognize that the older arguments no longer applied.</p><p>Thus arose a symbiotic relationship between libertarianism and</p><p>authoritarianism that blights our political discourse to this day.</p><p>For what we have yet to adequately grasp is the nature of the</p><p>challenge before us: private government.</p><p>37</p><p>Chapter 2</p><p>Private Government</p><p>Communist Dictatorships in Our Midst</p><p>Imagine a government that assigns almost everyone a superior</p><p>whom they must obey. Although superiors give most inferiors a</p><p>routine to follow, there is no rule of law. Orders may be arbitrary</p><p>and can change at any time, without prior notice or opportu-</p><p>nity to appeal. Superiors are unaccountable to those they order</p><p>around. They are neither elected nor removable by their inferi-</p><p>ors. Inferiors have no right to complain in court about how they</p><p>are being treated, except in a few narrowly defined cases. They</p><p>also have no right to be consulted about the orders they are given.</p><p>There are multiple ranks in the society ruled by this govern-</p><p>ment. The content of the orders people receive varies, depend-</p><p>ing on their rank. Higher- ranked individuals may be granted</p><p>considerable freedom in deciding how to carry out their orders,</p><p>and may issue some orders to some inferiors. The most highly</p><p>ranked individual takes no orders but issues many. The lowest-</p><p>ranked may have their bodily movements and speech minutely</p><p>regulated for most of the day.</p><p>38 chapter 2</p><p>This government does not recognize a personal or private</p><p>sphere of autonomy free from sanction. It may prescribe a dress</p><p>code and forbid certain hairstyles. Everyone lives under surveil-</p><p>lance, to ensure that they are complying with orders. Superiors</p><p>may snoop into inferiors’ e- mail and record their phone con-</p><p>versations. Suspicionless searches of their bodies and personal</p><p>effects may be routine. They can be ordered to submit to med-</p><p>ical testing. The government may dictate the language spoken</p><p>and forbid communication in any other language. It may forbid</p><p>certain topics of discussion. People can be sanctioned for their</p><p>consensual sexual activity or for their choice of spouse or life</p><p>partner. They can be sanctioned for their political activity and</p><p>required to engage in political activity they do not agree with.</p><p>The economic system of the society run by this government</p><p>is communist. The government owns all the nonlabor means</p><p>of production in the society it governs. It organizes production</p><p>by means of central planning. The form of the government is</p><p>a dictatorship. In some cases, the dictator is appointed by an</p><p>oligarchy. In other cases, the dictator is self- appointed.</p><p>Although the control that this government exercises over</p><p>its members is pervasive, its sanctioning powers are limited. It</p><p>cannot execute or imprison anyone for violating orders. It can</p><p>demote people to lower ranks. The most common sanction is</p><p>exile. Individuals are also free to emigrate, although if they do,</p><p>there is usually no going back. Exile or emigration can have</p><p>severe collateral consequences. The vast majority have no re-</p><p>alistic option but to try to immigrate to another communist</p><p>dictatorship, although there are many to choose from. A few</p><p>manage to escape into anarchic hinterlands, or set up their own</p><p>dictatorships.</p><p>This government mostly secures compliance with carrots.</p><p>Because it controls all the income in the society, it pays more to</p><p>private government 39</p><p>people who follow orders particularly well and promotes them</p><p>to higher rank. Because it controls communication, it also has</p><p>a propaganda apparatus that often persuades many to support</p><p>the regime. This need not amount to brainwashing. In many</p><p>cases, people willingly support the regime and comply with</p><p>its orders because they identify with and profit from it. Others</p><p>support the regime because, although they are subordinate to</p><p>some superior, they get to exercise dominion over inferiors. It</p><p>should not be surprising that support for the regime for these</p><p>reasons tends to increase, the more highly ranked a person is.</p><p>Would people subject to such a government be free? I ex-</p><p>pect that most people in the United States would think not.</p><p>Yet most work under just such a government: it is the modern</p><p>workplace, as it exists for most establishments in the United</p><p>States. The dictator is the chief executive officer (CEO), superi-</p><p>ors are managers, subordinates are workers. The oligarchy that</p><p>appoints the CEO exists for publicly owned corporations: it is</p><p>the board of directors. The punishment of exile is being fired.</p><p>The economic system of the modern workplace is communist,</p><p>because the government— that is, the establishment— owns all</p><p>the assets,1 and the top of the establishment hierarchy designs</p><p>the production plan, which subordinates execute. There are no</p><p>internal markets in the modern workplace. Indeed, the bound-</p><p>ary of the firm is defined as the point at which markets end and</p><p>authoritarian centralized planning and direction begin.2</p><p>Most workers in the United States are governed by com-</p><p>munist dictatorships in their work lives. Usually, those dicta-</p><p>torships</p><p>have the legal authority to regulate workers’ off- hour</p><p>lives as well— their political activities, speech, choice of sexual</p><p>partner, use of recreational drugs, alcohol, smoking, and exer-</p><p>cise. Because most employers exercise this off- hours author-</p><p>ity irregularly, arbitrarily, and without warning, most workers</p><p>40 chapter 2</p><p>are unaware of how sweeping it is. Most believe, for example,</p><p>that their boss cannot fire them for their off- hours Facebook</p><p>postings, or for supporting a political candidate their boss op-</p><p>poses. Yet only about half of U.S. workers enjoy even partial</p><p>protection of their off- duty speech from employer meddling.3</p><p>Far fewer enjoy legal protection of their speech on the job,</p><p>except in narrowly defined circumstances. Even where they</p><p>are entitled to legal protection, as in speech promoting union</p><p>activity, their legal rights are often a virtual dead letter due to</p><p>lax enforcement: employers determined to keep out unions</p><p>immediately fire any workers who dare mention them, and the</p><p>costs of litigation make it impossible for workers to hold them</p><p>accountable for this.</p><p>I expect that this description of communist dictatorships in</p><p>our midst, pervasively governing our lives, often to a far greater</p><p>degree of control than the state, would be deeply surprising to</p><p>most people. Certainly many U.S. CEOs, who think of them-</p><p>selves as libertarian individualists, would be surprised to see</p><p>themselves depicted as dictators of little communist govern-</p><p>ments. Why do we not recognize such a pervasive part of our</p><p>social landscape for what it is? Should we not subject these</p><p>forms of government to at least as much critical scrutiny as</p><p>we pay to the democratic state? My project in this lecture is to</p><p>explain why public discourse and political philosophy largely</p><p>neglect the pervasiveness of authoritarian governance in our</p><p>work and off- hours lives and why we should return our atten-</p><p>tion to it, and to sketch some thoughts as to what we should do</p><p>about it— for neglect of these issues is relatively recent. They</p><p>were hot topics of public discourse, academic and legal theo-</p><p>rizing, and political agitation from the Industrial Revolution</p><p>through the New Deal. Now they are the province of members</p><p>of marginalized academic subfields— labor historians, labor law</p><p>private government 41</p><p>scholars, and some labor economists— along with a few labor</p><p>lawyers and labor activists.</p><p>Our currently dominant tools for discerning our work</p><p>lives were manufactured before the Industrial Revolution and</p><p>originally designed as viewfinders to the future. They were re-</p><p>jected as useless by organized labor movements that arose in</p><p>recognition of the fundamental irreversible changes in workers’</p><p>prospects brought about by the Industrial Revolution. They</p><p>have been redeployed since the grave decline of organized labor</p><p>movements, but now as blinders on our actual institutional</p><p>landscape of work. We need different instruments to discern</p><p>the normatively relevant features of our current institutions</p><p>of workplace governance. In particular, we need to revive the</p><p>concept of private government.</p><p>Private Government: The Very Idea</p><p>Most modern workplaces are private governments. By this, I do</p><p>not mean merely that they are in the so- called private sector,</p><p>and have some internal structure of authority— as specified, for</p><p>instance, in the rules for corporate governance. I refer rather</p><p>to a particular sort of constitution of government, under which</p><p>its subjects are unfree.</p><p>The notion of private government may seem a contradic-</p><p>tion in terms. In the impoverished vocabulary of contemporary</p><p>public discourse, and to a considerable extent in contemporary</p><p>political philosophy, government is often treated as synonymous</p><p>with the state, which, by supposed definition, is part of the</p><p>public sphere. The supposed counterpart private sphere is the</p><p>place where, it is imagined, government ends, and hence where</p><p>individual liberty begins. Here is a characteristic expression of</p><p>this view in U.S. public discourse: “Giving up our very freedom</p><p>42 chapter 2</p><p>for a system that allow[s] the government to further meddle in</p><p>our private lives... [is] not the answer.... Every single thing</p><p>government does to increase its own power increases the size</p><p>of its slice of the liberty pie.... Since there are only two slices,</p><p>every time the government’s slice of the liberty pie grows, the</p><p>citizens’ slice is reduced.”4 That is according to Ken Cuccinelli,</p><p>the former attorney general of Virginia. But nothing hangs on</p><p>him. He is merely expressing a view widely accepted in public</p><p>discourse, certainly among libertarians, but not only among</p><p>them. Let’s unpack the confusions.</p><p>First, government exists wherever some have the authority</p><p>to issue orders to others, backed by sanctions, in one or more</p><p>domains of life.5 The modern state is merely one form of govern-</p><p>ment among others, defined by Max Weber as “a compulsory</p><p>organization” that asserts a monopoly on determining the le-</p><p>gitimate use of force over a territory.6 Popular usage before the</p><p>nineteenth century is much clearer about the government/state</p><p>distinction than we are today. Here is John Adams, replying to</p><p>Abigail’s famous letter asking him to “remember the ladies”:</p><p>We have been told that our struggle has loosened the bonds</p><p>of government every where; that children and apprentices</p><p>were disobedient; that schools and colleges were grown</p><p>turbulent; that Indians slighted their guardians, and negroes</p><p>grew insolent to their masters. But your letter was the first</p><p>intimation that another tribe, more numerous and powerful</p><p>than all the rest, were grown discontented.... Depend upon</p><p>it, we know better than to repeal our masculine systems.7</p><p>Here Adams frankly acknowledges that government is “every</p><p>where”— parents (and governesses) exercise government over</p><p>children, masters over apprentices, teachers over students,</p><p>private government 43</p><p>guardians over Indians, masters over slaves, husbands over</p><p>wives. We have seen from my previous lecture that this under-</p><p>standing of the scope of government was equally familiar to</p><p>actors in seventeenth- century England.</p><p>Now consider the public/private distinction. If something</p><p>is legitimately kept private from you, that means it is none of</p><p>your business. This entails at least one of the following: you are</p><p>not entitled to know about it, your interests have no standing</p><p>in decisions regarding it, you aren’t entitled to make decisions</p><p>regarding it or to hold those who do accountable for the effect</p><p>their decisions have on you. If it is private to you, that means</p><p>it is your business, and you may exclude others from making</p><p>it any of theirs. This entails at least one of the following: you</p><p>are entitled to keep others from knowing about it; you need</p><p>not consider others’ interests in making decisions regarding it;</p><p>you are not accountable to others for your decisions regarding</p><p>it; you are entitled to exclude others from making decisions</p><p>regarding it.</p><p>If something is public, that means it is the business of a more</p><p>or less well- defined group of people (members of the public),</p><p>such that no one is entitled to exclude any member of the group</p><p>from making it their business. Publicity in the informational</p><p>sense typically extends much further than publicity with re-</p><p>spect to standing, decision making, and accountability. The</p><p>latter three categories refer to the governance of the thing in</p><p>question. Its public status, with respect to governance, involves</p><p>means by which the public asserts standing to make claims re-</p><p>garding its governance, and organizes itself to make collective</p><p>decisions regarding it, and/or hold accountable the individuals</p><p>elected or appointed to make such decisions.</p><p>Privacy is relative to persons. A thing that is private with</p><p>respect to some persons may be public with respect to others. A</p><p>44 chapter 2</p><p>private club is private from nonmembers, but generally a public</p><p>thing to its members: the club</p><p>will typically have meetings to</p><p>which its members are invited, in which they learn about the</p><p>club’s activities and finances, insist that their interests be taken</p><p>into account in its operations, make decisions about it, and</p><p>hold officers of the club accountable. It follows that there is no</p><p>single public sphere or a single private sphere in society. There</p><p>are many spheres, and which are public or private depends on</p><p>who you are.8</p><p>Today we associate the state with “the” public sphere, and</p><p>things that are not the state’s business, but individuals’ own</p><p>business, with “the” private sphere. Insofar as these associa-</p><p>tions are thought to be inherent, the idea of private government</p><p>would appear to be contradictory. Isn’t everything in the pri-</p><p>vate sphere part of individual liberty, and everything subject</p><p>to public (government, confusedly limited to state) control</p><p>a constraint on individual liberty? That is Cuccinelli’s idea,</p><p>which reflects associations entrenched in contemporary pub-</p><p>lic discourse.</p><p>But of course the association of the state with the public</p><p>sphere is not inherent. It is a contingent social achievement of</p><p>immense importance. The centuries- long struggles for popular</p><p>sovereignty and a republican form of government are attempts</p><p>to make the state a public thing: something that is the people’s</p><p>business, transparent to them, servant to their interests, in</p><p>which they have a voice and the power to hold rulers account-</p><p>able. Authoritarian governments insist on the opposite— that</p><p>the affairs of state are the private business of the rulers.</p><p>This point generalizes to all governments, not just govern-</p><p>ments run by the state. You are subject to private government</p><p>wherever (1) you are subordinate to authorities who can order</p><p>you around and sanction you for not complying over some</p><p>private government 45</p><p>domain of your life, and (2) the authorities treat it as none of</p><p>your business, across a wide range of cases, what orders it issues</p><p>or why it sanctions you. A government is private with respect</p><p>to a subject if it can issue orders, backed by sanctions, to that</p><p>subject in some domain of that subject’s life, and that subject</p><p>has no say in how that government operates and no standing to</p><p>demand that their interests be taken into account, other than</p><p>perhaps in narrowly defined circumstances, in the decisions</p><p>that government makes. Private government is government</p><p>that has arbitrary, unaccountable power over those it governs.</p><p>This of course is a matter of degree. Its powers may be checked</p><p>in certain ways by other governments, by social norms, and by</p><p>other pressures.</p><p>Note that the privacy of a government is defined relative to the</p><p>governed, not relative to the state. The notion of governments</p><p>that are kept private from the state is much more familiar: we</p><p>speak of corporate governance, church governance, and so</p><p>forth, in referring to legal entities that are private in relation</p><p>to the state. That notion of private government abstracts from</p><p>the people who are governed and their relation to these gov-</p><p>ernments. It focuses only on the fact that the state is kept out of</p><p>decision-making in these governments. My definition of private</p><p>government focuses on the fact that, in many of these govern-</p><p>ments, the governed are kept out of decision-making as well.</p><p>Now consider the connections of government to freedom.</p><p>Cuccinelli depicts a zero- sum trade- off between the liberties</p><p>of the state and those of its citizens. But there are at least three</p><p>concepts of freedom: negative, positive, and republican. If you</p><p>have negative freedom, no one is interfering with your actions.</p><p>If you have positive freedom, you have a rich menu of options</p><p>effectively accessible to you, given your resources.9 If you have</p><p>republican freedom, no one is dominating you— you are subject</p><p>46 chapter 2</p><p>to no one’s arbitrary, unaccountable will.10 These three kinds</p><p>of freedom are distinct. A lone person on a desert island has</p><p>perfect negative and republican freedom, but virtually no pos-</p><p>itive freedom, because there is nothing to do but eat coconuts.</p><p>An absolute monarch’s favorites may enjoy great negative and</p><p>positive freedom if he has granted them generous privileges</p><p>and well- paid sinecures. But they still lack republican freedom,</p><p>since he can take their perks away and toss them into a dungeon</p><p>on a whim. Citizens of prosperous social democracies have con-</p><p>siderable positive and republican freedom, but are subject to</p><p>numerous negative liberty constraints, in the form of complex</p><p>state regulations that constrain their choices in numerous as-</p><p>pects of their lives.</p><p>All three kinds of freedom are valuable. There are sound</p><p>reasons to make trade- offs among them. If we focus purely on</p><p>negative liberty, and purely concerning rival goods, it might</p><p>seem that Cuccinelli is correct that the size of the liberty pie</p><p>is fixed: one agent’s liberty over rival good G would seem to</p><p>preclude another’s liberty over it. But this is to confuse nega-</p><p>tive liberties with exclusive rights. There is nothing incoherent</p><p>about a Hobbesian state of nature, in which everyone has the</p><p>negative liberty to take, or compete for possession of, every</p><p>rival good. That would be a social state of perfect negative lib-</p><p>erty: it is a state of anarchist communism, in which the world</p><p>is an unregulated commons. Such a condition would also be</p><p>catastrophic. Production would collapse if anyone were free</p><p>to take whatever anyone else had worked to produce. Even</p><p>the natural resources of the earth would rapidly be depleted</p><p>in an unregulated commons. Without property rights— rights</p><p>to exclude others— people would therefore be very poor and</p><p>insecure. Opportunities— positive liberties— are vastly greater</p><p>with the establishment of a system of property rights.</p><p>private government 47</p><p>This is a standard argument for a regime of private prop-</p><p>erty rights. It is impeccable. Yet its logical entailments are often</p><p>overlooked. Every establishment of a private property right en-</p><p>tails a correlative duty, coercively enforceable by individuals</p><p>or the state, that others refrain from meddling with another’s</p><p>property without the owner’s permission. Private property</p><p>rights thus entail massive net losses in negative liberty, relative</p><p>to the state of maximum negative liberty. If Lalitha has private</p><p>property in a parcel of land, her liberty over that parcel is se-</p><p>cured by an exclusive right at the cost of the identical negative</p><p>liberty of seven billion others over that parcel. If we are good</p><p>libertarians and insist that the justification of any constraint on</p><p>liberty must appeal to some other more important liberty, then</p><p>the libertarian case for private property depends on accepting</p><p>that positive liberty very often rightly overrides negative lib-</p><p>erty. It follows that even massive state constraints on negative</p><p>liberty (in the form of enforcements of private property rights)</p><p>can increase total liberty (in an accounting that weights positive</p><p>liberty more highly than negative, as any accounting that can</p><p>justify private property in terms of freedom must).</p><p>State- enforced constraints on negative liberty can also in-</p><p>crease total liberty through their enhancement of republican</p><p>freedom. This is a venerable argument from the republican</p><p>tradition: without robust protection of private property rights</p><p>(which, as we have seen, entail massive net losses of negative</p><p>liberty), a republican form of government is insecure, because</p><p>the state is liable to degenerate into despotism, exercising arbi-</p><p>trary power over its subjects. This argument has been carried</p><p>over in modern libertarian writing.11</p><p>This form of argument is equally applicable to substate pri-</p><p>vate governments. If one finds oneself subject to private gov-</p><p>ernment— a state of republican unfreedom— one can enhance</p><p>48 chapter 2</p><p>one’s freedom by placing negative liberty constraints on the</p><p>power of one’s private governors to order one around or im-</p><p>pose sanctions on one’s refusal</p><p>to comply. This may involve</p><p>state regulation of private governments. For example, a state’s</p><p>imposition of a requirement on employers that they refrain</p><p>from discriminating against employees on the basis of their</p><p>sexual orientation or identity enhances the republican and</p><p>negative freedom of workers to express their sexual identities</p><p>and choose their sexual and life partners. It also enhances their</p><p>positive liberties, by enabling more people to move out of the</p><p>closet, and thereby increasing opportunities for LGBT peo-</p><p>ple to engage with others of like sexual orientation. The state’s</p><p>imposition of negative liberty constraints on some people can</p><p>thereby enhance all three liberties of many more.</p><p>Private government is, thus, a perfectly coherent concept.</p><p>To grasp it, we need to reject the false narrowing of the scope</p><p>of government to the state, recognize that one’s liberty can be</p><p>constrained by private governors in domains of activity kept</p><p>private from the state, and that increased state constraints on</p><p>people’s negative liberties can generate massive net gains in</p><p>individual positive and republican freedoms. It can even gen-</p><p>erate net gains in their negative liberties, to the extent that the</p><p>people being constrained by the state are private governors</p><p>over others.</p><p>Workplace Government and the Theory of</p><p>the Firm as Ideological Blinder</p><p>Employees are pervasively subject to private government, as I</p><p>have defined it. Why is this so? As far as the legal authority of the</p><p>employer to govern employees was concerned, the Industrial</p><p>Revolution did not mark a significant break. Legally speaking,</p><p>private government 49</p><p>employers have always been authoritarian rulers, as an exten-</p><p>sion of their patriarchal rights to govern their households.</p><p>The Industrial Revolution moved the primary site of paid</p><p>work from the household to the factory. In principle, this could</p><p>have been a liberating moment, insofar as it opened the possi-</p><p>bility of separating the governance of the workplace from the</p><p>governance of the home. Yet industrial employers retained their</p><p>legal entitlement to govern their employees’ domestic lives.</p><p>In the early twentieth century, the Ford Motor Company es-</p><p>tablished a Sociological Department, dedicated to inspecting</p><p>employees’ homes unannounced, to ensure that they were</p><p>leading orderly lives. Workers were eligible for Ford’s famous</p><p>$5 daily wage only if they kept their homes clean, ate diets</p><p>deemed healthy, abstained from drinking, used the bathtub</p><p>appropriately, did not take in boarders, avoided spending too</p><p>much on foreign relatives, and were assimilated to American</p><p>cultural norms.12</p><p>Workers today might breathe a sigh of relief, except that</p><p>most are still subject to employer governance of their private</p><p>lives. In some cases, this is explicit, as in employer- provided</p><p>health insurance plans. Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA),</p><p>employers may impose a 30 percent premium penalty on cov-</p><p>ered workers if they do not comply with employer- imposed</p><p>wellness programs, which may prescribe exercise programs,</p><p>diets, and abstinence from alcohol and other substances. In</p><p>accordance with this provision, Penn State University recently</p><p>threatened to impose a $100 per month surcharge on workers</p><p>who did not answer a health survey that included questions</p><p>about their marital situation, sexual conduct, pregnancy plans,</p><p>and personal finances.13 In other cases, employer authority</p><p>over workers’ off- duty lives is implicit, a by- product of the</p><p>employment- at- will rule: since employers may fire workers for</p><p>50 chapter 2</p><p>any or no reason, they may fire them for their sexual activities,</p><p>partner choice, or any other choice workers think of as private</p><p>from their employer, unless the state has enacted a law specif-</p><p>ically forbidding employer discrimination on these grounds.</p><p>Workplace authoritarianism is still with us.</p><p>The pro- market egalitarian aspiration toward nearly uni-</p><p>versal self- employment aimed to liberate workers from such</p><p>governance by opening opportunities for nearly everyone to</p><p>become their own boss. Why did it fail? Why are workers sub-</p><p>ject to dictatorship? Within economics, the theory of the firm</p><p>is supposed to answer this question. It purports to offer polit-</p><p>ically neutral, technical, economic reasons why most produc-</p><p>tion is undertaken by hierarchical organizations, with workers</p><p>subordinate to bosses, rather than by autonomous individual</p><p>workers. The theory of the firm contains important insights</p><p>into the organization of production in advanced economies.</p><p>However, it fails to explain the sweeping scope of authority that</p><p>employers have over workers. What is worse, its practitioners</p><p>sometimes even deny that workers lie under the authority of</p><p>their bosses, in terms that reflect and reinforce an illusion of</p><p>workers’ freedom that also characterizes much of public dis-</p><p>course. Both the theory of the firm, and public discourse, are</p><p>missing an important reality: that workers are subject to their</p><p>employers’ private government.</p><p>The pro- market egalitarian dream failed in part due to econ-</p><p>omies of scale. The technological changes that drove the In-</p><p>dustrial Revolution involved huge concentrations of capital. A</p><p>steam- powered cotton mill, steel foundry, cement or chemical</p><p>factory, or railway must be worked by many hands. The case</p><p>is no different for modern workplaces such as airports, hos-</p><p>pitals, pharmaceutical labs, and computer assembly factories,</p><p>as well as lower- tech workplaces such as amusement parks,</p><p>private government 51</p><p>slaughterhouses, conference hotels, and big- box retail stores.</p><p>The greater efficiency of production using large, indivisible</p><p>capital inputs explains why few individual workers can afford</p><p>to supply their own capital. It explains why, contrary to the</p><p>pro- market egalitarian hope, the enterprises responsible for</p><p>most production are not sole proprietorships.</p><p>But economies of scale do not explain why production is</p><p>not managed by independent contractors acting without ex-</p><p>ternal supervision, who rent their capital. One could imagine a</p><p>manufacturing enterprise renting its floor space and machinery</p><p>and supplying materials to a set of self- employed independent</p><p>contractors. Each contractor would produce a part or stage</p><p>of the product for sale to contractors at the next stage of pro-</p><p>duction. The final contractor would sell the finished product</p><p>to wholesalers, or perhaps back to the capital supplier. Some</p><p>New England factories operated on a system like this from the</p><p>Civil War to World War I. They were superseded by hierarchi-</p><p>cally organized firms. According to the theory of the firm, this</p><p>is due to the excessive costs of contracting between suppliers</p><p>of factors of production.14 In the failed New England system,</p><p>independent contractors faced each other in a series of bilateral</p><p>monopolies, which led to opportunistic negotiations. The de-</p><p>mand to periodically renegotiate rates led contractors to hoard</p><p>information and delay innovation for strategic reasons. Inde-</p><p>pendent contractors wore out the machinery too quickly, failed</p><p>to tightly coordinate their production with workers at other</p><p>stages of production (leading to excess inventory of interme-</p><p>diate products), and lacked incentives to innovate, both with</p><p>respect to saving materials and with respect to new products.15</p><p>The modern firm solves these problems by replacingcon-</p><p>tractual relations among workers, and between workers and</p><p>owners of other factors of production, with centralized</p><p>52 chapter 2</p><p>authority. A manager, or hierarchy of managers, issues orders to</p><p>workers in pursuit of centralized objectives. This enables close</p><p>coordination of different workers and internalizes the benefits</p><p>of all types of innovation within the firm as a whole. Managers</p><p>can monitor workers to ensure that they work hard, cooperate</p><p>with fellow workers, and do not waste capital. Because they</p><p>exercise open- ended authority over workers, they can redeploy</p><p>workers’ efforts</p><p>as needed to implement innovations, replace</p><p>absentees, and deal with unforeseen difficulties. Authority re-</p><p>lations eliminate the costs associated with constant negotiation</p><p>and contracting among the participants in the firm’s produc-</p><p>tion. To put the point another way, the key to the superior effi-</p><p>ciency of hierarchy is the open- ended authority of managers. It</p><p>is impossible to specify in advance all of the contingencies that</p><p>may require an alteration in an initial understanding of what a</p><p>worker must do. Efficient employment contracts arethere fore</p><p>necessarily incomplete: they do not specify precisely every-</p><p>thing a worker might be asked to do.</p><p>While this theory explains why firms exist and why they are</p><p>constituted by hierarchies of authority, it does not explain the</p><p>sweeping scope of employers’ authority over workers in the</p><p>United States. It does not explain, for example, why employers</p><p>continue to have authority over workers’ off- duty lives, given</p><p>that their choice of sexual partner, political candidate, or Face-</p><p>book posting has nothing to do with productive efficiency. Even</p><p>worse, theorists of the firm appear not to even recognize how</p><p>authoritarian firm governance is. Major theorists soft- pedal or</p><p>even deny the very authority they are supposed to be trying</p><p>to explain.</p><p>Consider Ronald Coase, the originator of the theory of the</p><p>firm. He acknowledges that firms are “islands of conscious</p><p>power.”16 The employment contract is one in which the worker</p><p>private government 53</p><p>“agrees to obey the directions of an entrepreneur.” But, he in-</p><p>sists, “the essence of the contract is that it should only state the</p><p>limits to the powers of the entrepreneur.”17 This suggests that</p><p>the limits of the employer’s powers are an object of negotiation</p><p>or at least communication between the parties. In the vast ma-</p><p>jority of cases, outside the contexts of collective bargaining or</p><p>for higher- level employees, this is not true. Most workers are</p><p>hired without any negotiation over the content of the employ-</p><p>er’s authority, and without a written or oral contract specifying</p><p>any limits to it. If they receive an employee handbook indicat-</p><p>ing such limits, the inclusion of a simple disclaimer (which is</p><p>standard practice) is sufficient to nullify any implied contract</p><p>exception to at- will employment in most states.18 No wonder</p><p>they are shocked and outraged when their boss fires them for</p><p>being too attractive,19 for failing to show up at a political rally in</p><p>support of the boss’s favored political candidate,20 even because</p><p>their daughter was raped by a friend of the boss.21</p><p>What, then, determines the scope and limits of the employ-</p><p>er’s authority, if it is not a meeting of minds of the parties?</p><p>The state does so, through a complex system of laws— not only</p><p>labor law, but laws regulating corporate governance, workplace</p><p>safety, fringe benefits, discrimination, and other matters. In the</p><p>United States, the default employment contract is employment</p><p>at will. There are a few exceptions in federal law to this doc-</p><p>trine, notably concerning discrimination, family and medical</p><p>leave, and labor union activity. For the most part, however, at-</p><p>will employment, which entitles employers to fire workers for</p><p>any or no reason, grants the employer sweeping legal authority</p><p>not only over workers’ lives at work but also over their off- duty</p><p>conduct. Under the employment- at- will baseline, workers, in</p><p>effect, cede all of their rights to their employers, except those</p><p>specifically guaranteed to them by law, for the duration of the</p><p>54 chapter 2</p><p>employment relationship. Employers’ authority over workers,</p><p>outside of collective bargaining and a few other contexts, such</p><p>as university professors’ tenure, is sweeping, arbitrary, and</p><p>unaccountable— not subject to notice, process, or appeal. The</p><p>state has established the constitution of the government of the</p><p>workplace: it is a form of private government.</p><p>Resistance to recognizing this reality appears to be wide-</p><p>spread among theorists of the firm. Here, for example, is what</p><p>Armen Alchian and Harold Demsetz say in their classic paper</p><p>on the subject:</p><p>It is common to see the firm characterized by the power</p><p>to settle issues by fiat, by authority, or by disciplinary ac-</p><p>tion.. . . This is delusion. The firm. . . has no power of</p><p>fiat, no authority, no disciplinary action any different in the</p><p>slightest degree from ordinary market contracting between</p><p>any two people. I can “punish” you only by withdrawing</p><p>future business or by seeking redress in the courts for any</p><p>failure to honor our exchange agreement. That is exactly all</p><p>that any employer can do. He can fire or sue, just as I can</p><p>fire my grocer by stopping purchases from him or sue him</p><p>for delivering faulty products. What then is the content of</p><p>the presumed power to manage and assign workers to var-</p><p>ious tasks? Exactly the same as one little consumer’s power</p><p>to manage and assign his grocer to various tasks.... To</p><p>speak of managing, directing, or assigning workers to vari-</p><p>ous tasks is a deceptive way of noting that the employer con-</p><p>tinually is involved in renegotiation of contracts on terms</p><p>that must be acceptable to both parties. Telling an employee</p><p>to type this letter rather than to file that document is like</p><p>telling a grocer to sell me this brand of tuna rather than that</p><p>brand of bread. I have no contract to continue to purchase</p><p>private government 55</p><p>from the grocer and neither the employer nor the employee</p><p>is bound by any contractual obligations to continue their</p><p>relationship.22</p><p>Alchian and Demsetz appear to be claiming that wherever in-</p><p>dividuals are free to exit a relationship, authority cannot exist</p><p>within it. This is like saying that Mussolini was not a dicta-</p><p>tor, because Italians could emigrate. While emigration rights</p><p>may give governors an interest in voluntarily restraining their</p><p>power, such rights hardly dissolve it.23</p><p>Alternatively, their claim might be that where the only sanc-</p><p>tions for disobedience are exile, or a civil suit, authority does</p><p>not exist. That would come as a surprise to those subject to</p><p>the innumerable state regulations that are backed only by civil</p><p>sanctions. Nor would a state regulation lack authority if the only</p><p>sanction for violating it were to force one out of one’s job. Fi-</p><p>nally, managers have numerous other sanctions at their disposal</p><p>besides firing and suing: they can and often do demote employ-</p><p>ees; cut their pay; assign them inconvenient hours or too many</p><p>or too few hours; assign them more dangerous, dirty, menial,</p><p>or grueling tasks; increase their pace of work; set them up to</p><p>fail; and, within very broad limits, humiliate and harass them.</p><p>Perhaps the thought is that where consent mediates the</p><p>relationship between the parties, the relationship cannot be</p><p>one of subordination to authority. That would be a surprise to</p><p>the entire social contract tradition, which is precisely about</p><p>how the people can consent to government. Or is the idea that</p><p>authority exists only where subordinates obey orders blindly</p><p>and automatically? But then it exists hardly anywhere. Even the</p><p>most repressive regimes mostly rely on means besides sheer</p><p>terror and brainwashing to elicit compliance with their orders,</p><p>focusing more on persuasion and rewards.</p><p>56 chapter 2</p><p>Alchian and Demsetz may be hoodwinked by the superficial</p><p>symmetry of the employment contract: under employment-</p><p>at- will, workers, too, may quit for any or no reason. This leads</p><p>them to represent quitting as equivalent to firing one’s boss. But</p><p>workers have no power to remove the boss from his position</p><p>within the firm. And quitting often imposes even greater costs</p><p>on workers than being fired does, for it makes them ineligible</p><p>for unemployment insurance. It is an odd kind of countervail-</p><p>ing power that workers supposedly have to check their bosses’</p><p>power, when they typically suffer more from imposing it than</p><p>they would suffer from the worst sanction bosses can impose</p><p>on them. Threats, to be effective, need to be credible.</p><p>The irony is that Alchian and Demsetz are offering a theory</p><p>of the firm. The question the theory is supposed to answer is</p><p>why production is not handled entirely by market transactions</p><p>among independent, self- employed people, but rather by au-</p><p>thority relations. That is, it is supposed to explain why the hope</p><p>of pro- market pre– Industrial Revolution egalitarians did not</p><p>pan out. Alchian and Demsetz cannot bear the full authori-</p><p>tarian implications of recognizing the boundary between the</p><p>market and the firm, even in a paper devoted to explaining</p><p>it. So they attempt to extend the metaphor of the market to</p><p>the internal relations of the firm and pretend that every inter-</p><p>action at work is mediated by negotiation between managers</p><p>and workers. Yet the whole point of the firm, according to the</p><p>theory, is to eliminate the costs of markets— of setting internal</p><p>prices via negotiation over every transaction among workers</p><p>and between workers and managers.</p><p>Alchian and Demsetz are hardly alone. Michael Jensen and</p><p>William Meckling agree with them that authority has nothing</p><p>to do with the firm; it is merely a nexus of contracts among in-</p><p>dependent individuals.24 John Tomasi, writing today, continues</p><p>private government 57</p><p>to promote the image of employees as akin to independent</p><p>contractors, freely negotiating the terms of their contract with</p><p>their employers, to obtain work conditions tailor- made to their</p><p>idiosyncratic specifications.25 While workers at the top of the</p><p>corporate hierarchy enjoy such freedom, as well as a handful of</p><p>elite athletes, entertainers, and star academics, Tomasi ignores</p><p>the fact that the vast majority of workers not represented by</p><p>unions do not negotiate terms of the employer’s authority at</p><p>all. Why would employers bother, when, by state fiat, workers</p><p>automatically cede all liberties not reserved to them by the</p><p>state, upon accepting an offer of work?</p><p>Not just theorists of the firm, but public discourse too, tend</p><p>to represent employees as if they were independent contrac-</p><p>tors.26 This makes it seem as if the workplace is a continua-</p><p>tion of arm’s- length market transactions, as if the labor con-</p><p>tract were no different from a purchase from Smith’s butcher,</p><p>baker, or brewer. Alchian and Demsetz are explicit about this,</p><p>in drawing the analogy of the employment relation with the</p><p>customer– grocer relation. But the butcher, baker, and brewer</p><p>remain independent from their customers after selling their</p><p>goods. In the employment contract, by contrast, the workers</p><p>cannot separate themselves from the labor they have sold; in</p><p>purchasing command over labor, employers purchase com-</p><p>mand over people.</p><p>What accounts for this error? The answer is, in part, that a</p><p>representation of what egalitarians hoped market society would</p><p>deliver for workers before the Industrial Revolution has been</p><p>blindly carried over to the post– Industrial Revolution world.</p><p>People continue to deploy the same justification of market</p><p>society— that it would secure the personal independence of</p><p>workers from arbitrary authority— long after it failed to de-</p><p>liver on its original aspiration. The result is a kind of political</p><p>58 chapter 2</p><p>hemiagnosia: like those patients who cannot perceive one- half</p><p>of their bodies, a large class of libertarian- leaning thinkers and</p><p>politicians, with considerable public following, cannot per-</p><p>ceive half of the economy: they cannot perceive the half that</p><p>takes place beyond the market, after the employment contract</p><p>is accepted.</p><p>This tendency was reinforced by a narrowing of egalitarian</p><p>vision in the transition to the Industrial Revolution. While the</p><p>Levellers and other radicals of the mid- seventeenth century ag-</p><p>itated against all kinds of arbitrary government, Thomas Paine</p><p>mainly narrowed his critique to state abuses. Similarly, the Re-</p><p>publican Party kept speaking mainly on behalf of the interests</p><p>of businesspeople and those who hoped to be in business for</p><p>themselves, even after it was clear that the overwhelming ma-</p><p>jority of workers had no realistic prospect of attaining this sta-</p><p>tus, and that the most influential businesspeople were not, as</p><p>Lincoln hoped, sole proprietors (with at most a few employees,</p><p>the majority of whom were destined to rise to self- employed</p><p>status after a few years), but managers in large organizations,</p><p>governing workers destined to be wage laborers for their en-</p><p>tire working lives. Thus, a political agenda that once promised</p><p>equalizing as well as liberating outcomes turned into one that</p><p>reinforced private, arbitrary, unaccountable government over</p><p>the vast majority.</p><p>Finally, nineteenth- century laissez- faire liberals, with their</p><p>bizarre combination of hostility toward state power and en-</p><p>thusiasm for hyperdisciplinary total institutions, attempted to</p><p>reconcile these contradictory tendencies by limiting their focus</p><p>to the entry and exit conditions of the labor contract, while</p><p>blackboxing what actually went on in the factories. In fact, they</p><p>did drive a dramatic improvement in workers’ freedom of entry</p><p>and exit.27 Under the traditional common law of master and</p><p>private government 59</p><p>servant, employees were bound to their employers by contracts</p><p>of one year (apprentices and indentured servants for longer),</p><p>could quit before then only on pain of losing all their accrued</p><p>wages, and were not entitled to keep wages from moonlighting.</p><p>Other employers were forbidden to bid for their labor while</p><p>they were still under contract.28 Workers were liberated from</p><p>these constraints over the course of the nineteenth century.29</p><p>This liberation, as is well- known, was a double- edged</p><p>sword. Employers, too, were liberated from any obligation to</p><p>employ workers. As already noted, the worst the workers could</p><p>do to the boss often involved suffering at least as much as the</p><p>worst the boss could do to them. For the bulk of workers, who</p><p>lived at the bottom of the hierarchy, this was not much of a</p><p>threat advantage, unless it was exercised collectively in a strike.</p><p>They had no realistic hope under these conditions for liberation</p><p>from workplace authoritarianism.</p><p>No wonder a central struggle of British workers in the mid-</p><p>nineteenth century was for limits on the length of the working</p><p>day— even more than for higher wages. This was true, even</p><p>though workers at this period of the Industrial Revolution were</p><p>suffering through “Engels’s pause”— the first fifty to sixty years</p><p>of the Industrial Revolution during which wages failed to grow.30</p><p>My focus, like theirs, is not on issues of wages or distributive</p><p>justice. It is on workers’ freedom. If the Industrial Revolution</p><p>meant they could not be their own bosses at work, at least they</p><p>could try to limit the length of the working day so that they</p><p>would have some hours during which they could choose for</p><p>themselves, rather than follow someone else’s orders.31</p><p>That was an immediate aim of European workers’ movements</p><p>in the mid- nineteenth century. As the century unfolded, work-</p><p>ers largely abandoned their pro- market, individualistic egalitar-</p><p>ian dream and turned to socialist, collectivist alternatives— that</p><p>60 chapter 2</p><p>is, to restructuring the internal governance of the workplace.</p><p>The problem was that the options open to workers consisted</p><p>almost exclusively of private governments. Laissez- faire liberals,</p><p>touting the freedom of the free market, told workers: choose</p><p>your Leviathan. That is like telling the citizens of the Communist</p><p>bloc of Eastern Europe that their freedom could be secured by a</p><p>right to emigrate to any country— as long as they stayed behind</p><p>the Iron Curtain. Population movements would likely have put</p><p>some pressure on Communist rulers to soften their rule. But</p><p>why should Leviathan set the baseline against which competi-</p><p>tion took place? No liberal or libertarian would be satisfied with</p><p>a competitive equilibrium set against this baseline, where the</p><p>choice of state governments is</p><p>concerned. Workers’ movements</p><p>rejected it for nonstate governments as well.</p><p>To their objection, libertarians and laissez- faire liberals had</p><p>no credible answer. Let us not fool ourselves into supposing</p><p>that the competitive equilibrium of labor relations was ever es-</p><p>tablished by politically neutral market forces mediated by pure</p><p>freedom of contract, with nothing but the free play of individu-</p><p>als’ idiosyncratic preferences determining the outcome. This is</p><p>a delusion as great as the one that imagines that the workplace is</p><p>not authoritarian. Every competitive equilibrium is established</p><p>against a background assignment of property rights and other</p><p>rights established by the state. The state supplies the indispens-</p><p>able legal infrastructure of developed economies as a kind of</p><p>public good, and is needed to do so to facilitate cooperation on</p><p>the vast scales that characterize today’s rich and sophisticated</p><p>economies.32 Thus, it is the state that establishes the default</p><p>constitution of workplace governance. It is a form of authoritar-</p><p>ian, private government, in which, under employment- at- will,</p><p>workers cede all their rights to their employers, except those</p><p>specifically reserved for them by law.</p><p>private government 61</p><p>Freedom of entry and exit from any employment relation</p><p>is not sufficient to justify the outcome. To see this, consider an</p><p>analogous case for the law of coverture, which the state had</p><p>long established as the default marriage contract.33 Under cov-</p><p>erture, a woman, upon marrying her husband, lost all rights</p><p>to own property and make contracts in her own name. Her</p><p>husband had the right to confine her movements, confiscate</p><p>any wages she might earn, beat her, and rape her. Divorce was</p><p>very difficult to obtain. The marriage contract was valid only</p><p>if voluntarily accepted by both parties. It was a contract into</p><p>subjection, entailing the wife’s submission to the private gov-</p><p>ernment of her husband. Imagine a modification of this patri-</p><p>archal governance regime, allowing either spouse to divorce</p><p>at will and allowing any clause of the default contract to be</p><p>altered by a prenuptial agreement. This is like the modification</p><p>that laissez- faire liberals added to the private government of</p><p>the workplace. Women would certainly have sufficient reason</p><p>to object that their liberties would still not be respected under</p><p>this modification, in that it preserves a patriarchal baseline,</p><p>in which men still hold virtually all the cards. It would allow</p><p>a lucky few to escape subjection to their husbands, but that is</p><p>not enough to justify the patriarchal authority the vast majority</p><p>of men would retain over their wives.34 Consent to an option</p><p>within a set cannot justify the option set itself.</p><p>Back to the Future</p><p>My historical investigation explains why a certain libertarian</p><p>way of thinking about market society and its promise made</p><p>considerable sense in its original context prior to the Indus-</p><p>trial Revolution, and why it was reasonable for egalitarians to</p><p>support it at that time. But the Industrial Revolution destroyed</p><p>62 chapter 2</p><p>the context in which that vision made sense. The new context</p><p>perverted what was once a liberating, egalitarian vision into</p><p>support for pervasive workplace authoritarianism— arbitrary,</p><p>hierarchical, private government. The evolving rhetoric of</p><p>laissez- faire liberalism that arose in the nineteenth century</p><p>papered over the real issues and represented, in Orwellian</p><p>fashion, subjection as freedom.</p><p>Workers’ movements from the mid- nineteenth century</p><p>through World War II were not fooled by this.35 That is not to</p><p>say that they all had sound ideas for how to solve the problem.</p><p>I have no space to recount the follies of democratic state so-</p><p>cialism.36 Nor do I have space to recount the catastrophes of</p><p>state communism, which were dominated by the same totali-</p><p>tarian vision of the original designers of total institutions— only</p><p>dramatically scaled up, more violent, and unmixed with any</p><p>skepticism about state power. Like the original designers, state</p><p>communists looked to ideals of neither liberty nor equality, but</p><p>rather to utilitarian progress and the perfectibility of human</p><p>beings under the force of private government.</p><p>My point is rather that, with the drastic decline of orga-</p><p>nized labor, and especially with the triumph of ostensibly free</p><p>markets since the end of the Cold War, public and academic</p><p>discourse has largely lost sight of the problem that organized</p><p>workers in the nineteenth century saw clearly: the pervasive-</p><p>ness of private government at work. Here most of us are, toiling</p><p>under the authority of communist dictators, and we do not see</p><p>the reality for what it is.</p><p>No doubt many of us, especially most of those who are read-</p><p>ing these lectures, do not find the situation so bad. My readers,</p><p>most likely, are tenured or tenure- track professors, who, almost</p><p>uniquely among unorganized workers in the United States,</p><p>enjoy due process rights and a level of autonomy at work that</p><p>private government 63</p><p>is unmatched almost anywhere else among employees.37 Or, if</p><p>they are college students or graduates, they are or likely will be</p><p>the dictators or higher- ranked officials of private governments.</p><p>Or they will escape the system and belong to the thin ranks of</p><p>the self- employed who have no employees of their own. The</p><p>people I am worried about are the 25 percent of employees</p><p>who understand that they are subject to dictatorship at work,38</p><p>and the other 55 percent or so who are neither securely self-</p><p>employed nor upper- level managers, nor the tiny elite tier of</p><p>nonmanagerial stars (athletes, entertainers, superstar academ-</p><p>ics) who have the power to dictate employment contracts to</p><p>their specification, nor even the ever- shrinking class of workers</p><p>under ever- retrenching collective bargaining agreements. That</p><p>55 percent is only one arbitrary and oppressive managerial de-</p><p>cision away from realizing what the 25 percent already know.</p><p>But this 80 percent receives almost no recognition in contem-</p><p>porary public and academic discourse.</p><p>I do not claim that private governments at work are as pow-</p><p>erful as states. Their sanctioning powers are lower, and the</p><p>costs of emigration from oppressive private governments are</p><p>generally lower than the costs of emigration from states. Yet</p><p>private governments impose a far more minute, exacting, and</p><p>sweeping regulation of employees than democratic states do in</p><p>any domain outside of prisons and the military. Private govern-</p><p>ments impose controls on workers that are unconstitutional for</p><p>democratic states to impose on citizens who are not convicts</p><p>or in the military.</p><p>The negative liberties most workers enjoy de facto are con-</p><p>siderably greater than the ones they are legally entitled to under</p><p>their employers. Market pressures, social norms, lack of inter-</p><p>est, and simple decency keep most employers from exercising</p><p>the full scope of their authority. We should care nevertheless</p><p>64 chapter 2</p><p>about the insecurity of employees’ liberty. They work in a state</p><p>of republican unfreedom, their liberties vulnerable to cancella-</p><p>tion without justification, notice, process, or appeal. That they</p><p>enjoy substantially greater negative liberty than they are legally</p><p>entitled to no more justifies their lack of republican liberty than</p><p>the fact that most wives enjoyed greater freedoms than they</p><p>were legally entitled to justified coverture— or even coverture</p><p>modified by free divorce.</p><p>Suppose people find themselves under private government.</p><p>This is a state of republican unfreedom, of subjection to the</p><p>arbitrary will of another. It is also usually a state of substantial</p><p>constraints on negative liberty. By what means could people at-</p><p>tain their freedom? One way would be to end subjection to gov-</p><p>ernment altogether. When the government is a state, this is the</p><p>anarchist answer. We have seen that when the government is an</p><p>employer, the answer of many egalitarians before the Industrial</p><p>Revolution was to advance</p><p>governed by commu-</p><p>nist dictatorships in their work lives. Usually, those dictator-</p><p>ships have the legal authority to regulate workers’ off- hour</p><p>lives as well— their political activities, speech, choice of</p><p>sexual partner, use of recreational drugs, alcohol, smoking,</p><p>and exercise.... [M]ost employers exercise this off- hours</p><p>authority irregularly, arbitrarily, and without warning....</p><p>[O]nly about half of U.S. workers enjoy even partial pro-</p><p>tection of their off- duty speech from employer meddling.</p><p>Anderson argues that private government exists when people</p><p>are subject, in some part of their lives, to authorities that can</p><p>order them around and impose sanctions for noncompliance.</p><p>In the workplace, moreover, governing authorities have arbi-</p><p>trary and unaccountable power over workers. Libertarians and</p><p>free market economists and politicians wrongly equate “free-</p><p>dom” with private enterprise, ignoring the reality that for most</p><p>workers, employment in large firms brings with it subjection to</p><p>arbitrary power that extends beyond their work lives. Anderson</p><p>insists that most Americans and many others radically misun-</p><p>derstand the nature of liberty and its opposites: domination and</p><p>dictatorship. Just as the security of private property depends</p><p>upon a strong state, so too do many forms of freedom.</p><p>Current theories of the firm help explain why large- scale</p><p>enterprises exist and are constituted by hierarchies of authority.</p><p>As Anderson observes, “Efficient employment contracts are...</p><p>necessarily incomplete,” managers must have discretion to co-</p><p>ordinate workers’ activities. But these theories do not explain</p><p>the breadth of employers’ authority over workers’ lives. “Under</p><p>the employment- at- will baseline, workers, in effect, cede all</p><p>of their rights to their employers, except those specifically</p><p>introduction xi</p><p>guaranteed to them by law, for the duration of the employ-</p><p>ment relationship.” The result is that “Employers’ authority</p><p>over workers, outside of collective bargaining and a few other</p><p>contexts... is sweeping, arbitrary, and unaccountable— not</p><p>subject to notice, process, or appeal.” Workplace governance</p><p>“is a form of private government,” underwritten by law.</p><p>Of course, if workers object to the conditions of their em-</p><p>ployment, they can quit. But the costs of exit for many workers</p><p>are extremely high. To deny employers’ authority over workers</p><p>because of freedom of exit, says Anderson, “is like saying that</p><p>Mussolini wasn’t a dictator, because Italians could emigrate.”</p><p>Libertarian- leaning thinkers and politicians are, says Anderson,</p><p>blind to the real nature of employment because they implicitly</p><p>carry over assumptions that held only before the Industrial Rev-</p><p>olution, when self- employment and economic independence</p><p>were within reach of most workers.</p><p>As she concludes her indictment of today’s free market</p><p>thinking, Anderson allows that private governments in the</p><p>economy lack many of the directly coercive powers of actual</p><p>states, and they often refrain from exercising much of their</p><p>power over workers’ lives, especially the lives of higher income</p><p>and skilled workers. Nevertheless, the fact remains that “the</p><p>constitution of workplace government is both arbitrary and</p><p>dictatorial,” and that it “is not dictated by efficiency or freedom</p><p>of contract, but rather by the state.”</p><p>Anderson closes by suggesting a variety of ways to increase</p><p>worker protections against arbitrary treatment: these include</p><p>enhanced exit rights, a workers’ bill of rights, and greater “voice,”</p><p>including via improved legal support for unions and collective</p><p>bargaining. Most importantly, our public discourse should rec-</p><p>ognize the reality of workers’ subjection to arbitrary private</p><p>government in the workplace and explore ways of remedying it.</p><p>xii introduction</p><p>The first of our four commentators, Ann Hughes, a leading</p><p>historian of early modern England and the English Civil War,</p><p>and Professor of Early Modern History at Keele University in</p><p>the UK, applauds as “exemplary” Anderson’s “deployment of</p><p>historical material as a storehouse of imagination, and a legacy</p><p>to the present.” She notes recent invocations of the Levellers</p><p>by progressives in Britain and elsewhere, but she also advances</p><p>a “darker” and more complex view of seventeenth- century</p><p>England. She emphasizes, for one thing, that the effects of the</p><p>burgeoning market order were various, and far from uniformly</p><p>positive: inequality and social polarization increased, and sub-</p><p>stantial portions of the population depended sometimes or of-</p><p>tenon public assistance.</p><p>Hughes also emphasizes that the Levellers were far from</p><p>radically egalitarian by our standards, with many excluding</p><p>from suffrage beggars as well as servants and apprentices, and</p><p>women. She suggests that free market thinking was not foun-</p><p>dational to the Levellers, but rather “deduced from other el-</p><p>ements of social life,” and also that the “economic and social</p><p>implications of market relations were already— long before the</p><p>industrial revolution— less benevolent than Adam Smith and</p><p>Professor Anderson believe.”</p><p>Market relations themselves were complex, depending on</p><p>the social phenomena of trust and credit, and market principles</p><p>were tempered by “a sense of collective and communal activ-</p><p>ism,” as well as deference to some customary rights. Finally,</p><p>Hughes emphasizes that the Levellers continued to fall back</p><p>on “a conception of society as made up of male- headed house-</p><p>holds, with women as valued but subordinate participants,”</p><p>further complicating claims about early modern egalitarianism.</p><p>David Bromwich, Sterling Professor of English at Yale Uni-</p><p>versity and author of many works on politics, political theory,</p><p>introduction xiii</p><p>and history, asks how the optimism about economic liberty and</p><p>market society of the seventeenth century gave way to the pessi-</p><p>mism Professor Anderson describes. He agrees with Anderson</p><p>that “political theory should not stop at the door of the work-</p><p>place,” but he doubts that the idea of market freedom, as de-</p><p>veloped by Adam Smith and others, ever furnished a sufficient</p><p>basis for political freedom and democratic equality. Bromwich</p><p>argues that Smith understood that “self- interest” would operate</p><p>for “the long- term good of society... almost independent of</p><p>the will” of social and political actors. He suggests that “Thomas</p><p>Paine— a radical democrat through and through... may belong</p><p>in a different history”: he believed in markets but his vision “was</p><p>essentially political and only secondarily economic.”</p><p>Bromwich allows, with Smith, that the extension of markets</p><p>raises the level of material well- being of all, including of the</p><p>poorest. It may even transpire that, as Smith bragged, “an indus-</p><p>trious and frugal peasant” in commercial society could enjoy an</p><p>“accommodation” that greatly exceeds that of “an African king,</p><p>the absolute master of the lives and liberties of ten thousand</p><p>naked savages.” And yet, Bromwich observes, “the African king</p><p>has power, and with his power, a fearlessness of misery, which</p><p>is denied to the European peasant.” He worries that Anderson</p><p>underrates “the difference between political power and market</p><p>equality.”</p><p>Bromwich ends by raising concerns about the sort of world</p><p>in which everything— including labor itself— becomes a com-</p><p>modity. Quoting Oliver Goldsmith, he worries about the</p><p>human costs of market dislocations for traditional societies:</p><p>“trade uproots lives and turns ancient occupations obsolete.”</p><p>Quoting Karl Polanyi, 170 years later, Bromwich worries about</p><p>the ever more complete commodification of man and nature. He</p><p>ends by thanking Anderson for encouraging us to “think closely</p><p>xiv introduction</p><p>again about the early modern theories of equality and freedom</p><p>that rationalize but do not justify our own market society.”</p><p>Our third commentator, the philosopher Niko Kolodny,</p><p>expresses sympathy with Professor Anderson’s focus on so-</p><p>cial relations of inequality in the workplace—</p><p>a property regime that promotes self-</p><p>employment, perhaps even to make self- employment a nearly</p><p>universally accessible opportunity, at least for men. This amounts</p><p>to promoting anarchy as the primary form of workplace order.</p><p>The theory of the firm explains why this approach cannot</p><p>preserve the productive advantages of large- scale production.</p><p>Some kind of incompletely specified authority over groups of</p><p>workers is needed to replace market relations within the firm.</p><p>However, the theory of the firm, although it explains the ne-</p><p>cessity of hierarchy, neither explains nor justifies private gov-</p><p>ernment in the workplace. That the constitution of workplace</p><p>government is both arbitrary and dictatorial is not dictated</p><p>by efficiency or freedom of contract, but rather by the state.</p><p>Freedom of contract no more explains the equilibrium work-</p><p>place constitution than freedom to marry explained women’s</p><p>subjection to patriarchy under coverture.</p><p>private government 65</p><p>In other words, in the great contest between individualism</p><p>and collectivism regarding the mode of production, collectiv-</p><p>ism won, decisively. Now nearly all production is undertaken</p><p>by teams of workers using large, indivisible forms of capital</p><p>equipment held in common. The activities of these teams are</p><p>governed by managers according to a centralized production</p><p>plan. This was an outcome of the Industrial Revolution, and</p><p>equally much embraced by capitalists and socialists. That advo-</p><p>cates of capitalism continue to speak as if their preferred system</p><p>of production upholds “individualism” is simply a symptom</p><p>of institutional hemiagnosia, the misdeployment of a hopeful</p><p>preindustrial vision of what market society would deliver as if</p><p>it described our current reality, which replaces market relations</p><p>with governance relations across wide domains of production.</p><p>Workers in the nineteenth century turned from individu-</p><p>alistic to collectivist solutions to workplace governance be-</p><p>cause they saw that interpersonal authority— governments</p><p>over groups of workers— was inescapable in the new industrial</p><p>order. If government is inescapable or necessary for solving</p><p>certain important problems, the only way to make people free</p><p>under that government is to make that government a public</p><p>thing, accountable to the governed. The task is to replace pri-</p><p>vate government with public government.</p><p>When the government is a state, we have some fairly good</p><p>ideas of how to proceed: the entire history of democracy under</p><p>the rule of law is a series of experiments in how to make the</p><p>government of the state a public thing, and the people free</p><p>under the state. These experiments continue to this day.</p><p>But what if the government is an employer? Here matters</p><p>are more uncertain. There are four general strategies for ad-</p><p>vancing and protecting the liberties and interests of the gov-</p><p>erned under any type of government: (1) exit, (2) the rule of</p><p>66 chapter 2</p><p>law, (3) substantive constitutional rights, and (4) voice. Let us</p><p>consider each in turn.</p><p>Exit is usually touted as a prime libertarian strategy for</p><p>protecting individual rights. By forcing governments to com-</p><p>pete for subjects, exit rights put pressure on governments to</p><p>offer their subjects better deals. “The defense against oppres-</p><p>sive hours, pay, working conditions, or treatment is the right</p><p>to change employers.”39 Given this fact, it is surprising how</p><p>comfortable some libertarians are with the validity of contracts</p><p>into slavery, from which exit is disallowed.40 In their view,</p><p>freedom of contract trumps the freedom of individuals under</p><p>government, or even the freedom to leave that government.</p><p>While contracts into slavery and peonage are no longer valid,</p><p>other contractual barriers to exit are common and growing.</p><p>Noncompete clauses, which bar employees from working for</p><p>other employers in the same industry for a period of years,</p><p>have spread from technical professions (where nearly half of</p><p>employees are subject to them) to jobs such as sandwich maker,</p><p>pesticide sprayer, summer camp counselor, and hairstylist.41</p><p>While employers can no longer hold workers in bondage, they</p><p>can imprison workers’ human capital. California is one of the</p><p>few states that prohibit noncompete clauses. As the dynamism</p><p>of its economy proves, such contractual barriers to exit are not</p><p>needed for economic growth, and probably undermine it.42</p><p>There should be a strong legal presumption against such barri-</p><p>ers to exit, to protect workers’ freedom to exit their employers’</p><p>government.</p><p>The rule of law is a complex ideal encompassing several</p><p>protections of subjects’ liberties: (a) Authority may be ex-</p><p>ercised only through laws duly passed and publicized in ad-</p><p>vance, rather than arbitrary orders issued without any process.</p><p>(b) Sub jects are at liberty to do anything not specifically pro-</p><p>private government 67</p><p>hibited by law. (c) Laws are generally applicable to everyone</p><p>in similar circumstances. (d) Subjects have rights of due pro-</p><p>cess before suffering any sanctions for noncompliance. Not all</p><p>of these protections, which were devised with state authority</p><p>in mind, can be readily transferred to the employment con-</p><p>text. Most of the solutions to problems the state must address</p><p>involve regulations that leave open to individuals a vast array</p><p>of options for selecting both ends and means. By contrast, ef-</p><p>ficient production nearly always requires close coordination of</p><p>activities according to centralized objectives, directed by man-</p><p>agers exercising discretionary authority. This frequently entails</p><p>that the authority of managers over workers be both intensive</p><p>(limiting workers to highly particular movements and words,</p><p>not allowing them to pursue their own personal objectives at</p><p>work or even to select their own means to a prescribed end)</p><p>and incompletely specified. The state imposes traffic laws that</p><p>leave people free to choose their own destinations, routes, and</p><p>purposes. Walmart tells its drivers what they have to pick up,</p><p>when and where they have to deliver it, and what route they</p><p>have to take. In addition, managers need incompletely specified</p><p>authority to rapidly reassign different tasks to different workers</p><p>to address new circumstances. Finally, excessively costly proce-</p><p>dural protections against firing also discourage hiring. All these</p><p>obstacles to applying rule- of- law protections in the workplace</p><p>empower employers to abuse their authority, subject workers</p><p>to humiliating treatment, and impose excessive constraints on</p><p>their freedom.</p><p>At the same time, it is easy to exaggerate the obstacles to</p><p>imposing rule- of- law protections at work. Larger organizations</p><p>generally have employee handbooks and standard practice</p><p>guides that streamline authority along legalistic lines. Equal</p><p>protection and due process rights already exist for workers in</p><p>68 chapter 2</p><p>larger organizations with respect to limited issues. A worker</p><p>who has been sexually harassed by her boss normally has re-</p><p>course to intrafirm procedures for resolving her complaint.</p><p>Such protections reflect a worldwide “blurring of boundaries”</p><p>among business, nonprofit, and state organizations, which ap-</p><p>pears to be driven not simply by legal changes, but by cultural</p><p>imperatives of scientific management and ideas of individual</p><p>rights and organizational responsibilities.43 Some but not all of</p><p>these managerial developments are salutary. They are proper</p><p>subjects of investigation for political theory, once we get be-</p><p>yond the subject’s narrow focus on the state.</p><p>A just workplace constitution should incorporate basic con-</p><p>stitutional rights, akin to a bill of rights against employers. To</p><p>some extent, the Fair Labor Standards Act, anti- discrimination</p><p>laws, and other workplace regulations already serve this func-</p><p>tion. A workers’ bill of rights could be strengthened by the</p><p>addition of more robust protections of workers’ freedom to</p><p>engage in off- duty activities, such as exercising their political</p><p>rights, free speech,44 and sexual</p><p>choices. Similar protections for</p><p>employee privacy could be extended in the workplace during</p><p>work breaks. The Occupational Safety and Health Adminis-</p><p>tration (OSHA) prohibitions of particularly degrading, dan-</p><p>gerous, and onerous working conditions can be viewed as part</p><p>of a workers’ bill of rights. Nabisco once threatened its female</p><p>production line workers with three- day suspensions for using</p><p>the bathroom, and ordered them to urinate in their clothes</p><p>instead.45 It was only in 1998 that OSHA issued a regulation</p><p>requiring employers to recognize workers’ right to use a bath-</p><p>room, after cases such as Nabisco’s aroused public outrage.</p><p>Workers in Europe are protected from harassment of all kinds</p><p>by anti- mobbing laws.46 This gives them far more robust work-</p><p>place constitutional rights than workers in the United States,</p><p>private government 69</p><p>who may be legally harassed as long as their harassers do not</p><p>discriminate by race, gender, or other protected identities in</p><p>choosing their victims.</p><p>There are limits, however, to how far a bill of rights can go in</p><p>protecting workers from abuse. Because they prescribe unifor-</p><p>mity across workplaces, they can at best offer a minimal floor.</p><p>In practice, they are also grossly underenforced for the least</p><p>advantaged workers.47 Furthermore, such laws do not provide</p><p>for worker participation in governance at the firm level. They</p><p>merely impose limits on employer dictatorship.</p><p>For these reasons, there is no adequate substitute for rec-</p><p>ognizing workers’ voice in their government. Voice can more</p><p>readily adapt workplace rules to local conditions than state</p><p>regulations can, while incorporating respect for workers’ free-</p><p>dom, interests, and dignity. Just because workplace governance</p><p>requires a hierarchy of offices does not mean that higher of-</p><p>ficeholders must be unaccountable to the governed, or that</p><p>the governed should not play any role in managerial decision-</p><p>making. In the United States, two models for workers’ voice</p><p>have received the most attention: workplace democracy and</p><p>labor unions. Workplace democracy, in the form of worker-</p><p>owned and - managed firms, has long stood as an ideal for many</p><p>egalitarians.48 While much could be done to devise laws more</p><p>accommodating of this structure, some of its costs may be diffi-</p><p>cult to surmount. In particular, the costs of negotiation among</p><p>workers with asymmetrical interests (for example, due to pos-</p><p>session of different skills) appear to be high.49</p><p>In the United States, collective bargaining has been the</p><p>primary way workers have secured voice within the govern-</p><p>ment of the workplace. However, even at its peak in 1954, only</p><p>28.3 percent of workers were represented by a labor union.50</p><p>Today, only 11.1 percent of all workers and 6.6 percent of private</p><p>70 chapter 2</p><p>sector workers are represented.51 Although laws could be re-</p><p>vised to make it easier for workers to organize into a union,</p><p>this does not address difficulties inherent to the U.S. labor</p><p>union model. The U.S. model organizes workers at the firm</p><p>level rather than the industry level. Firms vigorously resist</p><p>unionization to avoid a competitive disadvantage with non-</p><p>unionized firms.52 Labor unions also impose inefficiencies due</p><p>to their monopoly power.53 They also take an adversarial stance</p><p>toward management— one that makes not only managers but</p><p>also many workers uncomfortable. At the same time, they often</p><p>provide the only effective voice employees have in workplace</p><p>governance.</p><p>It is possible to design a workplace constitution in which</p><p>workers have a nonadversarial voice in workplace governance,</p><p>without raising concerns about monopolization. The over-</p><p>whelming majority of workers in the United States would like</p><p>to have such a voice: 85 percent would like firm governance to</p><p>be “run jointly” by management and workers.54 In the United</p><p>States, such a constitution is illegal under the National Labor</p><p>Relations Act, which prohibits company unions. Yet this struc-</p><p>ture is commonplace in Europe. Germany’s system of codeter-</p><p>mination, begun in the Weimar era and elaborately developed</p><p>since World War II, offers one highly successful model.55</p><p>It is not my intention in this lecture to defend any particular</p><p>model of worker participation in firm governance. My point is</p><p>rather to expose a deep failure in current ways of thinking about</p><p>how government fits into Americans’ lives. We do not live in</p><p>the market society imagined by Paine and Lincoln, which of-</p><p>fered an appealing vision of what a free society of equals would</p><p>look like, combining individualistic libertarian and egalitarian</p><p>ideals. Government is everywhere, not just in the form of the</p><p>state, but even more pervasively in the workplace. Yet public</p><p>private government 71</p><p>discourse and much of political theory pretends that this is not</p><p>so. It pretends that the constitution of workplace government is</p><p>somehow the object of voluntary negotiation between workers</p><p>and employers. This is true only for a tiny proportion of privi-</p><p>leged workers. The vast majority are subject to private, author-</p><p>itarian government, not through their own choice, but through</p><p>laws that have handed nearly all authority to their employers.</p><p>It is high time that public discourse acknowledged this re-</p><p>ality and the costs to workers’ freedom and dignity that private</p><p>government imposes on them. It is high time that political the-</p><p>orists turned their attention to the private governments of the</p><p>workplace. Since the Levellers, egalitarian social movements</p><p>have insisted that if government is necessary, it must be made</p><p>a public thing to all the governed— accountable to them, re-</p><p>sponsive to their interests, and open to their participation. They</p><p>were shrewd enough to recognize the pervasiveness of private</p><p>government in their lives. It is time to go back to the future in</p><p>recovering such recognition and experimenting with ways to</p><p>remedy it.</p><p>Comments</p><p>75</p><p>Chapter 3</p><p>Learning from</p><p>the Levellers?</p><p>Ann Hughes</p><p>As the most recent historian of the Levellers has declared, “the</p><p>Levellers can seem uncannily modern.”1 In late October 1647,</p><p>Colonel Thomas Rainborough, one of the Leveller sympathiz-</p><p>ers at the Putney debates, insisted in an argument about the</p><p>extent of the franchise in a reimagined and reconstructed En-</p><p>glish polity: “really I think that the poorest he that is in England</p><p>hath a life to live as the greatest he; and therefore truly, sir, I</p><p>think it’s clear that every man that is to live under a government</p><p>ought first by his own consent to put himself under that gov-</p><p>ernment; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not</p><p>at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he has not</p><p>had a voice to put himself under.”2 The Putney debates, held</p><p>in a London suburban church, involved the commanders and</p><p>soldiers of the English Parliament’s victorious army, and some</p><p>civilian associates, in discussions of the possible settlement</p><p>76 chapter 3</p><p>of the kingdom following the decisive defeat of Charles I in</p><p>a traumatic and bloody civil war; they demonstrate, among</p><p>other things, the capacity of relatively ordinary men for intel-</p><p>lectual vision and political resourcefulness. Professor Anderson</p><p>notes the “intellectual depth and seriousness” of these debates</p><p>(Lecture 1, note 9); their words still resonate for contemporary</p><p>egalitarians.</p><p>That this call for a broad manhood suffrage— the poorest “he”</p><p>(and we should pause a little over the “he”)— was couched in</p><p>economic terms is something to which I will return. Professor</p><p>Anderson offers an eloquent, perceptive, moving, and challeng-</p><p>ingaccount of the seventeenth- century English Levellers as egal-</p><p>itarian thinkers and as activists. They offer us resources for think-</p><p>ing about our continuing dilemmas of how to argue and work for</p><p>a fairer society. Her first lecture is an exemplary demonstration</p><p>of the deployment of historical material as a storehouse of the</p><p>imagination, and a legacy for the present. Professor Anderson</p><p>suggests that an apparently paradoxical Leveller commitment to</p><p>free exchange through the market could nonetheless suggest how</p><p>we might conceive of equality as more than a material issue, as a</p><p>matter of esteem, standing, and authority, in Anderson’s terms.</p><p>Furthermore, the Levellers, as a pioneering “egalitarian social</p><p>movement,” are the foundation for Anderson’s project of recov-</p><p>ering a normative egalitarianism for the contemporary world.</p><p>Leveller petitions, campaigns, and manifestos did indeed in-</p><p>clude attacks on the great monopoly trading companies. Their</p><p>“great” petition of September 1648 demanded of the English</p><p>Parliament, as its tenth clause, “that you would have freed all</p><p>trade and merchandising from all monopolizing and engrossing</p><p>by Companies and others.”3 Their pamphlets often endorsed a</p><p>variety of political and social campaigns, including support for</p><p>provincial merchants trying to break in to London- dominated</p><p>learning from the levellers? 77</p><p>trades.4 Like more recent free- marketeers, Levellers were anx-</p><p>ious to constrain the power of the “state,” even that new state</p><p>they sought to bring into being. As Rainborough was speaking</p><p>at Putney, army radicals issued the first version of the “Agree-</p><p>ment of the People,” a manifesto for the remaking of the English</p><p>polity that has come to define our understanding of the Leveller</p><p>movement. The current Parliament, which had failed to deliver</p><p>on its promises to the people, was to be replaced through a di-</p><p>rect process of participation and consent. The Agreement was</p><p>founded on trust in the capacity of ordinary (male) political ac-</p><p>tors, and a profound suspicion of concentration of power in all</p><p>its forms: it called for the dissolution of the present Parliament,</p><p>“to prevent the many inconveniences apparently arising from</p><p>the long continuance of the same persons in authority”; then</p><p>“the people” would “of course” choose a Parliament every two</p><p>years. Constituencies were to be established proportionately to</p><p>their population, which implied universal manhood suffrage.</p><p>This new Representative was charged with the passing and en-</p><p>forcing of law, the making of war and peace, and the appointing</p><p>of office holders. The framers of the Agreement thus proposed</p><p>wide authority for this body but hastened immediately to limit</p><p>its scope. Following elections, “the power of this and all fu-</p><p>ture Representatives of this nation is inferior only to theirs</p><p>who choose them”; except for “whatsoever is not expressly or</p><p>impliedly reserved by the represented to themselves.” Certain</p><p>powers could not be resigned by the people to their Represen-</p><p>tative, and these “whatsoevers” were extremely significant. The</p><p>first “reservation,” probably the most important, concerned</p><p>religious liberty: the Representative was to have no power over</p><p>“matters of religion... because therein we cannot remit or ex-</p><p>ceed a tittle of what our consciences dictate to be the mind of</p><p>God, without wilful sin.” In modern political analysis, control</p><p>78 chapter 3</p><p>over military affairs is usually central to conceptions of the</p><p>state, but even here the Levellers sought to curtail the Rep-</p><p>resentative’s powers: the second “reservation” declared that</p><p>conscription for military service was “against our freedom,”</p><p>although the Agreement acknowledged that “money (the sin-</p><p>ews of war) being always at their disposal,” the Representative</p><p>was unlikely to “want numbers of men apt enough to engage</p><p>in any just cause.”5 The Levellers’ profound suspicion of state</p><p>power is revealed in the May 1649 final version of the Agree-</p><p>ment of the People, which called for annual Parliaments, with</p><p>no permanent executive allowed; the state would in effect be</p><p>run by temporary committees of each Parliament.6</p><p>The Levellers’ resistance to tyranny, their commitment to</p><p>freedom, popular consent, and the individual conscience, and</p><p>their consistent opposition to the monopolization of power,</p><p>whether in the state, the law, the economy, or the church, offer,</p><p>as Professor Anderson’s first lecture demonstrated, an inspiring</p><p>and still relevant egalitarian vision for those on the left. These</p><p>Tanner lectures were presented shortly after “lovers of liberty</p><p>and justice in Britain” used Rainborough’s words at Putney to</p><p>inspire their opposition to a Global Law Summit denounced</p><p>as “a shameless festival of corporate networking.”7 As the lec-</p><p>tures were given, British activists, film- makers, songwriters,</p><p>and historians were celebrating the four- hundredth anniver-</p><p>sary of the birth of John Lilburne, the most celebrated Leveller</p><p>leader. Among these activists were Tariq Ali and Jeremy Cor-</p><p>byn, now the leader of the British Labour Party. John Lilburne</p><p>is said to be the historical figure Corbyn most admires, while</p><p>Tariq Ali, like Professor Anderson, has seen the agitation of</p><p>the 1640s as a resource for thinking about present dilemmas,</p><p>but he was prompted, not to a defense of market relations but</p><p>to call for a new “Grand Remonstrance” that would demand</p><p>learning from the levellers? 79</p><p>the “nationalization” of the railways and public utilities (what</p><p>British socialists used to call the commanding heights of the</p><p>economy), returning them to public/state ownership.8</p><p>Mid- seventeenth- century English history can provide pro-</p><p>foundly divergent legacies for our contemporary world. This</p><p>raises for me, writing as a historian, some difficult issues of</p><p>how we deploy historical material within other disciplines, and</p><p>within broader contemporary public discourse. Most historians</p><p>today want their scholarship to engage with public concerns and</p><p>even to have an impact on public policy, although they disagree</p><p>(often bitterly) about how best this can be done.9 On the other</p><p>hand, most historians are instinctive or congenital pedants,</p><p>habitually prone to nit- picking about their specialist areas and</p><p>periods. Even in these post- postmodern days, after the linguistic</p><p>turn, when we understand that all accounts of the past are con-</p><p>tested and provisional, we are still committed to constructing</p><p>the most “accurate” or at least plausible version possible, one</p><p>that most coheres with the surviving evidence. So I do want</p><p>to say that the Levellers and their seventeenth- century social</p><p>context were not quite as portrayed in Professor Anderson’s first</p><p>lecture. I do not want to hurl boring, isolated supposed “facts”</p><p>into our discussions, but I do want to encourage us to think</p><p>about what difference it makes to our arguments if the historical</p><p>picture is made a bit more complicated, or even contradictory.</p><p>Historical material offers raw material for inspiration, and for</p><p>thought experiments in which we seek alternative directions</p><p>or means of achieving change. How, though, does this differ</p><p>from the use of imaginative literature or abstract philosophical</p><p>concepts? How much does it matter that something— that we, as</p><p>historians, try to understand as well as we possibly can— really</p><p>happened, and involved real people? This is an unsophisticated</p><p>formulation, but I do want to insist on the limits of the real,</p><p>80 chapter 3</p><p>and on the benefits of acknowledging these limits. Historians’</p><p>skepticism in the face of the partial, intractable evidence that</p><p>survives from the past usually produces complex accounts of</p><p>historical processes; it may be that complexity, rather than</p><p>straightforward solutions, best serves our current dilemmas.</p><p>Within this framework, then, writing as a historian of mid-</p><p>seventeenth- century England, I want to address three aspects</p><p>of Professor Anderson’s first lecture, suggesting we need a more</p><p>nuanced or more complicated picture. I will focus especially</p><p>on the nature of early modern economic and social change in</p><p>England. How should we characterize it as a society in transi-</p><p>tion, and how might our characterization affect the potential</p><p>for the market to be “left”? Second, and more specifically, I</p><p>want to complicate the notion of the market itself, in its early</p><p>modern form, and nuance</p><p>Leveller attitudes to markets and to</p><p>private property. Finally, because Professor Anderson’s lecture</p><p>raises the question directly, I want to ask where women fit in</p><p>here, both within the Leveller movement, and when we con-</p><p>sider the relationship between “individuals” (put deliberately</p><p>in quotation marks) in markets.</p><p>Professor Anderson, following Adam Smith, structures part</p><p>of her argument around a positive transition in England, from</p><p>a feudal society where social relationships were based on fawn-</p><p>ing servility, to a capitalist market economy, where “masterless</p><p>men” could potentially achieve autonomy, through reciprocal</p><p>transactions of exchange conducted on a basis of equal dig-</p><p>nity. This is a drastically simplified version of social transfor-</p><p>mation, but we should probably not judge Smith as a histo-</p><p>rian; his method is rather the more schematic one of a political</p><p>economist or even of an avowedly utopian thinker. We need,</p><p>however, to understand the complexities of how social and eco-</p><p>nomic changes in sixteenth- and seventeenth- century England</p><p>learning from the levellers? 81</p><p>affected people like the Levellers, and consequently, the sub-</p><p>tleties of how, as a movement, the Levellers responded to these</p><p>changes. Within their historical context, the Levellers appear to</p><p>be more ambiguous about the potential of this new world. Early</p><p>modern England did not experience an Industrial Revolution,</p><p>but it did see very significant, dislocating change in the cen-</p><p>tury before the Civil War, and as Anderson shows, the effects</p><p>were very diverse. Sections of the population benefited from</p><p>rising population and inflation; and from the expansion, spe-</p><p>cialization and greater productivity of agriculture, industry, and</p><p>commerce. These groups profited from market transactions.</p><p>But people with small amounts of land, and insecure tenancies</p><p>where profiteering landlords could raise rents or enclose land</p><p>for private exploitation, fell by the wayside. They became de-</p><p>pendent on wages or languished as “masterless” men; and most</p><p>such men were not the self- employed farmers or artisans en-</p><p>joying independence, as idealistically described in the lecture.</p><p>These masterless men were rather vulnerable wage laborers</p><p>or vagrants, dependent on individual charity or, increasingly,</p><p>on public assistance. The most authoritative social historian of</p><p>early modern England, Keith Wrightson, sees production for</p><p>the market a risk small households were “constrained to make”</p><p>rather than an opportunity.10 The changes of the sixteenth and</p><p>early seventeenth centuries produced poverty on an unprec-</p><p>edented scale, and a rising number of households dependent</p><p>on wage- labor, during an era of declining real wages. Probably</p><p>half the population relied mainly on wage labor by the middle</p><p>of the seventeenth century. The national income of England</p><p>doubled at least in the century up to 1640, but, as in other pe-</p><p>riods, the benefits of this expansion were unevenly shared and</p><p>the results were greater inequality and increased social polar-</p><p>ization. It became less and less likely that an apprenticeship</p><p>82 chapter 3</p><p>to an urban trade was a pathway to a comfortable life as an</p><p>independent artisan or businessman; many hopeful young men</p><p>faced a lifetime as journeymen or laborers. The Levellers made</p><p>much of the rights of “freeborn” Englishmen, and their cam-</p><p>paigns helped to give the term free man some of its modern</p><p>connotations of individual autonomy and agency, but it also</p><p>continued to imply someone with specific and exclusive priv-</p><p>ileges in trade and manufacture as a member of a company or</p><p>guild. In this sense, barely half of adult males in London were</p><p>free men by 1640. Economic change and commercialization</p><p>in practice went in hand- in- hand with increasing state power,</p><p>to defend English overseas trade, and, most pertinent to our</p><p>discussions here, to address the problems that resulted from in-</p><p>creasing social polarization. As Keith Wrightson has explained,</p><p>by the mid- seventeenth century, “a commonwealth based upon</p><p>households had become one in which a substantial segment</p><p>of the population was no longer able to sustain a household</p><p>without periodic public assistance, and in which a further sub-</p><p>stantial minority could not establish an independent household</p><p>at all.”11 England’s unique system of poor relief began as local</p><p>initiative, subsequently established by national legislation and</p><p>locally enforced in parishes. The English poor law represented</p><p>and helped to construct new social hierarchies: by the second</p><p>half of the seventeenth century, some 40 percent of the pop-</p><p>ulation lived in rate- paying households; while 10 percent at</p><p>least usually were in receipt of relief; with the rest somewhere</p><p>between the two— too poor to pay the rates, and intermittently</p><p>dependent on parish help.12</p><p>It is difficult then to share Adam Smith’s benign judgment</p><p>on social and economic change in early modern England. There</p><p>were more losers than winners, and most of the Leveller lead-</p><p>ers, and many of the cavalry at least in Parliament’s army were</p><p>learning from the levellers? 83</p><p>from the more prosperous sections of this divided society, al-</p><p>beit not from its richest elements; historians use the woolly</p><p>term the “middling sort.”13 We should not labor this point by</p><p>connecting men’s social programs or political views directly</p><p>to their social standing, but it is worth noting that Rainbor-</p><p>ough’s advocacy of the political rights of poor men did not re-</p><p>flect his own economic position, for he was the oldest son of</p><p>a prominent London merchant and naval officer; it was most</p><p>probably the comradeship of parliamentarian military service</p><p>that prompted his egalitarian vision. William Walwyn was the</p><p>Leveller who developed the most extended justification of</p><p>free trade as “most advantageous to the Commonwealth,” but</p><p>he was himself a freeman of the great Merchant Adventurers’</p><p>Company and the grandson of a bishop.14 Levellers were mostly</p><p>independent householders of the “middling sort”; they could</p><p>conceive of markets as offering opportunities, but they were</p><p>also intimately aware of the danger of “declining” into a shame-</p><p>ful dependency on charity or wage labor. They would certainly</p><p>have recognized the force of Adam Smith’s comment, quoted</p><p>in the lecture, that “no one but a beggar chooses to depend</p><p>chiefly on the benevolence of his fellow citizens.” The Levellers</p><p>sometimes hesitated over adult male suffrage, one spokesman</p><p>acknowledging at Putney, that: “I conceive the reason why we</p><p>would exclude apprentices, or servants, or those that take alms,</p><p>is because they depend upon the will of other men and should</p><p>be afraid to displease them. For servants and apprentices, they</p><p>are included in their masters, and so for those that receive alms</p><p>from door to door.” In the third and final Agreement of the</p><p>People, there were political and social exclusions from the fran-</p><p>chise: all men of twenty- one and upward “not being servants,</p><p>or receiving alms, or having served the late king in arms or</p><p>voluntary contributions” were to vote for the Representative.15</p><p>84 chapter 3</p><p>The Levellers indeed hated concentrations of power and</p><p>restrictions on people’s freedom, they loathed the ways the rich</p><p>and powerful could monopolize privilege and manipulate the</p><p>law, but I wonder how central a free market was to their vision.</p><p>Their loathing of domination was based on an optimistic view of</p><p>human nature and of the possibilities of political engagement. In</p><p>social terms, Leveller proposals owed as much to self- confidence</p><p>as to experience of oppression, for men of the “middling sort”</p><p>were accustomed to participation in English legal and politi-</p><p>cal processes (as jurors in counties, or constables and church-</p><p>wardens in their local communities). Above all, however, Lev-</p><p>eller drives for egalitarian social and political forms were the</p><p>product of exhilarating religious and political struggles. They</p><p>emerged out of the dramatic, radicalizing experience</p><p>of fighting</p><p>and winning a civil war; a war where Parliament had called on</p><p>the “people” to rally to its cause; where the House of Commons</p><p>had claimed to be the representative of the people; and where</p><p>the war had been presented as a struggle for God’s true religion,</p><p>but there was no settled agreement on what true religion actually</p><p>was. The Leveller movement grew out of campaigns, first, for</p><p>religious freedom, and, subsequently for the closely connected</p><p>necessities of freedom of the press and of debate. The Levellers,</p><p>like other mid- seventeenth- century radicals, were driven also</p><p>by a burning sense of betrayal that for all the “blood and trea-</p><p>sure” sacrificed in the civil war, it was the Parliament itself that</p><p>was limiting these freedoms.16 William Walwyn defended free</p><p>trade as a natural right in 1652, but it was not at the forefront of</p><p>his concerns for most of his life— religious freedom was clearly</p><p>his first priority.17 All this is to suggest that Leveller adherence</p><p>to a free market was deduced from other elements of social life,</p><p>rather than foundational to their views, within a context where</p><p>the economic and social implications of market relations were</p><p>learning from the levellers? 85</p><p>already— long before the Industrial Revolution— less benevolent</p><p>than Adam Smith or Professor Anderson believe.</p><p>Second, we need to complicate the notion of the market</p><p>itself. The early modern market was not based on abstract</p><p>notions of reciprocity, involving free and equal persons and</p><p>straightforward monetary exchange. Market relationships were</p><p>central to early modern England, but they operated on the basis</p><p>of complex understandings of trust and credit, and credit here</p><p>is a social and cultural concept not a merely technical process.</p><p>As Craig Muldrew explains, early modern society encompassed</p><p>“a market not just where things were bought and sold, but</p><p>where trust was extended, or not extended, and where the so-</p><p>cial was defined as the need for, and the extent of such trust.”18</p><p>Actual money (that is coin or specie) was in short supply in</p><p>early modern England, accounting was haphazard, and people</p><p>often had only the broadest notion of their current economic</p><p>position; the workings of society and economy depended on</p><p>juggling debt and extending credit, forgoing or delaying repay-</p><p>ments of debts, or rents. In receiving credit in this narrow sense,</p><p>credit in its social meaning of esteem, reputation, or standing</p><p>(to use some of the terms within Anderson’s understanding of</p><p>egalitarianism) was a vital advantage, and might help people of</p><p>similar “real” economic capacity to flourish better in practice.</p><p>The market was emphatically not an arena of abstract egali-</p><p>tarianism or individual equality, and well into the nineteenth</p><p>century, “personal credit remained central to market relations,</p><p>sometimes indistinct from and sometimes existing alongside</p><p>gift relations.”19 The sharp contrast in Smith’s thinking between</p><p>market and gift transactions did not apply in practice.</p><p>Neither were the Levellers consistent in their approach to</p><p>social and economic issues. In a time of social and economic</p><p>upheaval, oppression and exploitation could be found in very</p><p>86 chapter 3</p><p>different contexts, and the Levellers constructed a movement</p><p>out of various, complex, even contradictory issues and groups.</p><p>Once seen as “possessive individualists,” the Levellers equally</p><p>often projected a sense of collective and communal activism.</p><p>Their pamphlets often denounced many injustices, as in Lon-</p><p>dons Liberty in Chains Discovered, which ranged from the suf-</p><p>ferings of John Lilburne and his wife to political domination</p><p>within the city corporation and the struggles of provincial mer-</p><p>chants.20 Levellers were not always committed to a free mar-</p><p>ket based on private property rights in our modern sense, but</p><p>often defended customary rights, as part of their resistance to</p><p>the power and domination of the rich. Those large numbers of</p><p>early modern households already largely dependent on wage</p><p>labor could not survive without other sources of income— a</p><p>small cottage garden, or various forms of nonmarketized, or</p><p>not quite marketized customary communal rights: the right to</p><p>“glean,” to pick up the dropped corn at harvest, or to fatten a</p><p>pig or graze a cow on common land. This involved differential</p><p>rights over the same piece of property; it might be conceived</p><p>of as specific to certain (private) individuals, but it was more</p><p>properly a collective, multiple, layered concept of ownership.</p><p>So the Levellers supported the “free miners” of Derbyshire who</p><p>claimed the right, by ancient custom, to mine for lead wherever</p><p>it was found against the increasing protests of landowners who</p><p>claimed sole and absolute ownership of the surface land and all</p><p>that was found beneath it; and they offered help to the small pro-</p><p>prietors in the fens whose complex livelihoods of fishing, crafts,</p><p>and farming were being destroyed by drainage projects.21 All this</p><p>may complicate but perhaps enrich the ways in which we look</p><p>to the Levellers for experiments in egalitarianism and activism.</p><p>Third, and much more schematically than I would like, I</p><p>want to raise some qualifications to the picture of the Levellers</p><p>learning from the levellers? 87</p><p>as a feminist movement. As Professor Anderson has shown,</p><p>women were active Levellers; among individuals we can high-</p><p>light Elizabeth Lilburne, Mary Overton, and Ellen Larner, and</p><p>the radical religious separatist and author Katherine Chidley.</p><p>The attack on a monarch whose rule was legitimated partly</p><p>through patriarchalism had implications for gender hierarchies</p><p>within the household, although most parliamentarians and re-</p><p>publicans were very careful to limit these implications, most</p><p>often through various versions of a separation between public</p><p>or civil authority from the private world of the household. As</p><p>Professor Anderson stressed, religious pluralism disrupted</p><p>earthly hierarchies and challenged notions of sin and obedi-</p><p>ence: everyone should obey God before man, and men and</p><p>women alike were equal before God. Leveller women insisted</p><p>on their right to petition Parliament: “we knowing that for our</p><p>encouragement and example, God hath wrought many deliv-</p><p>erances for several nations from age to age, by the weak hand</p><p>of women,” and claimed an “equal share and interest with men</p><p>in the commonwealth.” But I am not convinced that Levellers</p><p>as a movement thought that family power was monopolized</p><p>by men; rather, I think they often fell back on a conception of</p><p>society as made up of male- headed households, with women</p><p>as valued but subordinate participants. John Lilburne referred</p><p>to his loyal and long- suffering wife as the “weaker vessel,”</p><p>and Leveller rituals, like Leveller publications, presented the</p><p>movement as a collectivity made up of various elements dis-</p><p>tinguished by place and by (I think) assumptions of natural</p><p>inequality. In the funeral procession for Robert Lockyer, a Lev-</p><p>eller sympathizer executed in May 1649 for his part in army mu-</p><p>tinies, “citizens and women” and “youth and maids” followed</p><p>the hearse in solemn but differentiated order. We remem -</p><p>beragain Rainborough’s poorest “he” at Putney, the idea that</p><p>88 chapter 3</p><p>servants and apprentices were included with their masters, and</p><p>the fact that formal political rights for women as agents rather</p><p>than as petitioners were never part of the Leveller agenda.22</p><p>This view can be challenged but it is also worth remembering</p><p>the classic arguments of feminist political philosophers that</p><p>expansions of male political rights often prompted an intensi-</p><p>fication of arguments that women were unsuited by nature to</p><p>political participation.23 The problems for women and markets</p><p>go beyond ignoring women’s labor in the household, although</p><p>that is one crucial aspect, as the lecture explains. More funda-</p><p>mentally, the difficulties are founded on the fact that, in the</p><p>early modern case at least, the basic unit that competes in the</p><p>market,24 or aspires to political agency, is a household rather</p><p>than an individual, and its head is normally, naturally (a word</p><p>we need to highlight and challenge) assumed to be male.25</p><p>It is really exciting to see egalitarianism as about more than</p><p>economic issues— to see it as a commitment to a broad enhanc-</p><p>ing of human capacities, enabling a fulfilling independence</p><p>from the domination of others. I have responded to Professor</p><p>Anderson’s first lecture as a seventeenth- century historian,</p><p>but I am also conscious of an upbringing within British social</p><p>democratic or socialist traditions. Both combine to make me</p><p>unconvinced that everything went wrong with the “Industrial</p><p>Revolution”; seventeenth- century England was already a soci-</p><p>ety where some half, at least, of the population, had little pros-</p><p>pect of competing on equal terms in the market. Differential</p><p>access to capital, credit, skill, training, time were all connected</p><p>to wealth (which brought more advantage to its holders than</p><p>“dominion” or “vanities”). I want to present a darker view of the</p><p>potential of the seventeenth- century example, and I still think</p><p>that economic inequality cannot be detached from the broader</p><p>elements Professor Anderson has focused on.</p><p>89</p><p>Chapter 4</p><p>Market</p><p>Rationalization</p><p>David Bromwich</p><p>Elizabeth Anderson’s provocative discussion of the relationship</p><p>between theories of political liberalism and market society asks</p><p>a large question and has the probity to leave the answer open.</p><p>The question concerns the party of equality that Europeans</p><p>call the left and Americans think of roughly as the liberal side.</p><p>How could this party have had so optimistic a start around</p><p>1640— when it identified the market with individual initiative,</p><p>the energy of personal enterprise, a version of the career open</p><p>to talents— yet by the end of the nineteenth century have come</p><p>to view the market as an arrangement that suppresses equality</p><p>and widens the distance between the poorest and the richest</p><p>members of society?</p><p>Throughout her lectures, Anderson argues (in effect) that</p><p>political theory should not stop at the door of the workplace.</p><p>Supposing we share that belief, we still have to ask what</p><p>90 chapter 4</p><p>prevented the new economic doctrine of the eighteenth century</p><p>and the liberal political theory of the nineteenth from leading fi-</p><p>nally to acceptance of a democratic doctrine of self- government</p><p>among men and women at work. Some reasons for the failure</p><p>of the transition from the free market to full democracy may be</p><p>found in the ideally abridged “freedom” that was first applied</p><p>as a predicate to the marketplace alone. It is not clear how far it</p><p>was ever conceived for adaptation to modern politics.</p><p>“What happened,” Anderson asks, “between Smith and</p><p>Marx to reverse the egalitarian assessment of market society?”</p><p>She thinks it natural to be puzzled by the reversal, because</p><p>“Smith, no less than Marx, reviled selfishness.” That is true,</p><p>but it tells us very little. One may denounce selfishness with-</p><p>out embracing equality. Anyone who is not an apologist for</p><p>sheer privilege and inherited wealth must deplore selfishness in</p><p>order to gain a hearing. The parallel between Smith and Marx</p><p>seems a lot weaker if we put aside “selfishness” and ask instead</p><p>what Smith meant by “self- interest”: an idea he made central to</p><p>the economic morale and the moralized economics of several</p><p>generations following his own. Even allowing for the correc-</p><p>tives The Wealth of Nations prescribes against useless wealth</p><p>and massive disparities of power, a reader of Smith can hardly</p><p>avoid the conclusion that his idea of self- interest gives a pretext</p><p>and an agreeable complexion to selfishness. Self- interest, as he</p><p>interprets it, operates for the long- term good of society, and</p><p>does so almost independent of the will of the interested party.</p><p>It thereby circumvents less mechanistic and more volitionally</p><p>exacting ideas of the common good. Under a system pervaded</p><p>by self- interest, society is improved without anyone having to</p><p>think about it. The progress will continue so long as we shun</p><p>the wasteful deployment of middlemen and reckless ventures</p><p>to engross private fortunes through monopoly.</p><p>market rationalization 91</p><p>Why does the machine work so well? Because, says Smith,</p><p>we inhabit a world of goods— a world whose natural emana-</p><p>tion and expression is an infinity of possible exchanges. We</p><p>live in a world of goods that wants to be explored. It is as if all</p><p>the commodities we might enjoy were a harvest- in- waiting, a</p><p>second nature within society, intricately adapted to the desires</p><p>and collaborative amenabilities of the human animal. Greed— a</p><p>close relation of the warrior virtue and civic vice that Smith</p><p>would have called pride or vainglory— on this understand-</p><p>ing, becomes an aberration rather than an inseparable part</p><p>of human nature with which a liberal theory of politics must</p><p>somehow grapple. Almost all of us, Smith believes, would want,</p><p>if we could, to improve our lives by adding convenience after</p><p>convenience to our common world of man- made things. The</p><p>commerce that comes with industrial capitalism will be useful</p><p>and unsuperfluous. Also, the laborer in this system will have</p><p>acquired, as Anderson tells us, the moral assets of “authority,”</p><p>“esteem,” and “standing”— goods whose diffusion is necessary</p><p>to democracy, though in earlier times they were known only</p><p>to a fortunate elite.</p><p>Smith and Locke are the figures in modern political thought</p><p>whom Anderson sifts for egalitarian intimations. How shall</p><p>we add up their hints? Monopoly, for Smith, is inefficient and</p><p>chokes invention. So far, he is certainly helpful to the critic</p><p>of abuses in a capitalist system. But can we look to Smith for</p><p>an argument against a multipurpose and endlessly diversified</p><p>monopoly like Amazon or Google or the others that have arisen</p><p>in our time? After all, these suppliers do satisfy our creaturely</p><p>hunger for goods. They get their profits and our subsequent</p><p>custom without suppressing a single desire for a single good.</p><p>They constantly test our wishes and demands, and they run</p><p>ahead of our conscious choices. Their success indicates that the</p><p>92 chapter 4</p><p>machine of the market has changed in ways that Smith could</p><p>not have anticipated.</p><p>Again, if we search for guidance from Locke on the relation</p><p>between labor and property, we may be struck by the limited</p><p>foresight his thinking offers. Anderson praises Locke’s theory of</p><p>government for its whole- length rejection of patriarchy, but how</p><p>far does that take us on the path to equality in the society at large?</p><p>The entrepreneur, says Locke, who mixes his labor with the land</p><p>or with any piece of nature, and who thereby effects an improve-</p><p>ment of some sort, rightly becomes the possessor of all he has</p><p>worked on (provided that other lands or other fruits of nature</p><p>are available to other people). Meanwhile, the harmless thriving</p><p>individual who is not a member of the subspecies appropriative</p><p>man is required to yield the right of enclosure and property to</p><p>the energetic laborer. Market society, as Locke seems to have</p><p>envisaged it, does not lead to equality between these two dif-</p><p>ferent tendencies that human nature has been known to pursue.</p><p>As for Thomas Paine— a radical democrat through and</p><p>through and a believer in the market, too— he may belong to</p><p>a different history. Paine began as a stay maker. He pictured</p><p>literate self- respecting tradesmen like himself as the typical</p><p>constituents of a town meeting. And he would have said of</p><p>town meetings, as he did say of the provincial constitutions in</p><p>America, that they are the grammar of the language of democ-</p><p>racy. Paine’s vision, however, was essentially political and only</p><p>secondarily economic. It is true that a free market was a feature</p><p>of democracy that Paine regarded as a natural concomitant of</p><p>the rights of man. Still, the imperative pressure of his attack</p><p>on monarchy and aristocracy comes from an idea of political</p><p>liberty.</p><p>It has little to do with an idea of supply and demand</p><p>and collaborative labor such as we find in Smith and, to a lesser</p><p>extent, in Locke.</p><p>market rationalization 93</p><p>But the underlying subject of Anderson’s historical sketch is</p><p>neither the liberal economic theory of Smith nor the political</p><p>theory broadly shared by Locke, Paine, and Abraham Lincoln.</p><p>What she asks us to examine is rather a pair of rival intuitions</p><p>about the effects of modernization, and she has in mind chiefly</p><p>modernization accomplished by means of the market. How can</p><p>the earlier and happier intuition have proved so wrong? It may</p><p>help to look closely at the famous sentence that concludes the</p><p>first chapter of The Wealth of Nations. Smith there describes</p><p>the household of a man of the middling sort, surrounded by all</p><p>the goods that make his modest life comfortable: the utensils at</p><p>his table, the glass in the window, the coals that heat the kitchen</p><p>grate, the furniture, the bread, the beer, and so on. Think of</p><p>all these things, says Smith, and you must realize that without</p><p>such goods and the marvelous collaboration of their makers</p><p>and suppliers, “the very meanest person in a civilized country</p><p>could not be provided, even according to, what we very falsely</p><p>imagine, the easy and simple manner in which he is commonly</p><p>accommodated.” Here then is the celebrated sentence:</p><p>Compared, indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of the</p><p>great, his accommodation must no doubt appear extremely</p><p>simple and easy; and yet it may be true, perhaps, that the</p><p>accommodation of an European prince does not always so</p><p>much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as</p><p>the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an</p><p>African king, the absolute master of the lives and liberties</p><p>of ten thousand naked savages.1</p><p>This presents an extraordinary image of the comfort and de-</p><p>cency of modern society, seductive alike in its modesty and its</p><p>grandeur. But we may ask: what is being compared to what?</p><p>94 chapter 4</p><p>A weaver, a tinker, a farrier, a costermonger, or even, some</p><p>way up the social scale, a miller or a brewer in a small way of</p><p>dealing, could think himself doing work intelligibly related to</p><p>the work of a trader in spices and silks. All were rewarded for</p><p>the production of goods whose value stemmed from artisanal</p><p>training and extended practice; or they were rewarded for sell-</p><p>ing goods whose value they knew by experience, from a wide</p><p>opportunity for comparisons. Was Smith therefore giving us</p><p>an accurate picture? Did his society deserve the compliment</p><p>he paid it? The European prince and the peasant are doubtless</p><p>members of what Smith could suppose a market society, and</p><p>in that society, the prince and the peasant are closer together</p><p>(because of their access to market goods) than the African king</p><p>is to the same peasant. On the other hand, the African king has</p><p>power, and with his power, a fearlessness of misery, which is</p><p>denied to the European peasant.</p><p>This difference— the difference between political power and</p><p>market equality— I find underrated or insufficiently marked in</p><p>Anderson’s view of market society. But they were always dis-</p><p>tinct goods and they have remained distinct. In “the rise of mas-</p><p>terless men” in the seventeenth century, Anderson discovers</p><p>the germ of a spirit that tended toward democratic equality. As</p><p>she describes them, these persons were invigorated by the new</p><p>knowledge that they could become the makers of their own</p><p>lives; among them were many nameless heroes whose ethic of</p><p>individual conscience gave considerable impetus to the Puritan</p><p>revolution. Being masterless, they found that they could ascend</p><p>the social ladder, as they never could have done in the care of</p><p>masters. This is a speculative area, of course, and one cannot</p><p>be sure of causation or correlation. It makes sense that a new</p><p>freedom for individual laborers should have gone hand- in- hand</p><p>with the rise of a political theory that dispensed with arbitrary</p><p>market rationalization 95</p><p>subordination and the rise of an economic theory that devalued</p><p>the social bonds of feudalism. But how fortunate were the mas-</p><p>terless men of the seventeenth century? How did they actually</p><p>live? We know anyway that a different kind of masterless men</p><p>began to be seen in the middle of the eighteenth century. These</p><p>men were descending into masterless servitude.</p><p>The narrator of Oliver Goldsmith’s poem “The Deserted</p><p>Village”— published in 1770, six years before The Wealth of</p><p>Nations— returns to the village in which he was brought up and</p><p>finds it almost vacant. What caused the change? The indus-</p><p>try soon to be celebrated by Smith, it seems, has also driven</p><p>tradesmen and common citizens into lives of permanent dis-</p><p>placement and destitution:</p><p>Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,</p><p>Where wealth accumulates and men decay;</p><p>Princes and lords may flourish or may fade;</p><p>A breath can make them, as a breath has made;</p><p>But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride,</p><p>When once destroyed, can never be supplied.2</p><p>Goldsmith goes on to speak of a lost England (in a memory</p><p>derived also from his native Ireland), where “light labour”</p><p>prevailed and imparted “just what life required.” But to have a</p><p>reasonable chance of happiness now, such ordinary labor has</p><p>been forced to seek “a kinder shore.”</p><p>In the narrative that follows, blending recollections of the</p><p>village and anecdotes of its decay, the narrator comes upon a</p><p>woman he remembers, a widow who lives now in a “nightly</p><p>shed.” He introduces us to the village preacher who was once</p><p>freely sought out in his “modest mansion” for religious counsel</p><p>and consolation; and to the schoolmaster, about whom all the</p><p>96 chapter 4</p><p>village used to declare “how much he knew; / ’Twas certain he</p><p>could write, and cypher too.” This scholar served as the local</p><p>historian— a function that the narrator himself now must take</p><p>up. Goldsmith ends by adjuring himself to speak as the prophet</p><p>of a departed way of life. His calling will be to memorialize the</p><p>dead and tally the cost of the triumph of market society. So he</p><p>warns us:</p><p>That trade’s proud empire hastes to swift decay,</p><p>As ocean sweeps the laboured mole away;</p><p>While self- dependent power can time defy,</p><p>As rocks resist the billows and the sky.3</p><p>Notice that it is trade itself and not just “opulence” that has</p><p>wrought the destruction; and trade, not only on the selfish</p><p>mercantilist pattern that Smith so tellingly analyzed, but of the</p><p>most energetic and prosperous kind. Goldsmith condemns the</p><p>very idea of trade as the central meaning and justification of</p><p>society. For trade uproots lives and turns ancient occupations</p><p>obsolete. What we lose in the process is the very thing that the</p><p>new political economy has promised: “self- dependent power.”</p><p>In the wake of the depression of the 1930s, reflecting on an</p><p>upheaval that by then had lasted almost two centuries, Karl Po-</p><p>lanyi in The Great Transformation judged that there was always</p><p>an imperfect fit between democracy and the vision of market</p><p>society cherished by the classical economists:</p><p>Labor, land, and money are essential elements of industry;</p><p>they also must be organized in markets; in fact these mar-</p><p>kets form an absolutely vital part of the economic system.</p><p>But labor, land, and money are obviously not commodities;</p><p>the postulate that anything that is bought and sold must</p><p>market rationalization 97</p><p>have been produced for sale is emphatically untrue in re-</p><p>gard to them.... Labor is only another name for a human</p><p>activity which goes with life itself, which in its turn is not</p><p>produced for sale but for entirely different reasons, nor can</p><p>that activity be detached from the rest of life, be stored or</p><p>mobilized; land is only another name for nature, which</p><p>is not produced by man; actual money, finally, is merely</p><p>a token of purchasing power which, as a rule, is not pro-</p><p>duced at all, but comes into being through the mechanism</p><p>of banking or state finance. None of them is produced for</p><p>sale. The commodity</p><p>description of labor, land, and money</p><p>is entirely fictitious.4</p><p>Yet this pleasing fiction, wrote Polanyi, guided the actual or-</p><p>ganization of modern markets for labor, land, and money in</p><p>the nineteenth and the early twentieth century.</p><p>The transformation was well under way in the middle of</p><p>the eighteenth century. By the time that Smith and Goldsmith</p><p>wrote, the new system had begun to be the organizing princi-</p><p>ple of the entire society, “according to which no arrangement</p><p>or behavior should be allowed to exist that might prevent the</p><p>actual functioning of the market mechanism on the lines of the</p><p>commodity fiction.” But we have come to realize that society</p><p>itself cannot ultimately survive in these conditions:</p><p>For the alleged commodity “labor power” cannot be shoved</p><p>about, used indiscriminately, or even left unused, without</p><p>affecting also the human individual who happens to be the</p><p>bearer of this peculiar commodity. In disposing of a man’s</p><p>labor power the system would, incidentally, dispose of the</p><p>physical, psychological, and moral entity “man” attached</p><p>to that tag. Robbed of the protective covering of cultural</p><p>98 chapter 4</p><p>institutions, human beings would perish from the effects of</p><p>social exposure; they would die as the victims of acute social</p><p>dislocation through vice, perversion, crime, and starvation.</p><p>Nature would be reduced to its elements, neighborhoods</p><p>and landscapes defiled, rivers polluted.5</p><p>We who have passed through the recession of 2000s have</p><p>come to know this truth almost as intimately as Polanyi when</p><p>he wrote in the early 1940s.</p><p>I conclude with a word about the three essential goods—</p><p>authority, esteem, and standing— whose value for democracy</p><p>makes a large part of the subject of Elizabeth Anderson’s lec-</p><p>tures. I prefer the plain word power to the subtler and more</p><p>elusive authority, and have noticed that Smith himself, in a pas-</p><p>sage quoted by Anderson, combines “power and authority”</p><p>so as to draw no sharp distinction between them. Ever since</p><p>the revolutions of the seventeenth century, any representative</p><p>of the left or the liberal side in politics has been compelled to</p><p>be jealous of political authority, or, to say it straight, political</p><p>power. This jealousy is a necessary and not a regrettable con-</p><p>dition of political democracy. We ought to be jealous in the</p><p>sense that makes zeal a necessary root of jealousy and jealousy</p><p>itself a virtue. I am grateful to Elizabeth Anderson for having</p><p>given us an occasion to think closely again about the early mod-</p><p>ern theories of equality and freedom that rationalize but do not</p><p>justify our own market society.</p><p>99</p><p>Chapter 5</p><p>Help Wanted:</p><p>Subordinates</p><p>Niko Kolodny</p><p>It’s an honor to comment on Elizabeth Anderson’s lectures—</p><p>not least because I come to the task already strongly influenced</p><p>by the article that contains their seeds, “What Is the Point of</p><p>Equality?”1 When that article appeared, in 1999, philosophical</p><p>discussion of equality was at a dead end. On the one hand, those</p><p>philosophers who thought that equality mattered had sealed</p><p>themselves into a seemingly increasingly sterile debate about</p><p>what sort of stuff we should be equalizing. On the other hand,</p><p>many other philosophers doubted that equality did matter. It</p><p>might matter whether the poor got more, and giving them</p><p>more might, as a kind of by- product, close the gap between</p><p>them and the rich. But surely the gap in stuff didn’t matter in</p><p>itself. After all, if it did, then instead of closing the gap by taking</p><p>from the rich and giving to the poor, we might as well close it</p><p>by taking from the rich and tossing in the ocean.</p><p>100 chapter 5</p><p>In a way that is truly rare in philosophy, Anderson’s paper</p><p>reoriented the debate.2 What fundamentally mattered, she ar-</p><p>gued, were social relations of equality among people. If equal-</p><p>izing stuff mattered, it was because of how inequalities of stuff</p><p>might affect such social relations. And what mattered really</p><p>was equality in those relations. It wasn’t as though my wife and</p><p>I, married that year, could reduce our unstated concern for</p><p>an egalitarian marriage to a concern that each spouse inde-</p><p>pendently have as much of something as possible, with greater</p><p>weights assigned to the spouse with less, should opportunities</p><p>for redistribution arise, which would tend, as a kind of by-</p><p>product, to equalize this something. That simply wasn’t the</p><p>right way to think about a marriage of equals.</p><p>So Anderson’s work wrought an important change at least</p><p>in philosophers’ thinking about equality. And heightened</p><p>concern, since 1999, about long- term trends toward certain</p><p>forms of economic inequality has made her work only more</p><p>timely. Yet, while I think that Anderson is onto something in</p><p>turning our focus to social relations of equality, I struggle, as a</p><p>committed partisan, to get clear about what exactly it is she’s</p><p>onto. It’s easy enough to call to mind images of domineering</p><p>masters and groveling servants. And these images make us, or</p><p>at least Anderson and me, uneasy. But what is it in these images</p><p>that disquiets us? Discretion? Hierarchy? And what alternative</p><p>social arrangements, even in principle, could put us at ease?</p><p>Law? Democracy? Anderson’s lectures raise these questions</p><p>once more.</p><p>What is Anderson’s objection to too much of what, in her</p><p>view, goes on in the contemporary workplace? It’s not how</p><p>much people are paid, or whether the job comes with health</p><p>insurance or child care. It’s not how boring, dangerous, or un-</p><p>comfortable the work is. It’s not whether people can count on</p><p>help wanted: subordinates 101</p><p>keeping their job, or getting another one. Needless to say, she</p><p>cares about these things. It’s just that they’re not her focus here.</p><p>Her focus is instead the quasi- political relations of “gov-</p><p>ernment” between employers and employees within the firm.</p><p>Although she defines “government” in terms of the issuing and</p><p>enforcing of commands, this is actually too narrow for her pur-</p><p>poses. Your boss isn’t issuing or enforcing commands when</p><p>he fires you for being too attractive or snoops in your inbox.</p><p>While I’m not sure how to revise her definition, the rough idea</p><p>is clear enough: The relations of employee to firm are somehow</p><p>troublingly like the relations of subject to state, but without</p><p>the liberal- democratic protections that might make the latter</p><p>acceptable.</p><p>To throw Anderson’s specific issue into relief, consider, as a</p><p>kind of natural thought- experiment, the garment industry on</p><p>the Lower East Side at the end of the nineteenth century. Some</p><p>were employed in factories, while others (especially women,</p><p>children, and those who refused to work on the Jewish Sab-</p><p>bath) did piecework from home.3 All the same, the conditions</p><p>at home in the tenements were hot, dark, chokingly cramped;</p><p>the work was numbing and relentless; and the livelihood of</p><p>a pieceworker was anything but secure. Anderson’s focus is,</p><p>roughly, how things, as bad as they were in the tenements,</p><p>might have gotten worse had they gone to work in the facto-</p><p>ries— if, six days a week, they had to cross back and forth over</p><p>the border into some capitalist’s shirtwaist Lichtenstein.</p><p>But how does “government” make things worse? No doubt,</p><p>it can be irksome to have your boss, copy of Frederick Taylor’s</p><p>The Principles of Scientific Management in hand, peering over</p><p>your shoulder.4 And it can be unpleasant to be restricted in</p><p>the minutiae of when, where, and how you work— for exam-</p><p>ple, not being free to put needle and thread down whenever</p><p>102 chapter 5</p><p>nature calls. However, monitoring and restriction takes place</p><p>even in the absence of “government.” Even if you are a self-</p><p>employed mime, or hairdresser, or hot- rivet- tosser, your every</p><p>move will be carefully watched by your audience, or client,</p><p>or hot- rivet- catcher. For that matter, even in the tenement,</p><p>you may be tailed by a passive- aggressive, that’s- not- how- you-</p><p>do- it- but- far- be- it- from- me- to- interfere father- in- law. And all</p><p>kinds of labor</p><p>can be spoiled, or otherwise made more costly</p><p>or less productive, unless the laborer can hold it in until an</p><p>appropriate time. Granted, the need to monitor and restrict</p><p>a given worker often derives from a production process that</p><p>requires coordination with other workers. And, granted, such</p><p>coordination would often not be feasible, human nature being</p><p>what it is, without the “government” of the firm. All the same,</p><p>the blame for the obnoxious monitoring and restricting seems</p><p>to rest not with the “government” of the firm, but instead with</p><p>the nature of the production process itself.</p><p>So what new evils does the “government” of the firm re-</p><p>ally add? Anderson’s lecture suggests, to my mind, two main</p><p>answers.</p><p>The first might be labeled “abuse of power”— or, better, “use</p><p>of an unjustified power.” Grant that there is a sound economic</p><p>justification, of the kind pioneered by R. H. Coase, “The Nature</p><p>of the Firm,” for having firms.5 At least when firms are comple-</p><p>mented with other institutions, it works to everyone’s benefit</p><p>to have them. And to have firms is, in part, to give certain peo-</p><p>ple certain powers over others within the firm. The concern is</p><p>that, unless care is taken, in giving those people those justified</p><p>powers, we also give them unjustified powers.</p><p>Some of these unjustified powers have no economic ra-</p><p>tionale at all, such as the power to monitor or restrict your</p><p>employees in ways that don’t make them more productive, or</p><p>help wanted: subordinates 103</p><p>to fire them for not waxing your car. But I doubt that Ander-</p><p>son would leave it at that and concede that any power that</p><p>improves the company’s bottom line is thereby justified. Even</p><p>powers that have an economic rationale can be unjustified if</p><p>they are trumped by other values, which we are unwilling to</p><p>compromise for economic gain. The powers may be degrading</p><p>or inhumane, or may violate expectations that we associate with</p><p>civil liberties, such as privacy or free speech. So, the trouble is</p><p>that if we give the employer the justified power to fire a worker</p><p>for slacking off, we risk also giving the employer the unjustified</p><p>power to fire a worker for, say, not waxing his car. If we give</p><p>employers the justified power to review work- related e- mail,</p><p>we risk giving employers the unjustified power to review pri-</p><p>vate e- mail stored in the same location. And so on.</p><p>The objection isn’t simply to the package of work, com-</p><p>pensation, and job security that is liable to result from the un-</p><p>justified power. For example, the objection isn’t merely that</p><p>whereas in the tenement, you only had to sew on the buttons,</p><p>now in factory, you have to sew on the buttons and wax some</p><p>goy’s horseless carriage— more work. The objection is also sim-</p><p>ply to being under the power of another person in a way that</p><p>has no good justification. After all, particular abuses of power</p><p>can be to the “victim’s” benefit. Suppose your boss says: “Your</p><p>slacking this morning was the last straw. The pink slip’s in my</p><p>outbox. But if you wax my car, I’ll go and tear it up.” That’s</p><p>arguably better than: “Your slacking this morning was the last</p><p>straw. You’re fired, case closed.” At least the offer gives you the</p><p>option to keep the job. (Compare when the blackmailer says,</p><p>“You should thank me that I’m giving you the chance to hush</p><p>this up, before I go to the press.” There is a sense in which you</p><p>really should thank him.) The objection isn’t that the exercise of</p><p>the unjustified power necessarily makes things worse for you.</p><p>104 chapter 5</p><p>It’s rather that, while it’s OK for other people to have power</p><p>over your fate as a necessary part of a system that works to ev-</p><p>eryone’s advantage, it’s not OK for people to have power over</p><p>your fate so that they, personally, can get their cars waxed.6</p><p>Suppose, however, that your boss wields only justified pow-</p><p>ers over you, powers justified by the company’s bottom line,</p><p>as constrained by the Bill of Rights. Still— and perhaps this is</p><p>the heart of the matter for Anderson— you are “governed” by</p><p>another person. Your boss still, well, bosses you.</p><p>But what’s wrong about being governed by other people?</p><p>I mean, to cut to the chase, we’re all governed by the state. It</p><p>issues and enforces commands, and wields vast power over our</p><p>lives. This would be true even of the social democratic utopia of</p><p>the sort that Anderson and I would favor, with its free day care,</p><p>publicly financed elections, and frolicking sprites and elves. If it</p><p>wouldn’t be objectionable to be governed by such a state, why</p><p>should it be objectionable to be governed by the firm? What’s</p><p>the difference?</p><p>Is the trouble, as Anderson sometimes suggests, being</p><p>under the boss’s whim or discretion— for example, his all- about-</p><p>the- bottom- line hunches about how to deploy his workforce—</p><p>whereas the state’s commands are a matter of rules or law? I</p><p>doubt it. The rules that govern life behind the counter at your</p><p>local McDonald’s might well be, in terms of their form, ev-</p><p>erything that Montesquieu, in The Spirit of the Laws, or Lon</p><p>Fuller, in The Morality of Law, could wish for.7 And why should</p><p>laws be better than whims, in any event? Predictability can’t</p><p>be the answer. The vicissitudes of the market, to which the</p><p>tenement pieceworker is subject, are at least as unpredictable</p><p>as the whims of a boss. Perhaps the appeal of law, as opposed</p><p>to whim, is that law is impersonal. To be ruled by law is not to</p><p>be ruled by men. But surely this is an illusion. You only need</p><p>help wanted: subordinates 105</p><p>to read the first three words of the U.S. Constitution to verify</p><p>that it, no less than a McDonald’s franchise agreement, was</p><p>drawn up by people.</p><p>This takes us to what I think is the real issue, if there is one</p><p>here: namely, who is responsible for the laws. The difference,</p><p>as Anderson at other times suggests, is that at least our ideal-</p><p>ized state’s laws are democratic, whereas McDonald’s laws are</p><p>oligarchic. First, at least to the extent that the state is realizing</p><p>the aspirations of democracy, each of us has, at some funda-</p><p>mental level, an equal opportunity to determine what the state’s</p><p>laws are, or who will make them, whereas only a few of us get</p><p>to approve the textbooks for Hamburger University. Second,</p><p>although some will surely go on to have greater opportunity</p><p>to make further determinations about the law, its application,</p><p>and its enforcement, they do so as our delegates or agents. It’s</p><p>no easy thing to say what this relation of delegation requires.</p><p>But presumably it requires, at least, that our delegates be ac-</p><p>countable to us— something that Anderson stresses is rarely</p><p>the case in the firm. The underlying concern, in other words,</p><p>is that when the few, who aren’t delegates, issue and enforce</p><p>commands, or wield powers, to which the rest of us are subject,</p><p>that seems incompatible with relations of equality between</p><p>them and us— the sorts of relations of equality highlighted in</p><p>Anderson’s watershed 1999 article.</p><p>Some may think that this only pushes the problem back:</p><p>“If there’s a problem about being under an alien will, then why</p><p>isn’t there a problem about being under the democratic will?”</p><p>This complaint seems appropriate if you see the problem as</p><p>one of individual freedom; if the ideal is a kind of personal</p><p>insulation from any “alien will.” But it makes less sense if you</p><p>see the problem rather as one about equality: your symmetrical</p><p>standing with others. Granted, simply in virtue of being subject</p><p>106 chapter 5</p><p>to the state’s decisions, you’re still exposed to a will that— no</p><p>matter what Jean- Jacques Rousseau, in the Social Contract,</p><p>might have told you— is not really your own.8 But if the state</p><p>is realizing the democratic aspiration, then you’re not, simply</p><p>in virtue of being subject to its decisions, subordinated to any</p><p>other individual. There’s no one in society to whom you can</p><p>point and say, “Because she had more opportunity to influence</p><p>the decision than I have, I am, merely in being subjected to the</p><p>decision,</p><p>subordinated to her.” To be sure, this is no guarantee</p><p>the decisions will treat you well. But there’s no guarantee the</p><p>monsoon winds, or the market for piecework, will treat you</p><p>well either. Our question, again, is what’s especially problem-</p><p>atic about being under the governance of another person, after</p><p>we have controlled for things that you can suffer even without</p><p>that yoke.</p><p>So, I’ve tried to tease out two main suggestions about why</p><p>the “government” that the firm involves might be distinctively</p><p>objectionable. There’s a worry about some wielding powers</p><p>over others that lack an economic rationale, or an economic</p><p>rationale sufficient to trump the basic rights at stake. There’s a</p><p>worry about being subordinated, or put in relations of inferi-</p><p>ority, to other individuals. But how worrying are these worries</p><p>about the firm?</p><p>The rhetorical tendency of Anderson’s lecture is to equate</p><p>the situation of the employee with the situation of the political</p><p>subject, and so to demand for the employee everything that we</p><p>would demand for the subject. But surely she thinks that the</p><p>situation of the employee is different, and that the firm gets a</p><p>pass on some things a state wouldn’t. I doubt that she would</p><p>insist on workplace democracy, as she would for state democ-</p><p>racy. It scarcely seems possible for the firm to respect all of our</p><p>civil rights. Just take free choice of occupation itself. I shouldn’t</p><p>help wanted: subordinates 107</p><p>lose U.S. citizenship if I choose to be a dog walker rather than</p><p>a mouse impersonator, but surely Chuck E. Cheese’s can exile</p><p>me for that choice.</p><p>So, what puts the brakes on the rhetorical momentum to-</p><p>ward full equivalence? What makes acceptable from the firm</p><p>what would be unacceptable from the state: including oligarchy</p><p>and economically productive violations of what would other-</p><p>wise be civil liberties? Is it that the worst that Chuck E. Cheese’s</p><p>can do is exile me? That exile from Chuck E. Cheese’s isn’t, after</p><p>all, as costly? That I consented to the terms of employment in</p><p>a way in which I didn’t consent to U.S. citizenship? That the</p><p>firm itself is regulated by a legal order that I have equal oppor-</p><p>tunity to influence: that whatever hierarchy the firm involves</p><p>is ultimately controlled from a standpoint of equality? At one</p><p>point or another in the lecture, Anderson minimizes each of</p><p>these differences.9 My consent to this firm matters little, for ex-</p><p>ample, given that— as would be true even in our utopia— I must</p><p>consent to some firm. Yet ultimately, she must fall back on some</p><p>or all of these differences. Once we do stress these differences,</p><p>once we do apply these brakes, how close to the state does the</p><p>firm end up? And how seriously should we then be troubled</p><p>that our rights as employees are not like our rights as citizens?</p><p>I’m not sure what the answers are. But I am sure that we’re</p><p>in Anderson’s debt for spurring us to ask the questions.</p><p>108</p><p>Chapter 6</p><p>Work Isn’t So</p><p>Bad after All</p><p>Tyler Cowen</p><p>I am very much a fan of Elizabeth Anderson’s attempts to</p><p>synthesize philosophy and economics, but on the topic of her</p><p>Tanner entry my views diverge from hers. I see the economics</p><p>differently, and when it comes to the moral philosophy, I would</p><p>put the practical trade- offs front and center of the argument,</p><p>and allow them to shape the philosophy, rather than presenting</p><p>them as an afterthought.</p><p>I won’t summarize her views, but I will pull out one phrase</p><p>that is central to her piece— namely, she refers early on to “com-</p><p>munist dictatorships in our midst.” These communist dictators</p><p>are, in her account, private business firms. That description may</p><p>be deliberately hyperbolic, but nonetheless it reflects her atti-</p><p>tude that capitalist companies exercise a kind of unaccountable,</p><p>nondemocratic power over the lives of their workers, in a man-</p><p>ner that she considers to be extremely morally objectionable.</p><p>work isn’t so bad after all 109</p><p>As an individual who chose an academic job to maximize</p><p>some dimensions of my personal freedom, I sympathize with</p><p>parts of this portrait. Still, I would stress some very different</p><p>facts and features of the employment relationship.</p><p>For instance, I don’t worry so much about the dictatorial</p><p>power of companies if the costs of worker exit are relatively low.</p><p>To be sure, many workers grow attached to their current firms—</p><p>for instance, they may have friends there, a good relationship</p><p>with the boss, and a preferred commute. Still, the most likely</p><p>scenario is that such perks accumulate and the wages of these</p><p>workers fail to advance, due to employer financial exploitation.</p><p>That may be a problem, but it is hardly the dilemma outlined</p><p>by Anderson, which has more to do with insufficient worker</p><p>freedom.</p><p>Many corporate critics, including Anderson at the tail end</p><p>of her piece, postulate the existence of “monopsony”— namely,</p><p>that a single company has a good deal of market power of the</p><p>workers it employs. I am worried she, like others, doesn’t offer</p><p>much evidence to back up her portrait, save for one footnote</p><p>to an adequate but not very influential book. In contrast to her</p><p>treatment, the best study I know finds that Walmart— the largest</p><p>private sector employer in America— does not have significant</p><p>monopsony power in most regions, some parts of the rural south</p><p>and center excepted. The monopsony model of employment has</p><p>attracted some attention— much of it from Princeton, I might</p><p>add— but most economists assign it only a secondary status in</p><p>explaining labor markets. And without monopsony, we are back</p><p>to the idea of exit as helping to enforce a lot of worker freedoms.1</p><p>More generally, it is well recognized that larger firms pay</p><p>workers considerably more than do smaller firms. Strictly</p><p>speaking, this is not incompatible with a monopsony model</p><p>(for example, market power may cause wages to be bid up as a</p><p>110 chapter 6</p><p>large firm hires more), but it is a very different reality than what</p><p>Anderson communicates. Note also that larger firms tend to</p><p>be more tolerant of employee personal tastes than are smaller</p><p>firms. For instance, the local auto parts store, with its “ol’ boys</p><p>network,” may be reluctant to hire gays and minorities, but</p><p>McDonald’s has policies favoring tolerance, in part to protect</p><p>the broader reputation of the company with a wide variety of</p><p>customers. I would put those facts front and center of any ac-</p><p>count of the modern business corporation, but Anderson seems</p><p>to be offering a largely negative portrait of how business econo-</p><p>mies of scale interact with the personal freedoms of workers.2</p><p>It is worth noting that the monopsony model does not it-</p><p>self predict workers will enjoy less freedom or fewer perks in</p><p>the workplace. This sounds counterintuitive, as we associate</p><p>monopsony with lower bargaining power for workers and thus</p><p>inferior working conditions. But rest assured, I am offering the</p><p>correct reading of theory. Some time ago economists realized</p><p>that product monopoly does not predict lower product quality,</p><p>as profits may be maximized more readily at a higher product</p><p>quality level than a lower product quality level (for example,</p><p>you might rather monopolize diamonds than cheaper stones).</p><p>An analogous proposition holds for monopsony— namely, that</p><p>employers may improve workplace freedoms so that they may</p><p>lower worker wages all the more. And this isn’t just a theoretical</p><p>possibility, it seems in the real world, we see employers catering</p><p>to the job- quality preferences of the incumbents, rather than the</p><p>marginal new hires, really quite often. Or consider an employer</p><p>who would like to lure in more workers, but without bidding up</p><p>wages for all workers as a clumsy monopsonistic giant is likely</p><p>to do. Offering employees selective workplace freedoms is one</p><p>possible way to “wage discriminate” and increase company prof-</p><p>its. I’m not saying it has to work out this way, but it easily can.3</p><p>work isn’t so bad after all 111</p><p>So even if the monopsony assumptions are descriptively</p><p>“quasi- political</p><p>relations of ‘government’ between employers and employees</p><p>within the firm.” But, he asks, what exactly “disquiets us” about</p><p>these power relations and “what alternative social arrange-</p><p>ments, even in principle... could put us at ease?”</p><p>Part of the problem, argues Kolodny, is that while economic</p><p>enterprises often require managerial discretion, the resulting</p><p>power over workers can be used for unjustified purposes that</p><p>lack an economic rationale. And in addition, says Kolodny, we</p><p>may still find it objectionable to be governed by the boss’s dis-</p><p>cretion even when it is exercised only for justified purposes.</p><p>But why? Is it that personal rule is always worse than the rule</p><p>of general laws? Kolodny doubts that is the crux of the matter.</p><p>Markets are unpredictable, and require flexibility, and laws, on</p><p>the other hand, are made and administered by human beings.</p><p>The basic difference, he suggests, between workplaces and po-</p><p>litical rule is that, in a democracy, governing is undertaken by</p><p>delegates who are accountable to the citizens as equals: none is</p><p>subordinate to others. Democratic citizens stand symmetrically</p><p>with respect to one another in being governed and in having an</p><p>equal opportunity to hold governors accountable. In the work-</p><p>place, on the other hand, bosses may abuse their power and,</p><p>even when they do not, they wield unaccountable power over</p><p>workers, so workers are necessarily subordinate.</p><p>But, Kolodny asks in closing, how worrying is workplace</p><p>subordination? Is it equivalent to political subordination? Three</p><p>grounds suggest not. First, it is generally easier to leave a work-</p><p>place than one’s country; exit costs are lower. Second, we</p><p>introduction xv</p><p>enjoy a greater degree of consent about where we work as com-</p><p>pared with our country of membership. And, finally, workplace</p><p>governance is ultimately subject to political rule, and so, “con-</p><p>trolled from a standpoint of [democratic] equality.” In the end,</p><p>therefore, how troubled should we be that “our rights as em-</p><p>ployees are not like our rights as citizens?” Kolodny does not</p><p>hazard an answer but underlines these questions’ importance.</p><p>Finally, Tyler Cowen, an economist and a public commen-</p><p>tator, advances a broad critique of Anderson’s claims about the</p><p>extent of worker domination in today’s workplaces. He de-</p><p>nies— on both theoretical and empirical grounds— the accuracy</p><p>of describing private business firms as “communist dictator-</p><p>shipsin our midst.” He doubts that the costs of worker exit are</p><p>as high as Anderson claims, and further doubts that individual</p><p>firms enjoy much “monopsony” power over the workers they</p><p>employ. He suspects, to the contrary, that because so many</p><p>workers become attached to their particular workplaces— to</p><p>their co- workers and various perks— that the bigger problem</p><p>may be wage depression, rather than worker unfreedom. Even</p><p>companies with monopsony power over workers seem often to</p><p>cater to workers’ “job quality preferences.” Large firms in par-</p><p>ticular pay workers more and are generally protective of their</p><p>workers’ dignity and diversity: partly to guard the reputation</p><p>of the company, but also to attract and retain talented workers.</p><p>Cowen further notes that when businesses do police “out-</p><p>side the workplace” activity, it is often to protect the dignity and</p><p>“the freedom of the other workers” against, for example, racist or</p><p>sexist Facebook posts. Indeed, he argues that co- workers and</p><p>customers gain considerably from giving bosses discretion over</p><p>firing, and while there are undoubtedly abuses, he doubts the</p><p>abuses are widespread.</p><p>xvi introduction</p><p>Cowen emphasizes, finally, that every governance arrange-</p><p>ment involves trade- offs, and he worries that Anderson has not</p><p>taken sufficient account of these in proposing alternatives to the</p><p>current model. More broadly, he thinks Anderson exaggerates</p><p>current managerial abuses in the workplace and discounts the</p><p>extent to which today’s capitalist workplaces are “sources of</p><p>worker dignity, ...freedoms, ...pleasure and fulfillment.”</p><p>In her wide- ranging reply, Anderson offers some clarifica-</p><p>tions of her thesis and a vigorous rejoinder to her critics.</p><p>In response to Hughes and Bromwich, she affirms that mar-</p><p>ket society was harming some workers before the Industrial</p><p>Revolution. Her main interest is the evolving “free market ide-</p><p>ology” developed from the Levellers to Lincoln. She denies that</p><p>those earlier free market thinkers, such as Adam Smith, can be</p><p>understood as seeking to justify our commercial society. An-</p><p>derson insists that “the Industrial Revolution decisively under-</p><p>mined the model early egalitarians promoted, of how a market</p><p>society, with appropriate reforms, could liberate workers.” And</p><p>she observes, “The earlier thinkers are less to blame for vesting</p><p>their hopes in an ideal that was destroyed by unforeseeable</p><p>changes, than its current purveyors are for promulgating it in</p><p>a world it does not remotely describe, either currently or in</p><p>prospect.”</p><p>In response to Kolodny, Anderson allows that hierarchical</p><p>organization in the workplace is indispensible, but hierarchy</p><p>does not justify the sort of arbitrary and unaccountable author-</p><p>ity possessed by managers. Exercising autonomy in important</p><p>aspects of one’s life is, says Anderson, “a basic human need.”</p><p>Workers, she insists, should have a greater say in how their</p><p>workplaces are organized even if “full workplace democracy”</p><p>is infeasible.</p><p>introduction xvii</p><p>Against Cowen, Anderson allows that, of course, the “costs</p><p>and benefits of alternative workplace constitutions” must be</p><p>assessed, but she insists that the abuse of worker freedoms is far</p><p>more widespread than Cowen allows. Especially at the bottom</p><p>of workplace hierarchies, among less skilled workers, abuses</p><p>are rampant and include wage theft, unpredictable schedules,</p><p>and sexual harassment, even while “academic research on labor</p><p>is marginalized and underfunded.” The fundamental problem,</p><p>insists Anderson, is that “the amount of respect, standing, and</p><p>autonomy” that workers “get is roughly proportional to their mar-</p><p>ket value.” She insists against Cowen, in closing, that workers’</p><p>exit rights are not sufficient to assure their basic “dignity and</p><p>autonomy,” they also need “voice” or “some share of autonomy</p><p>in workplace decisions.”</p><p>This impressive volume, and the insights and debates it con-</p><p>tains, casts new light on power and justice in the workplace—</p><p>questions important to the lives of nearly all, but far too rarely</p><p>examined.</p><p>xviii introduction</p><p>xix</p><p>author’s Preface</p><p>Consider some facts about how employers today control their</p><p>workers. Walmart prohibits employees from exchanging casual</p><p>remarks while on duty, calling this “time theft.”1 Apple inspects</p><p>the personal belongings of their retail workers, who lose up to</p><p>a half- hour of unpaid time every day as they wait in line to be</p><p>searched.2 Tyson prevents its poultry workers from using the</p><p>bathroom. Some have been forced to urinate on themselves,</p><p>while their supervisors mock them.3 About half of U.S. em-</p><p>ployees have been subject to suspicionless drug screening by</p><p>their employers.4 Millions are pressured by their employers to</p><p>support particular political causes or candidates.5</p><p>If the U.S. government imposed such regulations on us, we</p><p>would rightly protest that our constitutional rights were being</p><p>violated. But American workers have no such rights against</p><p>their bosses. Even speaking out against such constraints can</p><p>get them fired. So most keep silent.</p><p>American public discourse is also mostly silent about the</p><p>regulations employers impose on their workers. We have the</p><p>language of fairness and distributive justice to talk about low</p><p>xx author’s preface</p><p>wages and inadequate benefits. We know how to talk about the</p><p>Fight for $15, whatever side of this issue we are on. But we don’t</p><p>have good ways to talk about the way bosses rule workers’ lives.</p><p>Instead, we talk as if workers aren’t ruled by their bosses.</p><p>relevant, they don’t connect very easily to the notion of an</p><p>absence of workplace freedom.</p><p>That all said, I readily grant the costs of exiting many jobs</p><p>are too high, and I would suggest focusing on the very concrete</p><p>question of how public policy could lower these costs. Health</p><p>insurance, retirement benefits, and immigration status are often</p><p>too closely tied to particular jobs, largely as artifacts of regula-</p><p>tion and tax law. For instance, we should level the playing field</p><p>for employer- supplied health insurance (ACA attempts to do</p><p>this partly with its “Cadillac tax”), and we should make immigra-</p><p>tion status for many workers less tied to remaining at particular</p><p>jobs. The reality is that many cases of worker dependence on</p><p>corporations spring from bad government decisions rather than</p><p>directly from markets or the nature of the corporate employ-</p><p>ment relationship.</p><p>It’s also worth challenging some of the fundamental prem-</p><p>ises of Anderson’s argument. This may sound counterintuitive</p><p>or even horrible to many people, but the economist will ask</p><p>whether workers might not enjoy “too much” tolerance and</p><p>freedom in the workplace, at least relative to feasible alterna-</p><p>tives. For every benefit, there is a trade- off, and the broader</p><p>employment offer as a whole might involve too little cash and</p><p>too much freedom and tolerance. To oversimplify a bit, at the</p><p>margin, an employer can pay workers more either with money</p><p>or with freedom and tolerance, which we more generally can</p><p>label as perks. Money is taxed, often at fairly high rates, whereas</p><p>the workplace perks are not; that’s one reason why a lot of Swed-</p><p>ish offices are pretty nice. It’s simple economics to see that, as</p><p>a result, the job ends up with too many perks and not enough</p><p>pay, relative to a social optimum. I doubt if our response to</p><p>this distorting tax wedge, which can be significant, should be</p><p>112 chapter 6</p><p>to increase the perks of the workers rather than focusing on</p><p>increasing their pay.</p><p>Arguably individual preferences are not morally sacrosanct</p><p>here, as philosophical notions of dignity and the like may in-</p><p>tervene, as Amartya Sen and others— including Elizabeth</p><p>Anderson— have argued in other contexts. Fair enough, but let’s</p><p>emphasize that individual preferences probably are pushing</p><p>fairly strongly in the direction of higher pay rather than higher</p><p>perks, given the initial tax distortion.4</p><p>I believe also that a business usually should have the right to</p><p>fire a worker for Facebook postings or other forms of “outside</p><p>the workplace” activity. For a start, a lot of workers put racist,</p><p>sexist, or otherwise discomforting comments and photos into</p><p>their Facebook pages. When employers fire them, very often it</p><p>is to protect some notion of the freedom of the other workers. As</p><p>I read Anderson, usually she frames the issues in terms of the</p><p>employer versus the workers. But through markets, employers</p><p>very often are internalizing the preferences of the workers as a</p><p>whole. The question of workplace freedom often boils down to</p><p>one set of the workers against another. In that setting, allowing</p><p>for a lot of apparently arbitrary firing decisions on net may sup-</p><p>port rather than oppose worker autonomy.</p><p>Overall, I find the perspective of the employer and also the</p><p>perspective of the customer to be lacking in her essay, as em-</p><p>ployers are mostly viewed as controlling workers or at least try-</p><p>ing to do so. There is a pretty simple law and economics story</p><p>that employer discretion is required because a lot of employee</p><p>transgressions and misbehaviors cannot be specified in easily</p><p>contractible or legally enforceable ways. At the margins, that</p><p>employer discretion leads to abuses, some of which are docu-</p><p>mented in Anderson’s piece. But those abuses are relatively few</p><p>in number, and the gains for workers and customers from the firing</p><p>work isn’t so bad after all 113</p><p>discretion— not just the gains for bosses— outweigh those costs.</p><p>Maybe this perspective is too simple, but Anderson never rebuts</p><p>it. The proffered instances of employer abuse are presented as a</p><p>prima facie argument against current arrangements, without a</p><p>sufficient look at the offsetting benefits of that discretion. Fur-</p><p>thermore, we are never told how many such cases of arbitrary</p><p>firings have occurred or how high their human costs have been.</p><p>I do not see the evidence that suggests such events are a major</p><p>concern of the American public.</p><p>Economists in fact have a pretty good but not perfect expla-</p><p>nation of why employers often have so much discretionary au-</p><p>thority over workers. The employers (often, not always) have a</p><p>more unique contribution to the value of the capital goods, and</p><p>thus they own the property rights to that capital, as outlined</p><p>by Sanford Grossman, Oliver Hart, and John Moore in a series</p><p>of papers.5 Ultimately, most workers benefit from this arrange-</p><p>ment, if only in their role as consumers; most people don’t</p><p>want their co- workers in charge of the ultimate disposition of</p><p>the capital goods. There is plenty of evidence that workers re-</p><p>quire some degree of external control, and often themselves</p><p>recognize this as such.6</p><p>That said, I do participate in a worker- owned firm myself—</p><p>namely, my Marginal Revolution blog with Alex Tabarrok,</p><p>which is owned by the two of us. As the main writers, we’re</p><p>the ones who add the value, and capital costs are very low, and</p><p>so this organizational form makes sense and indeed is predicted</p><p>by economics. Otherwise, I let my university pay me and, at</p><p>the same time, tell me I cannot have obscene material on my</p><p>computer, or perhaps I cannot blog or tweet very offensive</p><p>remarks (as defined by them), as a condition of continued em-</p><p>ployment. I’m happy with that mix, and in return I don’t have</p><p>to wear a suit and tie to work.</p><p>114 chapter 6</p><p>I’m not trying to argue that current arrangements represent</p><p>an ideal for everyone or even most people. But to evaluate such</p><p>questions, we need to build the trade- offs into our moral theory</p><p>at an earlier level than what I see Anderson doing.</p><p>Overall, corporate impositions on worker dignity aren’t</p><p>nearly as great as Anderson makes them out to be. Large num-</p><p>bers of employers go out of their way to make their companies</p><p>sources of worker dignity, precisely because workers and po-</p><p>tential workers value such freedoms and protections. The more</p><p>your company is viewed positively, the easier it is to recruit</p><p>talented workers. I don’t see that perspective getting enough</p><p>play. A lot of people don’t like working at home because they</p><p>receive too much pleasure and fulfillment from their work-</p><p>places, even though some conformity is expected. It is also well</p><p>known that unemployment has major negative effects on hap-</p><p>piness and health, far beyond what the lost income otherwise</p><p>would induce. Does this not indicate that workplaces, overall,</p><p>are significant sources of human dignity and fulfillment in to-</p><p>day’s capitalist world? I think so, yet Anderson never rebuts or</p><p>considers this side of the ledger. The desire to attract and keep</p><p>talent is the single biggest reason why companies try to create</p><p>pleasant and tolerant atmospheres for their workers, and why</p><p>it is rare for businesses to fire workers for their political views</p><p>or their (nondestructive) off- premises activities.</p><p>The contrast between business governance over workers</p><p>and political “rule of law” is a potentially misleading one. I</p><p>would note that under today’s American “rule of law,” if inter-</p><p>preted literally, the average American commits about three felo-</p><p>nies each day (for instance, throwing out junk mail addressed</p><p>to somebody else is a federal crime punishable with up to five</p><p>years in prison).7 Of course, most of us get off scot- free for these</p><p>and many other crimes. I do think we should clear away many</p><p>work isn’t so bad after all 115</p><p>of these laws, but in the meantime they reflect a broader point:</p><p>just about all workable systems rely on embedded incentives</p><p>to make them tolerable. In this</p><p>case, there is very little incen-</p><p>tive to prosecute each American for three felonies each day. I</p><p>am thus uncomfortable seeing arbitrary corporate governance</p><p>juxtaposed against a supposed objective or neutral ideal of the</p><p>rule of law, because the latter does not in fact exist and it is not</p><p>what protects our political liberties in practice.</p><p>Perhaps most of all, I find that a discussion of the alterna-</p><p>tives to current arrangements needs to come at the center of</p><p>the analysis, as the key questions are fundamentally compar-</p><p>ative ones. I would ask for a closer look at company bargains</p><p>with labor unions, co- ops owned and run by their workers, and</p><p>worker- managed firms. Overall, the literature shows that these</p><p>structures do not offer significantly greater freedom for workers,</p><p>at least not in the sense that Anderson describes. One reason</p><p>is that these organizational structures often are less efficient,</p><p>and that interferes with their ability to give workers a better</p><p>deal. Another mechanism is that when workers can get a better</p><p>deal, they often prefer to take cash rather than extra freedoms or</p><p>perks. Different organizational forms therefore do not seem to</p><p>be a significant answer to the problems of workplace freedom,</p><p>nor are unions.</p><p>In fact, there are some reasons why labor- managed firms</p><p>may give their workers less personal freedom. The old- style in-</p><p>vestment banking and legal partnerships expected their owner-</p><p>members to adhere to some fairly strict social and professional</p><p>codes, even outside the workplace. More generally, when work-</p><p>ers are motivated to monitor each other, through the holding of</p><p>equity shares, monitoring becomes easier and so corporations</p><p>engage in more of it. Again, the main issue is not controlling</p><p>bosses versus freedom- seeking workers.8</p><p>116 chapter 6</p><p>If there is a major problem that firms impose on workers, it</p><p>is when they prematurely or mistakenly “liberate” them from</p><p>the oppression of the workplace. Of course, I am talking about</p><p>unemployment. Most economists agree that, from a social point</p><p>of view, firms are too willing to lay off workers and too reluctant</p><p>to cut their nominal wages as a way of keeping workers on board</p><p>and making ends meet. And if you look at labor- managed firms,</p><p>the evidence bears out this hypothesis. When workers have a</p><p>say in governance, employment tends to be more stable and</p><p>wages tend to be more volatile.9 In other words, the real prob-</p><p>lem with bosses is that they are too willing to give up “control”</p><p>over their workers.</p><p>Anderson mentions the German codetermination model,</p><p>whereby workers sit on the boards of corporations. The best</p><p>study I know indicates that this organizational form costs about</p><p>26 percent of shareholder value because of lower productivity,10</p><p>and furthermore a lot of that burden is born by consumers, who</p><p>of course are mostly workers in another guise. And that result</p><p>is for Germany, the country where this organizational model</p><p>probably has been most successful. Furthermore, the codeter-</p><p>mination model works best for midlevel manufacturing firms—</p><p>which are prevalent in Germany— but does not generalize as</p><p>easily to the service sector, where most workers may have less</p><p>of a stake in the long- run interests of the firm.</p><p>In sum, I think Anderson’s portrait is too negative toward</p><p>business, too negative toward individual freedom as enjoyed</p><p>in corporate workplaces, and too unwilling to confront the</p><p>relevant trade- offs square on. The good news is that even the</p><p>nonacademics among us do not toil under the supervision of</p><p>communist dictators.</p><p>Response</p><p>119</p><p>Chapter 7</p><p>Reply to</p><p>Commentators</p><p>Elizabeth Anderson</p><p>I am grateful to receive such thoughtful responses from my</p><p>commentators, reflecting four different disciplines. This diver</p><p>sity is essential for coming to grips with the central problem I</p><p>raise in my lectures— the critique of an ideology that misrep</p><p>resents the situation of workers in the economy, and that is</p><p>thereby unable either to appreciate their complaints or to gen</p><p>erate and properly evaluate possible remedies. Ann Hughes,</p><p>a historian of seventeenth century England, and David Brom</p><p>wich, a scholar of English literature and historian of ideas of the</p><p>eighteenth century, helpfully remind us of those who lost out</p><p>in the transition to market society even before the Industrial</p><p>Revolution. They raise important questions about the ability</p><p>of the early pro market ideology to address the problems that</p><p>market society generated at the time it was promulgated. Niko</p><p>Kolodny, a philosopher, presses me to explain more fully what</p><p>120 chapter 7</p><p>is objectionable about being subject to the arbitrary power</p><p>of another. Tyler Cowen, an economist, stresses the need to</p><p>weigh the costs and benefits of different workplace governance</p><p>regimes. All of these perspectives deserve more discussion than</p><p>I have space to offer here. I thank them all for raising their con</p><p>cerns, and wish my replies to be taken in the spirit of continuing</p><p>the investigation of these issues, rather than as final answers.</p><p>The Divide between Pre– and Post– Industrial</p><p>Revolution Pro- Market Theory</p><p>It is difficult to recover what early egalitarian pro market think</p><p>ers believed, because our understanding of pro market ideol</p><p>ogy is so profoundly shaped by what it became in the nineteenth</p><p>century, in the hands of laissez faire ideologues and neoclassical</p><p>economists. The later ideology included several controversial</p><p>positions: support for the commodification of labor, notwith</p><p>standing its negative consequences for workers’ capacities and</p><p>social standing; neglect of, or support for, the distributiveconse</p><p>quences of markets, even when they concentrate their negative</p><p>effects on vulnerable and disadvantaged groups; support for</p><p>a property regime in which the income from land and capital</p><p>accrues exclusively to their individual owners; a narrow focus</p><p>on efficiency, economic growth, consumer satisfaction, and</p><p>profits as the sole criteria for evaluating markets; a belief that</p><p>the economy can be analyzed as a system of self regulating free</p><p>markets, operating by their own mechanical laws in isolation</p><p>from the rest of society, and that factor markets can be analyzed</p><p>just like consumer markets; and a belief that a system in which</p><p>individuals act solely for their self interest will, by the laws of</p><p>the market, produce benign outcomes for society at large. My</p><p>reply to commentators 121</p><p>early pro market thinkers, Locke and Smith included, believed</p><p>in none of these things.1</p><p>The difficulty is compounded by the fact that the predictions</p><p>early egalitarian pro market thinkers made about the effects</p><p>on workers of freeing up markets turned out to be mistaken.</p><p>It is all too easy to suppose that, because they supported free</p><p>markets, they must have endorsed the actual outcomes they</p><p>ultimately produced. Yet the Industrial Revolution effected a</p><p>great reversal in the expected outcomes of a broadly free mar</p><p>ket regime. The ideology that arose to rationalize these out</p><p>comes ignored most of the criteria my early thinkers used to</p><p>evaluate markets. Hence, to grasp what my early pro market</p><p>thinkers believed, we must take care not to project mid to</p><p>late nineteenth century laissez faire doctrine on to them. With</p><p>these precautions in mind, let us consider the comments of Ann</p><p>Hughes and David Bromwich.</p><p>Hughes and Bromwich stress that, while the rise of mar</p><p>ket society improved the condition of many masterless men</p><p>in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it delivered mis</p><p>erable poverty and desperate insecurity to many others. The</p><p>enclosure movement deprived many of access to land, leading</p><p>them to seek wage labor not because they preferred it to their</p><p>previous mode of existence, but because they were forced to</p><p>resort to it, having been deprived of their previous, preferred</p><p>way of life. Many lacked access even to steady wage labor and</p><p>had to obtain their subsistence by cobbling together</p><p>a set of</p><p>even more marginal strategies— a bit of putting out, poach</p><p>ing from forests, occasional day or itinerant labor, poor relief,</p><p>private charity, and so forth. Bromwich correctly notes that</p><p>shifts in trade, too, devastated whole communities before the</p><p>Industrial Revolution, with effects movingly depicted by Oliver</p><p>122 chapter 7</p><p>Goldsmith in 1770. Hughes and Bromwich suggest that the tim</p><p>ing of these developments, which took place long before the</p><p>Industrial Revolution, casts doubt on my argument: I can’t say</p><p>that everything went wrong with market society only with the</p><p>Industrial Revolution, given the ways it was already harming</p><p>workers long before.</p><p>I stress that my aim in these lectures is not to offer an as</p><p>sessment of market society at that time. Rather, I aim to un</p><p>derstand and assess an evolving market friendly ideology that</p><p>emerged before the Industrial Revolution. My argument is not</p><p>that the rise of market society was all good for workers until the</p><p>Industrial Revolution. It is that the Industrial Revolution deci</p><p>sively undermined the model early egalitarians promoted, of</p><p>how a market society, with appropriate reforms, could liberate</p><p>workers. Their ideology did not simply endorse all the changes</p><p>that were taking place in their times. They were troubled by</p><p>the emerging wage labor system, and of the immiseration and</p><p>stultification suffered by those subjected to it and to even worse</p><p>conditions, such as slavery and unemployment. Ideologies do</p><p>not simply describe and evaluate what exists. They promote</p><p>ideals yet to be realized, diagnose the obstacles in the way, and</p><p>suggest ways to remove those obstacles.</p><p>The ultimate ideal of this early market friendly ideology</p><p>was not wage labor, but self employment. Pro market think</p><p>ers from the Levellers through Lincoln diagnosed the obstacles</p><p>to realizing this ideal as stemming from a corrupt system by</p><p>which the state unjustly favored the powerful— the lords and</p><p>the court, monopolist traders and manufacturers, manipulative</p><p>financiers and bond traders, idle rentiers, parasitic occupants of</p><p>state sinecures, slaveowners— at the expense of workers, who</p><p>were actually or potentially self employed. They argued that the</p><p>miseries market society was then inflicting on the downtrodden</p><p>reply to commentators 123</p><p>could be addressed by breaking up monopolies, opening up</p><p>opportunities to trade to all workers, freeing workers from in</p><p>voluntary servitude, eliminating state cronyism, imperialism,</p><p>and the regressive taxes needed to fund it— in short, by freeing</p><p>up markets and ending forms of state regulation that rigged</p><p>the system in favor of the rich and powerful. By contrast, they</p><p>approved of state action that favored workers. Even Smith, the</p><p>supposed paragon of laissez faire ideology, argued that when</p><p>ever a regulation of “the differences between masters and their</p><p>workmen... is in favour of the workmen, it is always just and</p><p>equitable.”2</p><p>Consider pro market views of credit and debt in this light.</p><p>Hughes observes that the market/gift distinction was blurred</p><p>in seventeenth century credit relations. The scarcity of specie</p><p>put borrowers in a form of indebtedness to creditors that often</p><p>could not be discharged by cash payment. An element of sub</p><p>ordination, of duties to render higher respect and services in</p><p>kind, often accompanied receipt of a loan. But pro market think</p><p>ers did not simply approve of credit relations as they existed at</p><p>the time. They anticipated a better order to come by heighten</p><p>ing the cash nexus: far better to owe mere cash to a creditor than</p><p>to suffer debt peonage or bondage. Bankruptcy law, a great in</p><p>vention of the emerging capitalist order, enabled discharge of</p><p>an insolvent’s debts with the chance to start anew. This was a</p><p>vastly superior prospect to peonage or debtor’s prison.3</p><p>Property rights, too, were changing in this period. Hughes</p><p>and Bromwich note the catastrophe brought on the poor by</p><p>enclosures. The Levellers defended the customary rights of</p><p>the poor to the commons and to glean from property owned</p><p>by landlords, rather than the emerging regime, which con</p><p>centrated exclusive rights in single owners.4 Customary rights</p><p>might seem “anti market” insofar as they enabled the poor</p><p>124 chapter 7</p><p>to avoid resort to wage labor. Yet this is consistent with my</p><p>point that the early pro market view did not aim to promote</p><p>the commodification of labor. Rather, they hoped that with</p><p>the right reforms, the emerging market order would liberate</p><p>people from servitude, including wage labor, rendering it— in</p><p>Lincoln’s most optimistic vision— at most as only a temporary</p><p>stage of life. Among these reforms included massive assaults</p><p>on what were then considered inviolable rights of property,</p><p>including primogeniture, entail, chartered monopolies, and</p><p>slavery. Paine, too, with his revolutionary proposal for social</p><p>insurance funded through an inheritance tax, attacked the idea</p><p>that property owners were entitled to monopolize all the in</p><p>come from their property: rather, landowners owed a rent to</p><p>everyone else in society, payable upon their deaths.</p><p>The early pro market thinkers I discuss were not blind to</p><p>the fact that the emerging market order worsened conditions</p><p>for many workers, and that entry into labor markets was often</p><p>forced, not voluntary. They hoped, however, that an assault on</p><p>“corruption”— on the ways the state rigged the rules of markets</p><p>and property in favor of the rich and powerful at the expense</p><p>of ordinary workers— along with pro worker reforms, would</p><p>enable market society to benefit all, in large part by empower</p><p>ing people to rise from a state in which they labored for others</p><p>to one in which they worked for themselves. The pro worker</p><p>reforms they proposed beyond anti corruption measures var</p><p>ied. Smith advocated state funded education for workers.5</p><p>Paine proposed a comprehensive system of social insurance</p><p>and stakeholder grants for young adults. Lincoln won passage</p><p>of the Homestead Act of 1862, which handed out free land in</p><p>the territories to anyone who would work it. All opposed slav</p><p>ery and involuntary servitude.6</p><p>reply to commentators 125</p><p>They turned out to be mistaken. Eliminating corruption,</p><p>abolishing state established monopolies and involuntary ser</p><p>vitude, reforming property, and so forth were not enough to</p><p>deliver what the early pro market ideology promised. Smith’s</p><p>central premise, that economies of scale are negligible, so that</p><p>free markets would allocate land and capital to the self</p><p>em ployed worker, was dashed by the Industrial Revolution.7</p><p>Locke’s and Lincoln’s central premise, that virtually unlimited</p><p>amounts of free land would always be available to workers, was</p><p>doomed by population growth and the closure of the American</p><p>frontier.</p><p>In addition, even had all of their predictions been realized,</p><p>their egalitarian agenda was largely limited to white men. Not</p><p>withstanding their feminist sympathies, neither the Levellers</p><p>(as Hughes notes) nor Paine developed a plausible set of re</p><p>forms addressed to women. Smith and Lincoln neglected the</p><p>subjection of women altogether. None came fully to grips with</p><p>the evils of racism against blacks and indigenous peoples.</p><p>It is easy to see the flaws of an ideology in hindsight. It is</p><p>much harder to appreciate its promise at the time it was de</p><p>veloped. I argue not that the early pro market theorists were</p><p>correct, but that they had good reasons to believe at the time</p><p>that making markets more free, along with other reforms, would</p><p>liberate working people. In certain important respects, their</p><p>agenda was right. Who would prefer to return to the days of</p><p>primogeniture, merchant monopolies, serfdom, slavery, and</p><p>debtor’s prison? Paine’s arguments for comprehensive social</p><p>insurance, and Smith’s for state funded education, have been</p><p>vindicated as well. But my thinkers offered an inadequate an</p><p>swer to the problems suffered by wage laborers, because they</p><p>mistakenly</p><p>believed that, with pro market reforms, nearly all</p><p>126 chapter 7</p><p>would escape that condition. They can hardly be blamed for</p><p>failing to anticipate the Industrial Revolution and the resulting</p><p>inability of their reform agenda to address the problems faced</p><p>by workers who, to paraphrase Lincoln, were fixed in the con</p><p>dition of a wage laborer for life.</p><p>Thus, I take exception to Bromwich’s conclusion that the</p><p>early thinkers I discuss “rationalize but do not justify our own</p><p>market society.” They do not even rationalize it, since their</p><p>hopeful model of market society represented wage labor as a</p><p>minor and temporary resort for workers, rather than the central</p><p>institution it is for the vast majority of workers in today’s market</p><p>societies. The earlier thinkers are less to blame for vesting their</p><p>hopes in an ideal that was destroyed by unforeseeable changes,</p><p>than its current purveyors are for promulgating it in a world</p><p>it does not remotely describe, either currently or in prospect.</p><p>That is the error I seek to correct in my second lecture.</p><p>What’s Wrong with Subjection to</p><p>Another’s Private Government?</p><p>Niko Kolodny asks, “what’s especially problematic about being</p><p>under the governance of another person, after we have con</p><p>trolled for things that you can suffer even without that yoke?”</p><p>I stress that the focus of my lectures is not government as such.</p><p>This is inescapable in many domains, not just with respect to</p><p>the state. In the workplace, too, organizations with some kind</p><p>of internal hierarchy have proven indispensable for producing</p><p>numerous complex goods. That is the lesson of the Industrial</p><p>Revolution. My focus is private government— arbitrary, unac</p><p>countable authority. Against Kolodny, I would not set aside the</p><p>harms people can suffer from arbitrary, unaccountable gov</p><p>ernment that can also be brought about by other means. But</p><p>reply to commentators 127</p><p>I embrace his view that I have two fundamental objections to</p><p>private government. First, it makes those subject to it vulnerable</p><p>to unjustified and abusive forms of power— beyond whatever le</p><p>gitimate authority employers have. Second, private government</p><p>subjects people to social relations of inequality. What remains</p><p>to be explained is, what’s so bad about occupying the inferior</p><p>position in an unequal social relation?8 Let us consider the three</p><p>dimensions of inequality— authority, standing, and esteem— in</p><p>turn.</p><p>Kolodny argues that subjection to the authority of a task</p><p>master is no more vexing than subjection to tight natural con</p><p>straints inherent in the production process. The pieceworker</p><p>forced to adopt a relentless pace of work at home to earn enough</p><p>to survive suffers just as much as the factory worker ordered to</p><p>adopt a similarly relentless pace by her boss.9 I disagree. To see</p><p>the difference authority makes, consider the one day strike of</p><p>Skylab astronauts on December 28, 1973. Days before the strike,</p><p>NASA began sending extremely specific instructions about</p><p>minute by minute tasks for the astronauts to accomplish....</p><p>They tried to keep up for two weeks but found themselves</p><p>falling behind, as there was no room in the schedule for the</p><p>natural delays that happen at work. Moreover, they were</p><p>exhausted with these 16 hour days. When they fell behind,</p><p>NASA began demanding less sleep and working through</p><p>their meal breaks. So the astronauts began to complain to</p><p>Mission Control. But NASA’s response was that they were</p><p>whining.. . . [Mission Commander Gerry] Carr and his</p><p>crew demanded a day off. NASA refused. So Carr simply</p><p>shut off the radio and the astronauts took the day off they</p><p>wanted.... After the 1 day strike, NASA finally came to</p><p>terms with the astronauts. The next day, December 29,</p><p>128 chapter 7</p><p>NASA agreed to quit micromanaging the astronauts, al</p><p>lowed them to take their full meal breaks, and just send</p><p>them a list of tasks for the day and let them figure out how to</p><p>get it done. You know, treat them like adults. And it worked.</p><p>All the projects got done before the mission ended.10</p><p>Exercising autonomy— directing oneself in tasks, no matter</p><p>how exacting and relentless they are— is no ordinary good. It</p><p>is a basic human need. No production process is inherently so</p><p>constrained as to eliminate all exercise of autonomy. Elimina</p><p>tion of room for autonomy is the product of social design, not</p><p>nature. It is not merely “unpleasant” to be denied a rest break</p><p>when one needs it. When some authority denies it (as opposed</p><p>to when some natural constraint prevents it), the restriction</p><p>demeans one’s agency. Having a genuine say in how one’s work</p><p>is directed, even when one must adjust to the claims of others,</p><p>as in a collectively governed workplace, and even when one</p><p>doesn’t get one’s way, still is an exercise of autonomy in the</p><p>decision making process, if not the outcome.</p><p>Now consider inequalities of standing and esteem. The two</p><p>are closely related. Let’s peek inside Amazon warehouses to see</p><p>how the company treats its employees and temps. The pace of</p><p>work is unremitting. Workers are reprimanded for “time theft”</p><p>when they pause to catch their breath after an especially dif</p><p>ficult job.11 They are subjected to ever increasing quotas, con</p><p>stantly yelled at for not making their quotas, threatened daily</p><p>with discharge, and eventually fired when the required pace</p><p>gets too high for them to meet— a fate of the vast majority of</p><p>Amazon’s hires. But not before they suffer injury on the job:</p><p>workers have to get on hands and knees hundreds of times per</p><p>day, a practice that leaves few unscathed. Amazon forces them</p><p>to sign papers affirming that their injuries are not work related,</p><p>reply to commentators 129</p><p>or they are given demerits that can lead to discharge. In 2011,</p><p>at its Allentown, Pennsylvania, warehouse, Amazon allowed</p><p>the indoor heat index to rise to 102 degrees. When employees</p><p>asked to open the loading doors to let air circulate— a common</p><p>practice at other warehouses— Amazon refused, claiming this</p><p>would lead to employee theft. Instead, it parked ambulances</p><p>outside, waiting for employees to collapse from heat stroke.</p><p>When they did, they would be given demerits for missing work,</p><p>and fired if they accumulated too many. Amazon didn’t care,</p><p>because regional unemployment was high, and they had hun</p><p>dreds of applicants to replace the fallen workers. Other ware</p><p>houses are not so brutal: they are ventilated, install ergonomic</p><p>equipment, and have a more manageable pace.12 But Amazon</p><p>refuses to take workers’ complaints seriously. They are accused</p><p>of being “selfish” for complaining, and told their only concern</p><p>should be taking care of the customer.13</p><p>This is a paradigm of unequal standing: workers’ inter</p><p>ests count for nothing in Amazon’s eyes. Only the customers’</p><p>interests— and its own, which it asserts in hiding behind its</p><p>customers— count.14 The issue here isn’t only that these con</p><p>ditions impair workers’ health. In some circumstances, such as</p><p>firefighting, exposure to dangerous conditions is unavoidable.</p><p>The issue is inequality: Amazon treats workers’ vital interests</p><p>as of no account, in comparison with its own and its customers’</p><p>relatively trifling interests. Its sickening working conditions, un</p><p>like the firefighters’, are gratuitously imposed. This inequality</p><p>inflicts an expressive injury on the workers, over and above the</p><p>material injury of illness. Adam Smith understood this point:</p><p>What chiefly enrages us against the man who injures or in</p><p>sults us, is the little account which he seems to make of</p><p>us, the unreasonable preference which he gives to himself</p><p>130 chapter 7</p><p>above us, and that absurd self– love, by which he seems to</p><p>imagine, that other people may be sacrificed at any time,</p><p>to his conveniency or his humour. The glaring impropriety</p><p>of this conduct, the gross insolence and injustice which it</p><p>seems to involve in it, often shock and exasperate us more</p><p>than all the mischief which we have suffered.15</p><p>Private government at work embeds</p><p>inequalities in authority,</p><p>standing, and esteem in the organizations upon which people</p><p>depend for their livelihood. Those consigned to the status of</p><p>wage worker for life have no real way out: while they can quit</p><p>any given employer, often at great cost and risk, they cannot</p><p>opt out of the wage labor system that structurally degrades and</p><p>demeans them.</p><p>Kolodny rejects the rule of law as an illusion: all laws are</p><p>made by people. Quite right, but this does not mean that the</p><p>rule of law does not constrain people. And the point of the</p><p>rule of law is to constrain the governors, not the governed.16</p><p>To have to follow due process in making and enforcing laws,</p><p>and in applying sanctions, provides vital protections against</p><p>abuses of governors’ discretionary power. It thereby gives those</p><p>subject to the law a structural standing and respectability that</p><p>they would otherwise lack. Thus, I do not endorse Kolodny’s</p><p>thought that all that matters is who makes the decisions. Even</p><p>a direct democracy with majority voting would need to follow</p><p>rule of law constraints to avoid degenerating into unjust rule.</p><p>Kolodny wonders, given the analogy I draw between state</p><p>and workplace governance, why I don’t simply endorse full</p><p>workplace democracy. My fundamental reason is pragmatism:</p><p>there are enough disanalogies between state and workplace</p><p>governance that our experiences with democratic states do not</p><p>give us enough information about what arrangements are likely</p><p>reply to commentators 131</p><p>to make sense for the workplace. In most workplaces, employ</p><p>ees’ activities need to be closely coordinated around both means</p><p>and ends. Nothing close to that level of coordination among cit</p><p>izens is required to enable liberal states to supply public goods.</p><p>Furthermore, the traditional model of workplace democracy</p><p>assumed that workers would own the firm. Worker ownership</p><p>is far out of reach for most firms, given the size of capital in</p><p>vestment needed. It would be imprudent to advise most work</p><p>ers to invest all their savings in their workplace even if they</p><p>could thereby own them. If owners are distinct from workers,</p><p>workplace governance will also have to be made ac countable</p><p>to owners to ensure that their investment is not squandered.</p><p>Finally, as I note in my second lecture, the experiments with</p><p>workplace democracy that have been undertaken suggest that</p><p>designing a viable democratic system of workplace governance</p><p>is challenging: workers with heterogeneous interests have a hard</p><p>time agreeing to a common constitution.</p><p>A priori arguments cannot settle what a just constitution of</p><p>workplace governance would look like. It is possible that differ</p><p>ent types of workplace will best operate under different consti</p><p>tutions. We need to experiment to learn the costs and benefits</p><p>of different forms of workplace governance. The main point I</p><p>have argued in these lectures is that the problem of workplace</p><p>governance needs to be put on the table for what it is: a problem</p><p>of government, not of markets or “freedom of contract.”</p><p>How Should We Evaluate the Constitution</p><p>of Workplace Government?</p><p>Tyler Cowen raises some fundamental questions about the</p><p>grounds for evaluating the constitution of workplace gover</p><p>nance. To address them, I need to clarify the argument of my</p><p>132 chapter 7</p><p>lectures. At points, Cowen interprets me as objecting to large</p><p>scale workplaces, and to the existence of authority within such</p><p>workplaces. Had I endorsed the early pro market ideology that</p><p>I discuss in Lecture 1, I would object. But the point of my lec</p><p>tures is ideology critique, in two parts. In Lecture 1, I argue</p><p>that the ideal of a free society of equals based on universal self</p><p>employment failed in its own terms, due to its dependence on</p><p>patriarchal appropriation of women’s labor and racist appro</p><p>priation of Native American lands. The ideal was also doomed</p><p>by the vast economies of scale brought about by the Industrial</p><p>Revolution. In Lecture 2, I criticize the legacies of that ideal</p><p>in contemporary American public discourse. These legacies</p><p>include the ideas that all state regulation of the economy is an</p><p>infringement on individual liberty, that the state is the only</p><p>form of government, that our basic choices with respect to or</p><p>ganizing production are between the state and the market, that</p><p>individuals are free from control and authority in “the private</p><p>sector,” that the organization of work is a product of free con</p><p>tracts between workers and employers that optimally reflects</p><p>their preferences, such that employees are equivalent to self</p><p>employed independent contractors in the autonomy they enjoy.</p><p>I argue that these legacies are anachronistic holdovers that pre</p><p>tend that the hopes of the earlier pro market ideal had actu</p><p>ally been realized, without clearly recognizing how the earlier</p><p>ideal depended on an economic system of nearly universal self</p><p>employment. The deployment of this earlier discourse about</p><p>market society in our current world masks the actual subjection</p><p>of most workers to private government, and misrepresents our</p><p>actual options by taking off the table a large set of concerns and</p><p>possibilities for dealing with them. My lectures aim to expose</p><p>this reality, put the constitution of workplace government back</p><p>on the table as a subject for political discussion, and challenge</p><p>reply to commentators 133</p><p>the dominant constitution of workplace government, which</p><p>assigns arbitrary and unaccountable power to employers.</p><p>I don’t wish to attempt to realize the failed ideal of earlier</p><p>pro market thinkers. I embrace the prosperity that can only be</p><p>achieved through large scale workplaces, and accept that the</p><p>only feasible way to govern such complex workplaces involves a</p><p>hierarchy of offices, and hence of authority. So I don’t object to</p><p>government— authority— in the workplace. Cowen argues that</p><p>owners or managers have certain kinds of expertise in working</p><p>with the firm’s capital that justifies their having authority. To</p><p>the extent that this is true, it justifies their holding limited au</p><p>thority within the firm. I object, not to limited government, but</p><p>to private government— the subjection of workers to arbitrary,</p><p>unaccountable government, in which they have no voice other</p><p>than what their employers care to give them (which is often</p><p>none at all) and are vulnerable to abuses of power. A free soci</p><p>ety of equals cannot be founded on an institutional structure in</p><p>which the vast majority of workers for most of their productive</p><p>lives labor under such government.</p><p>The point of my lectures is to clear the ideological ground</p><p>so that we can put issues of workplace governance on the po</p><p>litical agenda, and to provide a framework— the idea of private</p><p>government— within which to articulate what is problematic</p><p>about the dominant constitution of workplace governance. I do</p><p>not propose to solve the question of what the best workplace</p><p>constitution ought to be. I discuss four ways to promote the</p><p>freedom and equality of workers: exit, rule of law constraints on</p><p>employers, constitutional rights, and voice. I argue that the first</p><p>three alone are not sufficient— workers need some voice within</p><p>the workplace to protect against employer abuses of power,</p><p>and, more generally, to empower them to assert their standing,</p><p>respectability, and autonomy interests in the workplace. But</p><p>134 chapter 7</p><p>I leave open for further investigation and experimentation</p><p>the ways that voice is best institutionalized. I also leave open</p><p>the question of how to balance the four different means for</p><p>supporting the freedom and equality of workers. I agree with</p><p>Cowen that consideration of costs and benefits is relevant to</p><p>this question.</p><p>We disagree on two fundamental questions. First, are the</p><p>problems I identify with workplace governance so rare that it is</p><p>not worth considering alterations of its constitution to address</p><p>them? Cowen doubts whether significant numbers of workers</p><p>have it so bad under private government. Second,</p><p>how should</p><p>we determine the costs and benefits of alternative workplace</p><p>constitutions? Cowen implicitly accepts individual worker and</p><p>employer choices within the current constitution of workplace</p><p>governance as the measure of what they want.</p><p>Consider first the extent of the problem. I am not surprised</p><p>that Cowen— a highly esteemed superstar tenured academic</p><p>with wages, job security, working conditions, autonomy, and</p><p>esteem near the peak of what is available for nonexecutive em</p><p>ployees in the United States— is delighted with how great the</p><p>wage labor system works for him. The people with whom he is</p><p>likely acquainted, similarly occupying the top few percent of</p><p>the system, are no doubt similarly pleased. However, it appears</p><p>that he has little notion of what work is like for those at the bot</p><p>tom of the workplace hierarchy, who mostly labor out of public</p><p>view. As an economist, he also has a professional bias against</p><p>taking qualitative information, such as workers’ narratives and</p><p>articulated complaints, seriously. He could start by reading</p><p>Barbara Ehrenreich’s reporting on what it is like to work as</p><p>a low wage worker in a restaurant, elder care facility, and in</p><p>retail.17 Half of all U.S. workers make less than $29,000 annu</p><p>ally.18 I’m guessing that’s about one tenth of Cowen’s income.</p><p>reply to commentators 135</p><p>Has he bothered to check what working conditions are like for</p><p>workers in the bottom half, who toil in agriculture, slaughter</p><p>houses, janitorial services, restaurant work, warehouses, call</p><p>centers, retail sales, domestic service, elder care, the garment</p><p>industry, prisons, yard work, and unskilled construction and</p><p>manufacturing work?</p><p>Aggregate statistics are hard to come by, because com</p><p>plaints about employer abuse and oppressive working condi</p><p>tions are so diverse, and cross industry surveys on qualitative</p><p>issues are expensive and rare. Moreover, academic research on</p><p>labor is marginalized and underfunded, as workers themselves</p><p>are. Here are some indications. Among restaurant workers,</p><p>90 percent report being subject to sexual harassment.19 Be</p><p>tween 2007 and 2012, the Department of Labor conducted</p><p>more than 1,500 investigations of garment factories in Southern</p><p>California, discovering labor violations, including “sweatshop</p><p>like conditions,” 93 percent of the time.20 A recent study of</p><p>workers in the poultry industry found that the “vast major</p><p>ity” were not allowed adequate bathroom breaks. Many are</p><p>forced to wear diapers. Employers threaten to fire workers</p><p>who complain, indicating that their free speech as well as their</p><p>basic physiological needs and dignity are infringed by their em</p><p>ployer.21 This is just one part of a long and continuing struggle</p><p>by workers in the United States to gain the right to use the</p><p>bathroom at work— a right workers in other rich countries have</p><p>long taken for granted.22</p><p>A recent study, based on a survey of managers and employ</p><p>ees, estimates that about seven million workers have been pres</p><p>sured by their bosses to favor some political candidate or issue,</p><p>by threats of job loss, wage cuts, or plant closure.23 OSHA relies</p><p>on employers to report the millions of cases of worker injuries</p><p>and thousands of deaths suffered by workers each year. Although</p><p>136 chapter 7</p><p>these harms cannot all be attributed to workplace authoritari</p><p>anism, underreporting can: a Government Accounting Office</p><p>study found that 67 percent of occupational health practitioners</p><p>observed “worker fear of disciplinary action for reporting an</p><p>injury or illness.”24 Both workers’ safety and their freedom of</p><p>speech are thereby compromised by dictatorship at work. The</p><p>same report also finds that more than one third of occupational</p><p>health practitioners were pressured by employers to underdi</p><p>agnose and undertreat worker injuries so as to avoid reporting</p><p>requirements (as minor injuries do not have to be reported to</p><p>OSHA).25</p><p>Employers unilaterally determine work schedules, with no</p><p>employee input for half of all early career employees. The results—</p><p>including unpredictable schedules (41 percent of workers), fluc</p><p>tuating and short notice on call and split shift work (where</p><p>employees are sent home and called back the same day)— wreak</p><p>havoc with the private lives of workers: they can’t arrange child</p><p>care, can’t clear their schedules to take college classes or take on</p><p>a second job needed to cover necessary expenses, and are left</p><p>with unpaid junk time on their hands in the middle of the day,</p><p>often hours from home, and with no opportunity to spend it with</p><p>friends and family.26</p><p>Walmart, which employs nearly 1 percent of the U.S. labor</p><p>force (1.4 million workers), is notorious for assigning unreli</p><p>able schedules to workers. Yet, it is telling that OURWalmart, a</p><p>nonunion workers’ organization dedicated to improving work</p><p>ing conditions at Walmart, stands for Organization United for</p><p>Respect: members are concerned not simply with wages and</p><p>hours, but with being treated respectfully. A leading complaint</p><p>of Walmart workers is rude and abusive managers, who scream</p><p>at and harass them to get them to work harder. This abusiveness</p><p>may be due to the fact that lower level managers themselves are</p><p>reply to commentators 137</p><p>assigned work goals without any consideration of what it takes</p><p>to meet them, and are constantly harassed by upper manage</p><p>ment for not working hard enough.27</p><p>This doesn’t even describe the very bottom of America’s</p><p>wage labor system. That is occupied by immigrants, both with</p><p>visas for low wage work and undocumented. Often the former</p><p>are forced by their employers to stay past their visa expiration,</p><p>because those same employers have confiscated their passports</p><p>and threatened them with arrest or worse. One U.S. State De</p><p>partment investigation found that “30 percent of migrant la</p><p>borers surveyed in one California community were victims of</p><p>labor trafficking and 55 percent were victims of labor abuse.”28</p><p>Given that there are many million migrant and/or undocu</p><p>mented workers in the United States, it is reasonable to sup</p><p>pose that the number of victims range from the hundreds of</p><p>thousands to a few million. Abuses include fraud, being forced</p><p>to work without pay, rape and sexual harassment, beatings,</p><p>torture, confinement to the workplace and to squalid housing</p><p>for which extortionate rent is charged, exhausting hours, iso</p><p>lation, religious compulsion, and psychological manipulation</p><p>and intimidation.29 Affected industries include “hotel services,</p><p>hospitality, sales crews, ag riculture, manufacturing, janitorial</p><p>services, construction, health and elder care, and domestic ser</p><p>vice.”30 Oh, and also restaurants.31 This list of industries, which</p><p>collectively employ tens of millions of workers, is telling. Cut</p><p>tingacross diverse sectors of the economy, it indicates not only</p><p>where vulnerable immigrants, but where U.S. citizens working</p><p>in the same places, are liable to suffer serious assaults in their</p><p>autonomy, standing, and esteem.</p><p>I could go on. Volumes could be filled with cases of worker</p><p>abuse in the United States today. When many millions of work</p><p>ers suffer harassment, abuse, disrespect, and severe constraints</p><p>138 chapter 7</p><p>on their autonomy, even when off duty, and when it is plain</p><p>that neither state laws nor market orderings are sufficient to</p><p>deal with these problems, isn’t it time to seriously consider how</p><p>empowering workers with voice can improve the situation?</p><p>Cowen won’t hear of it. He thinks the costs of sweeping,</p><p>unaccountable employer authority outweigh the benefits. Let’s</p><p>set aside his fallacious arguments— that unemployment is even</p><p>worse, that employers sometimes censor workers’ off duty</p><p>speech for good reasons. That some conditions are even worse</p><p>than living under dictatorship, and that dictators sometimes</p><p>make decisions that most people like, hardly justifies this form</p><p>of government. Fundamentally, our disagreement comes down</p><p>to how to evaluate private government at work.</p><p>This depends</p><p>on a disagreement over what institutions are best to judge these</p><p>matters. Cowen believes that the market decides best. I believe</p><p>that existing market orderings are distorted by the state’s prior</p><p>allocation of unaccountable power to employers over employ</p><p>ees. Market outcomes thereby grossly undervalue the costs to</p><p>workers of private government. Let’s see how this works in re</p><p>lation to Cowen’s four arguments that the market is the best</p><p>judge of the values at stake: employer competition for workers,</p><p>compensating differentials, worker exit, and efficiency.</p><p>Cowen argues that employers have to compete for talent,</p><p>and this makes them respect workers’ autonomy and dignity.</p><p>“The desire to attract and keep talent is the single biggest reason</p><p>why companies try to create pleasant and tolerant atmospheres</p><p>for their workers.” I agree with his statement: when workers</p><p>are respected by their employers, this is the main reason why.</p><p>It doesn’t follow that all workers do get respected by their em</p><p>ployers. Rather, the amount of respect, standing, and autonomy</p><p>they get is roughly proportional to their market value. Employers</p><p>don’t have to compete for workers who aren’t scarce: those</p><p>reply to commentators 139</p><p>who are unskilled, inexperienced, living in areas with high un</p><p>employment, or with other liabilities, such as an arrest record</p><p>or a disability. That’s a lot of workers. Blacks, for example, who</p><p>are about 12 percent of the labor force, suffer from virtually</p><p>permanent double digit unemployment rates. Workers of all</p><p>races who live in towns devastated from plant closures due to</p><p>competition from abroad also suffer from high unemployment,</p><p>because their mobility is low.32 Much of the time, the entire</p><p>economy operates in periods of substantial unemployment or</p><p>underemployment, affecting workers generally: even if they</p><p>have a job, the cost of job loss is so high they have to put up</p><p>with nearly any abuse just to hang on to an income. Meanwhile,</p><p>employers use their power to design workplaces to create a</p><p>fine grained division of labor in which workers are deskilled</p><p>and thus easily replaceable.</p><p>Cowen argues that workers get compensated with higher</p><p>wages when employers impose adverse working conditions on</p><p>them, and that, if anything, the tax code biases the market in</p><p>favor of too many “perks” and not enough wages. I don’t think we</p><p>should trivialize basic requirements of human dignity and well</p><p>being, such as freedom to use the bathroom, as mere “perks.”</p><p>Cowen also ignores how the state has countered its purported</p><p>tax bias by placing a very heavy thumb on the scales against</p><p>worker autonomy, standing, and dignity, through its legal estab</p><p>lishment of dictatorship as the default constitution of workplace</p><p>governance. Still, Cowen is correct that some high wage workers</p><p>enjoy some compensation for bad conditions, such as grueling</p><p>hours. I have explained elsewhere that even when they do, this</p><p>does not account for all their concerns. They still retain an in</p><p>terest in having a say over their working conditions.33</p><p>Here I stress a different point: I doubt whether Cowen’s</p><p>model applies across the entire spectrum of wage labor. For the</p><p>140 chapter 7</p><p>most part, lower paid workers suffer from higher levels of dis</p><p>respect, harassment, terrible working conditions, and offensive</p><p>restraints on autonomy than higher paid workers. Moreover,</p><p>heightening the profit motive makes things worse all around</p><p>for these workers. For example, when prisons are converted</p><p>from public to private, for profit enterprises, guards simulta</p><p>neously suffer huge wage cuts and large increases in violent</p><p>assaults by prisoners, because their employers also cut staffing</p><p>levels so low that not enough guards are available to control the</p><p>prisoners.34 Inmate attacks on staff in federal prisons increase</p><p>by 260 percent.35</p><p>Cowen’s confidence that workers are somehow compen</p><p>sated with higher wages for putting up with gross insults to their</p><p>dignity, standing, and autonomy is belied by the staggering</p><p>scale of wage theft in America. Wage theft is pervasive among</p><p>low wage construction, restaurant, garment, nursing home,</p><p>agriculture, and poultry workers, and affects many middle</p><p>class workers as well.36 One estimate from a business- funded</p><p>think tank indicated an annual wage theft tab at $19 billion in</p><p>2004— likely a gross underestimate, given its source.37 Another</p><p>estimate puts the tab at $50 billion in 2014, affecting two thirds</p><p>of workers in low wage industries, costing them nearly 15 per</p><p>cent of their total earnings. This is more than three times the</p><p>amount of all other thefts in the United States.38 If employers</p><p>have so little regard for their employees that they steal their</p><p>wages, how likely is it that they are making it up to them by</p><p>according them better working conditions? The more plausible</p><p>model, supported by observation of what work is like for the</p><p>bottom half (at least), is that employers’ contempt for workers’</p><p>basic dignity, standing, and autonomy is simultaneously ex</p><p>pressed in the low wages they pay and the appalling conditions</p><p>reply to commentators 141</p><p>they force their employees to endure. The scale of wage theft</p><p>also supports the claim that private government has an inher</p><p>ent tendency to overstep its legal bounds. In the absence of</p><p>internal checks by which workers can hold their employers</p><p>accountable, employers will not merely exercise the authority</p><p>they have by law, but abuse their power.</p><p>To the extent that Cowen is willing to concede these prob</p><p>lems, his sole suggested remedy is to enhance workers’ powers</p><p>of exit. I am glad to see him, if only by implication, climb on</p><p>board the campaign to abolish noncompete clauses, which for</p><p>bid workers from taking their human capital with them when</p><p>they quit. And I wholeheartedly agree with him on the urgency</p><p>of guaranteeing exit rights to immigrants on work visas. Never</p><p>theless, the suggestion that enhancing exit rights alone would</p><p>be sufficient to deal with the problems I have documented is</p><p>not credible. What jobs are workers supposed to exit to? When</p><p>90 percent of waitresses experience sexual harassment, they</p><p>have no reliable place to escape it, other than by leaving their</p><p>industry specific skills behind— and even then, not so much,</p><p>since sexual harassment exists in all industries. Add to this the</p><p>problems of unemployment, underemployment, ineligibility</p><p>for unemployment insurance for “voluntary” quits, and it’s easy</p><p>to see how unhelpful “why don’t you just leave?” is as advice</p><p>to workers. When workers have only exit rights and no voice,</p><p>this amounts to a grant to the dictatorial employer to harvest</p><p>the entire “producer’s surplus”— all the benefits that make their</p><p>job better than workers’ next best alternative— that would oth</p><p>erwise accrue to workers before the job gets so intolerable that</p><p>they quit. Indeed, given the uncertainties about whether con</p><p>ditions would be better elsewhere (extremely difficult for non</p><p>employees to determine), and the steep costs of job loss under</p><p>142 chapter 7</p><p>any realistic scenario, an exit rights only regime in effect grants</p><p>to dictatorial employers the power to appropriate considerably</p><p>more than the workers’ producer surplus before they leave.</p><p>Cowen’s final appeal is to “efficiency.” He worries that we</p><p>can’t have nice things if workers don’t submit to the dictatorial</p><p>power of their employers. This is the same argument British</p><p>West Indies sugar growers made in Parliament in defense of</p><p>slavery, during the debates over abolition.39 Even considered</p><p>in its own terms, the argument is highly dubious. Cowen cites</p><p>a single study suggesting that the German system of codeter</p><p>mination depresses profits. Supposing that profits are lower</p><p>under the German system, the wonder is why this isn’t seen as</p><p>a point in favor of the Germans, in that the people who actually</p><p>do the work enjoy greater shares of the pie. Cowen thinks it is a</p><p>point against, because</p><p>it depresses productivity. The evidence is</p><p>mixed. Some studies find that codetermination has positive or</p><p>neutral effects on productivity, at least in larger firms.40 I sug gest</p><p>that if productivity effects are that hard to consistently detect,</p><p>they are probably not significant.</p><p>Cowen notes that “when workers have a say in governance,</p><p>employment tends to be more stable and wages tend to be more</p><p>volatile.” This is a striking concession, given that the U.S. econ</p><p>omy has had a chronic tendency to unemployment or underem</p><p>ployment. There is no greater waste, from an efficiency point of</p><p>view, than unemployment. Moreover, the neat efficiency claims</p><p>about market allocations in any given market apply only in the</p><p>context of full employment. Finally, it is worth noting that the</p><p>powers employers routinely exercise vastly exceed any author</p><p>ity that could be justified on efficiency or any other grounds.</p><p>None of the sexual harassment suffered by workers improves</p><p>productivity. It’s a sheer abuse of power, and a massive dead</p><p>reply to commentators 143</p><p>weight loss of utility, even if we view matters solely in terms of</p><p>efficiency.</p><p>We should reject Cowen’s terms in any event. Economic</p><p>concepts of efficiency accept current endowments of property</p><p>rights as the normative baseline against which to measure im</p><p>provements. Precisely what is contested here are the baseline</p><p>governance rights attached to capital ownership. Cowen thus</p><p>begs the question in favor of workplace dictatorship by choos</p><p>ing efficiency as his measure. Moreover, the decision to adopt</p><p>efficiency as measured by market outcomes is a decision to</p><p>value workers’ interests in inverse proportion to their marginal</p><p>utility of wealth.41 By that perverse measure, the most trifling</p><p>interests of the wealthy can outweigh the most vital and fun</p><p>damental interests of the poor.</p><p>I advocate a different way to determine the value of workers’</p><p>dignity and autonomy: let workers speak for themselves in the</p><p>context of a system of workplace governance in which they have</p><p>a voice. The successful implementation of voice in European</p><p>systems of codetermination already demonstrates that empow</p><p>ering workers in this way is both feasible and compatible with</p><p>an extraordinarily high level of prosperity. My point is not to</p><p>endorse the German model of codetermination. There is plenty</p><p>of room to experiment with alternative constitutions that guar</p><p>antee workers’ voices, and to consider the costs and benefits of</p><p>these alternatives. My point is also not to impose any particular</p><p>combination of what Cowen calls “perks” over wages. Within a</p><p>workplace government that guarantees workers a voice, man</p><p>agers will be free to offer different packages of wages and work</p><p>ing conditions, and workers will be free to suggest alternative</p><p>packages, negotiate, and vote on trade offs. My point is simply</p><p>that workers need some kind of institutionalized voice at work</p><p>144 chapter 7</p><p>to ensure that their interests are heard, that they are respected,</p><p>and that they have some share of autonomy in workplace de</p><p>cisions. Subjecting them to private government— to arbitrary,</p><p>unaccountable authority— is no way to treat people who have</p><p>a claim to dignity, autonomy, and standing no less than that of</p><p>their employers.</p><p>145</p><p>Notes</p><p>Author’s Preface</p><p>1. Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (not) Getting by</p><p>in America (New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2008), 157.</p><p>2. Frlekin v. Apple, Inc., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 151937 (N.D.</p><p>Cal., Nov. 7, 2015) (dismissing on summary judgment em-</p><p>ployees’ claim that Apple violated minimum wage law in</p><p>failing to pay them for time spent waiting to be inspected,</p><p>notwithstanding the law’s definition of “hours worked” as</p><p>“the time during which an employee is subject to the con-</p><p>trol of an employer,” because during that time, employees</p><p>are not allowed to work).</p><p>3. Oxfam America, No Relief: Denial of Bathroom Breaks in the</p><p>Poultry Industry (Washington, D.C., 2016), 2, https://www</p><p>.oxfamamerica.org/static/media/files/No_Relief_Embargo</p><p>.pdf.</p><p>4. William Becker, Salimah Meghani, Jeanette Tetrault, and</p><p>David Fiellin, “Racial/Ethnic Differences in Report of Drug</p><p>https://www.oxfamamerica.org/static/media/files/No_Relief_Embargo.pdf</p><p>https://www.oxfamamerica.org/static/media/files/No_Relief_Embargo.pdf</p><p>https://www.oxfamamerica.org/static/media/files/No_Relief_Embargo.pdf</p><p>146 notes to chapter 1</p><p>Testing Practices at the Workplace Level in the U.S.,” Amer-</p><p>ican Journal on Addictions 23, no. 4 (2014): 357– 62.</p><p>5. Alexander Hertel- Fernandez and Paul Secunda, “Citizens</p><p>Coerced: A Legislative Fix for Workplace Political Intimida-</p><p>tion Post– Citizens United,” UCLA Law Review 64 (2016): 1,</p><p>http://ssrn.com/abstract=2740649.</p><p>Chapter 1</p><p>1. Of course, this usage of the term “left” is anachronistic. But</p><p>it serves to fix ideas. I hasten to add that some egalitarians</p><p>of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries— notably, the</p><p>Diggers and Rousseau— rejected market society. My focus</p><p>in this lecture is on those who embraced it.</p><p>2. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the</p><p>Wealth of Nations, vol. 1, Glasgow Edition of the Works and</p><p>Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty</p><p>Fund, 1981), I.ii.2.</p><p>3. Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, edited</p><p>by Frederick Engels, translated by Samuel Moore and Ed-</p><p>ward Aveling (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1912), 195– 96.</p><p>4. This is not just cynicism on Smith’s part. He points to a</p><p>transcultural social fact, that every gift implies a debt that,</p><p>until reciprocated in kind, subordinates the recipient to the</p><p>giver. See Marcel Mauss, The Gift, translated by I. Cunni-</p><p>son (New York: Norton, 1967); William Miller, Humiliation</p><p>(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), ch. 1.</p><p>5. Marx, Capital, 195.</p><p>6. Thus, the so- called Adam Smith problem— the purported</p><p>tension between Smith’s moral theory, founded on sympa-</p><p>thy with others, and his economics, supposedly founded on</p><p>pure egoism, is dissolved.</p><p>http://ssrn.com/abstract=2740649</p><p>notes to chapter 1 147</p><p>7. “All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems,</p><p>in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of</p><p>the masters of mankind.” Smith, Wealth of Nations, vol. 1,</p><p>III.iv.10.</p><p>8. On this point, I fully agree with Pierre Rosanvallon, The</p><p>Society of Equals, translated by Arthur Goldhammer (Cam-</p><p>bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 11, 29, 51.</p><p>9. For the first statement of the army’s program, see “Agree-</p><p>ment of the People,” in The English Levellers, edited by</p><p>Andrew Sharp (New York: Cambridge University Press,</p><p>1998), 92– 101. “Agitators”— Leveller officers chosen by</p><p>their men— debated this proposal with Cromwell and Ire-</p><p>ton at Putney in 1647. The Putney debates offer some of the</p><p>most riveting reading in the history of political thought, at a</p><p>level of intellectual depth and seriousness vastly exceeding</p><p>contemporary public discourse. See “Putney Debates,” in</p><p>Puritanism and Liberty, Being the Army Debates (1647– 9)</p><p>from the Clarke Manuscripts with Supplementary Documents,</p><p>ed. A.S.P. Woodhouse (Chicago: University of Chicago</p><p>Press, 1951), 1– 124.</p><p>10. “Putney Debates, 29 October 1647,” Puritanism and Lib-</p><p>erty, 75.</p><p>11. John Lilburne, William Walwyn, Thomas Prince, and Rich-</p><p>ard Overton, “An Agreement of the Free People of En-</p><p>gland,1 May 1649,” in The Levellers: Miscellaneous Writings,</p><p>ed. James Otteson, vol. 4 of The Levellers: Overton, Walwyn</p><p>and Lilburne (Bristol, UK: Thoemmes Press, 2003), arti-</p><p>clesXXX, XVIII, XX, XIX.</p><p>12. John Lilburne, “Englands Birth- Right Justified,” in Works of</p><p>John Lilburne, edited by Otteson, vol. 3 of The Levellers, 62– 64.</p><p>13. John Lilburne, “Londons Liberty in Chains Discovered,”</p><p>in Works of John Lilburne, 175– 77.</p><p>148 notes to chapter 1</p><p>14. William Walwyn, “For a Free Trade,” in Works of William</p><p>Walwyn, vol. 2 of The Levellers, edited by Otteson, 399– 405.</p><p>15. It would be anachronistic to attribute such ideas to any</p><p>seventeenth-</p><p>century thinkers because the modern notion</p><p>of distributive justice was not invented until the end of the</p><p>eighteenth century. Samuel Fleischacker, A Short History</p><p>of Distributive Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University</p><p>Press, 2004).</p><p>16. See “The Root and Branch Petition (1640),” Documents Il-</p><p>lustrative of English Church History, edited by Henry Gee</p><p>and William John Hardy (New York: Macmillan, 1896),</p><p>537– 45, http://history.hanover.edu/texts/engref/er97</p><p>.html, a contemporary document calling for an end to the</p><p>church’s powers in these respects.</p><p>17. Thomas Leng, “ ‘His Neighbours Land Mark’: William</p><p>Sykes and the Campaign for ‘Free Trade’ in Civil War En-</p><p>gland,” Historical Research 86, no. 232 (2013): 230– 52.</p><p>18. William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England,</p><p>1st ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1765), ch. 15.</p><p>19. For some legal complexities in the early modern era, see</p><p>Karen Pearlston, “Review of Women, Property, and the</p><p>Letters of the Law in Early Modern England,” Osgoode Hall</p><p>Law Journal 44, no. 1 (2006): 219– 21; for documentation</p><p>of women’s contestation of husbands’ authority, along with</p><p>contemporary cultural recognition of its limits, see Don</p><p>Herzog, Household Politics: Conflict in Early Modern En-</p><p>gland (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013).</p><p>20. Recall John Locke, Second Treatise of Government (India-</p><p>napolis: Hackett, 1980), §77: “The first society was between</p><p>man and wife, which gave beginning to that between par-</p><p>ents and children; to which, in time, that between master</p><p>and servant came to be added... and make up but one</p><p>http://history.hanover.edu/texts/engref/er97.html</p><p>http://history.hanover.edu/texts/engref/er97.html</p><p>notes to chapter 1 149</p><p>family, wherein the master or mistress of it had some sort</p><p>of rule proper to a family.” Locke here includes employees</p><p>in the family, and represents it as a kind of government,</p><p>which, in the state of nature, is not essentially patriarchal.</p><p>I shall return to Locke’s feminism later in this lecture.</p><p>21. See Blackstone, Commentaries, ch. 14; Karen Orren, Be-</p><p>lated Feudalism: Labor, the Law, and Liberal Development</p><p>in the United States (Cambridge: Cambridge University</p><p>Press, 1991) (documenting the early modern English law</p><p>of master and servant, and how it continued to govern U.S.</p><p>employment relations well into the nineteenth century).</p><p>22. See Don Herzog, Happy Slaves (Chicago: University of Chi-</p><p>cago Press, 1989), ch. 1.</p><p>23. Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the</p><p>History of an Idea (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University</p><p>Press, 1936).</p><p>24. Robert Filmer, Patriarcha: Or the Natural Power of Kings</p><p>(London: W. Davis, 1680).</p><p>25. Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down: Radical</p><p>Ideas during the English Revolution (New York: Penguin</p><p>Books, 1991), 155.</p><p>26. See Saint Augustine, City of God, translated by Marcus</p><p>Dods (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1888), XIX.15.</p><p>27. Hill, World Turned Upside Down, chs. 3, 4.</p><p>28. Herzog, Happy Slaves, ch. 1.</p><p>29. See Hill, World Turned Upside Down, esp. ch. 8; Andrew</p><p>Bradstock, Radical Religion in Cromwell’s England: A Concise</p><p>History from the English Civil War to the End of the Common-</p><p>wealth (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2011), esp. ch. 5. Thus arose</p><p>the endlessly repeated conservative charge that egalitari-</p><p>ans believe in the perfectibility of human beings. Absurd as</p><p>applied to today’s believers in an egalitarian distribution of</p><p>150 notes to chapter 1</p><p>income and wealth, democracy, and other secular egalitarian</p><p>doctrines, the charge makes sense as applied to historical</p><p>Christian millennialist egalitarian social movements, which</p><p>needed to refute the authoritarian doctrine of original sin.</p><p>30. Samuel Torshell, The Womans Glorie: A Treatise, First, As-</p><p>serting the Due Honour of That Sexe, by Manifesting That</p><p>Women Are Capable of the Highest Improvements and In-</p><p>stancing Severall Examples of Womens Eminencies . . . ,</p><p>2nd ed. (London: Printed for John Bellamy, 1650), 11.</p><p>31. Hill, World Turned Upside Down, 310– 12.</p><p>32. John Lilburne, “The Free- Man’s Freedom Vindicated,”</p><p>Works of John Lilburne, 105– 6.</p><p>33. Elizabeth Chidley, “Petition of Women, Affecters and Ap-</p><p>provers of the Petition of Sept. 11, 1648 (5th May 1649),” in</p><p>Puritanism and Liberty, 367.</p><p>34. Hill, World Turned Upside Down, 312.</p><p>35. “Root and Branch Petition,” articles 10, 12, 24.</p><p>36. Michael Levy, “Freedom, Property and the Levellers: The</p><p>Case of John Lilburne,” Western Political Quarterly 36,</p><p>no. 1 (1983): 116– 133, here 120.</p><p>37. See Walwyn, “For a Free Trade,” 403– 4 (complaining that</p><p>the burdens of guild government lie “more heavily upon the</p><p>more moderate Traders” who suffer from the guilds’ “many</p><p>unreasonable Orde Oathes, fines, Censures” and that they</p><p>spend too much time “in Courts & meetings about others</p><p>affaires”).</p><p>38. Leng, “ ‘His Neighbours Land Mark,’ ” 233, 236.</p><p>39. Thomas Johnson, A Plea for Free- Mens Liberties: Or the</p><p>Monopoly of the Eastland Merchants (London, 1646), 2, 3,</p><p>http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88</p><p>–2003&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_id=xri:eebo:citation:9986</p><p>1268.</p><p>40. Walwyn, “For a Free Trade,” 403.</p><p>http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88%E2%80%932003&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_id=xri:eebo:citation:99861268</p><p>http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88%E2%80%932003&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_id=xri:eebo:citation:99861268</p><p>http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88%E2%80%932003&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_id=xri:eebo:citation:99861268</p><p>notes to chapter 1 151</p><p>41. Ibid., 402, 401.</p><p>42. Johnson, Plea, 4.</p><p>43. “Reason being the fountain of all honest laws, gives to every</p><p>man propriety and liberty; propriety of interest, freedom</p><p>of enjoyment and improovement to his own advantage...</p><p>those who have bereft us of our liberty, have made bold</p><p>with our propriety” (ibid.).</p><p>44. Jacqueline Stevens, “The Reasonableness of Locke’s Ma-</p><p>jority: Property Rights, Consent, and Resistance in the</p><p>Second Treatise,” Political Theory 24, no. 3 (1996): 423– 63.</p><p>45. As Jeremy Waldron decisively demonstrates, in God, Locke,</p><p>and Equality: Christian Foundations of John Locke’s Political</p><p>Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002),</p><p>ch. 2.</p><p>46. “As justice gives every man a title to the product of his hon-</p><p>est industry... so charity gives every man a title to so much</p><p>out of another’s plenty, as will keep him from extreme want,</p><p>where he has no means to subsist otherwise: and a man</p><p>can no more justly make use of another’s necessity to force</p><p>him to become his vassal, by with- holding that relief God</p><p>requires him to afford to the wants of his brother, than he</p><p>that has more strength can seize upon a weaker, master him</p><p>to his obedience, and with a dagger at his throat, offer his</p><p>death or slavery.” John Locke, “First Treatise of Govern-</p><p>ment,” The Works of John Locke in Nine Volumes, 12th ed.</p><p>(London: Rivington, 1824), §42.</p><p>47. Smith, Wealth of Nations, vol. 1, III.4.4 (emphasis added).</p><p>48. Ibid., III.4.5– 8.</p><p>49. Ibid., III.4.9.</p><p>50. Ibid., III.4.10.</p><p>51. Ibid., III.4.11– 15.</p><p>52. Ibid., III.2.6.</p><p>53. Ibid., III.2.7.</p><p>152 notes to chapter 1</p><p>54. Ibid., III.2.8– 13.</p><p>55. Ibid., III.4.19.</p><p>56. Smith, Wealth of Nations, vol. 2, V.1.E.32. Joint- stock cor-</p><p>porations tend to fail because their governance structure</p><p>cannot solve the principal– agent problem of holding di-</p><p>rectors accountable to investors. Surveying the history of</p><p>joint- stock corporations, Smith finds that directors lack</p><p>expertise, initiative, and energy because they are risking</p><p>other people’s money, and allow employees to squander</p><p>the corporation’s resources (ibid., V.1.E.18, 27).</p><p>57. Smith, Wealth of Nations, vol. 1, I.ix.20. It follows that, while</p><p>a free market economy would be more unequal than prim-</p><p>itive society, it would be far more equal than a feudal or</p><p>mercantilist economy. For further support of the view that</p><p>Smith’s vision of a free market society has egalitarian ten-</p><p>dencies, see Deborah Boucoyannis,</p><p>“The Equalizing Hand:</p><p>Why Adam Smith Thought the Market Should Produce</p><p>Wealth without Steep Inequality,” Perspectives on Politics 11,</p><p>no. 4 (2013): 1051– 70.</p><p>58. Smith, Wealth of Nations, vol. 1, I.1.3.</p><p>59. Other Enlightenment figures shared this view: “It is easy to</p><p>prove that fortunes tend naturally toward equality, and that</p><p>excessive differences of wealth either cannot exist or must</p><p>promptly cease, if the civil laws do not establish artificial</p><p>ways of perpetuating and amassing such fortunes, and if</p><p>freedom of commerce and industry eliminate the advantage</p><p>that any prohibitive law or fiscal privilege gives to acquired</p><p>wealth.” Antoine- Nicholas Condorcet, Outlines of an His-</p><p>torical View of the Progress of the Human Mind (Chicago:</p><p>G. Langer, 2009), 10th epoch.</p><p>60. Medicine was so unreliable that one might be better off</p><p>not being able to afford a doctor’s services. No one could</p><p>notes to chapter 1 153</p><p>travel in comfort or speed at any expense. The penny press</p><p>made news available to all. Theaters offered cheap seats.</p><p>No wonder Smith disparaged the quest for great wealth as</p><p>not worth the trouble. See The Theory of Moral Sentiments,</p><p>edited by D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie, Glasgow Edition</p><p>of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Oxford:</p><p>Oxford University Press, 1976), I.3.2.1, III.3.31, IV.1.6.8.</p><p>61. Smith, Wealth of Nations, vol. 1, III.4.16.</p><p>62. So was the fact that the hope was predicated on mass, vi-</p><p>olent expropriation of land from its former possessors. In</p><p>contrast to slavery, which received substantial attention</p><p>from many Euro- American egalitarians, Native American</p><p>claims received little attention.</p><p>63. Joyce Appleby, Capitalism and a New Social Order: The</p><p>Republican Vision of the 1790s, (New York: New York Uni-</p><p>versity Press, 1984), 89; Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolu-</p><p>tionary America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976),</p><p>32, 43– 44.</p><p>64. Thomas Paine, Rights of Man. Part the Second: Combining</p><p>Principle and Practice, 8th ed. (London: J. S. Jordan, 1792),</p><p>7– 8.</p><p>65. Ibid., 59n*.</p><p>66. Ibid., 60.</p><p>67. See for example, Paine, Rights of Man, Part 2, 82; Thomas</p><p>Paine, The Crisis: In Thirteen Numbers. Written during the</p><p>Late War. By the Author of Common Sense (Albany, NY:</p><p>Charles and George Webster, 1792), no. 3, 40.</p><p>68. Paine, Rights of Man, Part 2, 150.</p><p>69. Foner, Paine and Revolutionary America, 183– 200.</p><p>70. See ibid., ch. 5, for an extended discussion of Paine’s thought</p><p>and activities regarding price controls.</p><p>71. Ibid., 190.</p><p>154 notes to chapter 1</p><p>72. Paine, Rights of Man, Part 2, 16.</p><p>73. Ibid., 69.</p><p>74. Ibid., 3– 4.</p><p>75. Ibid., 113– 31.</p><p>76. The Republican Party, however, has not followed Paine in</p><p>other respects: his critique of Christianity (Thomas Paine,</p><p>The Age of Reason [Boston: Thomas Hall, 1794]); his fem-</p><p>inism (see Eileen Hunt Botting, “Thomas Paine amidst</p><p>the Early Feminists,” in Selected Writings of Thomas Paine,</p><p>edited by Ian Shapiro and Jane Calvert [New Haven, CT:</p><p>Yale University Press, 2014], 630– 54); his opposition to the</p><p>death penalty; his opposition to military spending, war, and</p><p>imperialism. Most of all, Paine, who experienced poverty</p><p>for much of his life, had profound sympathy for the poor</p><p>and never disparaged them as lazy, lacking enterprise, or</p><p>corrupted by “welfare.” As we shall see, he argued that ev-</p><p>eryone had a right to sufficient income to avoid poverty.</p><p>77. Craig Calhoun, The Roots of Radicalism: Tradition, the Pub-</p><p>lic Sphere, and Early Nineteenth- Century Social Movements</p><p>(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).</p><p>78. Paine, Rights of Man, Part 2, 11.</p><p>79. Ibid., 63, 100.</p><p>80. Ibid., 92– 98.</p><p>81. Ibid., 67– 69.</p><p>82. Ibid., 105– 6. When Paine complained that people on gov-</p><p>ernment pay were parasites, he was not speaking of mag-</p><p>istrates, parish officials, or other government workers who</p><p>perform actual public services for modest pay. He was</p><p>complaining of the court, and of sinecures. Genuine civil</p><p>servants, by contrast, are entitled to reasonable pay (ibid.,</p><p>54, 72, 119).</p><p>notes to chapter 1 155</p><p>83. Ibid., 4, 77– 80, 87, 100– 102, 155. In contrast to the U.S. Re-</p><p>publican Party today, Paine opposed regressive consump-</p><p>tion taxes and supported taxes on inheritances and bonds.</p><p>84. Thomas Paine, Common Sense (Edinburgh: Eighteenth</p><p>Century Collections Online; Gale, 1776), 33.</p><p>85. Paine expressed his objection to wage controls, and pref-</p><p>erence for market wages, in an era when regulations set</p><p>maximum wages.</p><p>86. Thomas Paine, “Agrarian Justice,” The Writings of Thomas</p><p>Paine, Vol. III (1791– 1804), edited by Moncure Daniel Con-</p><p>way (New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1894), 322– 44.</p><p>87. Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of</p><p>the Republican Party before the Civil War, with a new intro-</p><p>duction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), is the</p><p>indispensable work on this subject.</p><p>88. James Henry Hammond, “Speech in the Senate, 35th Con-</p><p>gress, Session 1,” Congressional Globe, March 4, 1858: 71.</p><p>89. Abraham Lincoln, “Annual Address before the Wisconsin</p><p>State Agricultural Society, at Milwaukee, September 30,</p><p>1859,” Abraham Lincoln, Complete Works, edited by John</p><p>Nicolay and John Hay, vol. 1 (New York: Century Co.,</p><p>1859), 581.</p><p>90. “There is no permanent class of hired laborers amongst</p><p>us.... The hired laborer of yesterday, labors on his own</p><p>account to- day; and will hire others to labor for him to-</p><p>morrow. Advancement— improvement in condition— is the</p><p>order of things in a society of equals.” Abraham Lincoln,</p><p>“Fragment on Free Labor,” Collected Works of Abraham</p><p>Lincoln, Vol. 3, edited by Roy Basler (New Brunswick, NJ:</p><p>Rutgers University Press, 1859), 463.</p><p>91. Foner, Free Soil, Kindle loc. 332– 37.</p><p>156 notes to chapter 2</p><p>92. Ibid., Kindle loc. 434.</p><p>93. Ibid., Kindle loc. 377– 80.</p><p>94. Lincoln, “Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural</p><p>Society,” 581– 82.</p><p>95. Lincoln may have baked it into the ideological infrastruc-</p><p>ture of his party. A century and a half after his pronounce-</p><p>ment, Eric Cantor, then Republican House majority leader,</p><p>tweeted on Labor Day 2012: “Today, we celebrate those</p><p>who have taken a risk, worked hard, built a business and</p><p>earned their own success,” https://twitter.com/ericcantor</p><p>/status/242654833218293760. Cantor appears to be vis-</p><p>cerally incapable of recognizing how a day could be ded-</p><p>icated to honoring wage laborers.</p><p>96. Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic: New York City and the</p><p>Rise of the American Working Class, 1788– 1850 (New York:</p><p>Oxford University Press, 2004), 508– 16.</p><p>97. Gertrude Himmelfarb, The Idea of Poverty: England in the</p><p>Early Industrial Age (New York: Knopf, 1984), 78. See, for</p><p>example, Jeremy Bentham, Pauper Management Improved:</p><p>Particularly by Means of an Application of the Panopticon</p><p>Principle of Construction (London: R. Baldwin, 1812).</p><p>98. Isaac Kramnick, Republicanism and Bourgeois Radicalism:</p><p>Political Ideology in Late Eighteenth- Century England and</p><p>America (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), 97.</p><p>99. Smith, Wealth of Nations, vol. 2, V.1.F.50.</p><p>100. Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, I.3.3.1.</p><p>Chapter 2</p><p>1. This is true of the corporate form. Legally, the corporation,</p><p>not the shareholders, owns the firm’s assets. In a partner-</p><p>ship, an oligarchy governs and owns all the assets.</p><p>https://twitter.com/ericcantor/status/242654833218293760</p><p>https://twitter.com/ericcantor/status/242654833218293760</p><p>notes to chapter 2 157</p><p>2. R. H. Coase, “The Nature of the Firm,” Economica 4, no. 16</p><p>(1937): 386– 405.</p><p>3. Eugene Volokh, “Private Employees’ Speech and Political</p><p>Activity: Statutory Protection against Employer Retalia-</p><p>tion” (2012), http://ssrn.com/abstract=2174776.</p><p>4. Ken Cuccinelli, The Last Line of Defense: The New Fight for</p><p>American Liberty (New York: Crown Forum, 2013), 52, 231.</p><p>5. This may sound like a positivist account of law. But gov-</p><p>ernment need not rule by law— that is, general rules of</p><p>conduct. It can rule by orders or decrees,</p><p>We are told that unregulated markets make us free, and that the</p><p>only threat to our liberties is the state. We are told that in the</p><p>market, all transactions are voluntary. We are told that, since</p><p>workers freely enter and exit the labor contract, they are per-</p><p>fectly free under it: bosses have no more authority over workers</p><p>than customers have over their grocer.</p><p>Labor movement activists have long argued that this is</p><p>wrong. In ordinary markets, a vendor can sell their product to</p><p>a buyer, and once the transaction is complete, each walks</p><p>away as free from the other as before. Labor markets are differ-</p><p>ent. When workers sell their labor to an employer, they have</p><p>to hand themselves over to their boss, who then gets to order</p><p>them around. The labor contract, instead of leaving the seller</p><p>as free as before, puts the seller under the authority of their</p><p>boss. Since the decline of the labor movement, however, we</p><p>don’t have effective ways to talk about this fact, and hence about</p><p>what kinds of authority bosses should and shouldn’t have over</p><p>their workers.</p><p>These lectures aim to answer two questions. First, why do we</p><p>talk as if workers are free at work, and that the only threats to</p><p>individual liberty come from the state? Second, what would be a</p><p>better way to talk about the ways employers constrain workers’</p><p>lives, which can open up discussion about how the workplace</p><p>could be designed to be more responsive to workers’ interests?</p><p>My focus in both lectures is on ideology. An ideology is an</p><p>abstract model that people use to represent and cope with</p><p>the social world. Ideologies simplify the world, disregarding</p><p>many of its features. An ideology is good if it helps us navigate</p><p>author’s preface xxi</p><p>it successfully. To help us, it must identify the normatively im-</p><p>portant features of the world, and the main causal connections</p><p>between these features to which people can respond, enabling</p><p>them to discover effective means to promoting their goals. Ide-</p><p>ologies also help us orient our current evaluations of the world,</p><p>highlighting what we think is already good or bad in it. Finally,</p><p>they are vehicles for our hopes and dreams. A model may ex-</p><p>pose problems in our current world but also identify the causes</p><p>of those problems such that, if those causes were removed or</p><p>counteracted, we could achieve a better world. In other words,</p><p>ideologies also function as ideals, offering us not only repre-</p><p>sentations of the world as it is, but as it attractively could be if</p><p>certain actions were undertaken.</p><p>I have so far explained what ideologies are in the nonpejo-</p><p>rative sense of this term. We can hardly do without them. In</p><p>personal experience, we have contact only with a small part</p><p>of the world. To enable more comprehensive evaluation and</p><p>planning, we need to represent aspects of the world that are</p><p>not immediately experienced. And even the part that we do</p><p>experience we filter through our ideologies to get a sense of</p><p>what that experience means. We need to simplify to enable us</p><p>to focus on the important things.</p><p>These facts about our cognitive limitations give rise to the</p><p>danger that our models of the world may be ideological in the</p><p>pejorative sense of this term. This occurs when our ideologies</p><p>mask problematic features of our world, or cast those features</p><p>in a misleadingly positive light, or lack the normative concepts</p><p>needed to identify what is problematic about them, or misrep-</p><p>resent the space of possibilities so as to obscure better options,</p><p>the means to realizing them, or their merits. Of course, no model</p><p>can capture all normatively relevant features of the world. If it</p><p>misses only relatively small, random, and idiosyncratic features,</p><p>we should not condemn it. When these features are structurally</p><p>embedded in the social world, so as to systematically undermine</p><p>the interests of identifiable groups of people in serious or gratu-</p><p>itous ways, we need to revise our model to attend to them and</p><p>identify means to change them. This is harder to do when the</p><p>interests of those who dominate public discourse are already</p><p>served by the dominant ideology.</p><p>Lecture 1 answers my first question— why we talk as if work-</p><p>ers are free at work— by delving into the history of free market</p><p>ideology. I argue that originally, many pro- market thinkers</p><p>were sensitive to the liberty interests of workers, and had rea-</p><p>sons to believe that free markets would help them, by liberating</p><p>them from subordination to employers and other powerful or-</p><p>ganizations. They vested their hopes in a model that predicted</p><p>that freeing up markets overall would reduce labor markets</p><p>to minor features of a world in which most adults— at least if</p><p>they were men— were self- employed. The Industrial Revolu-</p><p>tion destroyed those hopes, but not the idea of market society</p><p>on which those hopes rested. The result is that we are working</p><p>with a model of our world that omits the relations between</p><p>employers and employees within which most of us work.</p><p>Lecture 2 corrects this omission by offering a way to un-</p><p>derstand and talk about what the employment relation is: it is</p><p>a form of government, in which bosses govern workers. Most</p><p>workplace governments in the United States are dictatorships,</p><p>in which bosses govern in ways that are largely unaccountable</p><p>to those who are governed. They don’t merely govern workers;</p><p>they dominate them. This is what I call private government. I offer</p><p>this model as a critical tool to help us focus on important and</p><p>problematic features of our world that affect the vital interests</p><p>of workers, which the dominant ideology omits. I don’t offer</p><p>a blueprint for a better constitution of workplace government.</p><p>xxii author’s preface</p><p>I offer a way of talking about the workplace, within which we</p><p>can articulate how workers’ interests are affected by the power</p><p>employers wield over them, and how alternative constitutions</p><p>of workplace government could be designed to be more re-</p><p>sponsive to their interests and more respectful of their dignity</p><p>and autonomy.</p><p>I wish to thank Princeton University for inviting me to deliver</p><p>the Tanner Lectures on Human Values in 2015, and the Tan-</p><p>ner Lectures corporation for supporting my work. Don Herzog</p><p>read the first draft of my lectures and provided very helpful</p><p>comments that enabled me to polish my lectures for deliv-</p><p>ery. My commentators David Bromwich, Tyler Cowen, Ann</p><p>Hughes, and Niko Kolodny, along with two anonymous review-</p><p>ers for Princeton University Press, supplied splendid comments</p><p>that enabled me to sharpen my ideas and clarify them for a</p><p>broader readership. Alex Gourevitch, Stephen Macedo, and</p><p>my editor, Rob Tempio, also made helpful suggestions. I thank</p><p>them all for being such wonderful interlocutors.</p><p>author’s preface xxiii</p><p>1</p><p>Chapter 1</p><p>When the Market</p><p>Was “Left”</p><p>Two Images of Market Society</p><p>The ideal of a free market society used to be a cause of the left.</p><p>By “the left,” I refer to egalitarian thinkers and participants in</p><p>egalitarian social movements, starting with the Levellers in the</p><p>mid- seventeenth century, continuing through the Enlighten-</p><p>ment, the American and French Revolutions, and pre- Marxist</p><p>radicals of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.</p><p>In the United States, the association of market society with</p><p>egalitarianism lasted through the Civil War.1 We need to re-</p><p>cover an understanding of why this was so, to better grasp the</p><p>importance of evaluating ideals in their social context, and the</p><p>problems with current ways of thinking about ideals of equality</p><p>and freedom.</p><p>Consider two of the most famous passages ever written</p><p>about market society. The first, by Adam Smith, sketches an</p><p>image of market society as a free society of equals:</p><p>2 chapter 1</p><p>When an animal wants to obtain something either of a man</p><p>or of another animal, it has no other means of persuasion</p><p>but to gain the favour of those whose service it requires.</p><p>A... spaniel endeavours by a thousand attractions to engage</p><p>the attention of its master</p><p>issued ad hoc to</p><p>particular persons for particular occasions. I take no stand</p><p>here regarding a positivist account of law.</p><p>6. Max Weber, Economy and Society, edited by Guenther Roth</p><p>and Claus Wittich (Berkeley: University of California Press,</p><p>1968), 56.</p><p>7. John Adams, “Letter to Abigail, April 14, 1776,” Letters of</p><p>John Adams Addressed to His Wife, edited by Charles Adams,</p><p>vol. 1 (Boston: C. C. Little and J. Brown, 1841), 96– 97.</p><p>8. I draw on Herzog, Household Politics, 89– 94, who spends</p><p>more time distinguishing the entailments of privacy than I</p><p>do here.</p><p>9. Here I focus on “external” conceptions of positive freedom</p><p>in terms of opportunity sets within individuals’ budget con-</p><p>straints, legal permissions, and other external conditions.</p><p>I set aside psychological notions of positive freedom, such</p><p>as freedom from addictions, compulsions, or other motives</p><p>with which the agent does not identify.</p><p>10. Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Gov-</p><p>ernment (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 5.</p><p>11. See, for example, Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom</p><p>(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), linking pri-</p><p>vate property to political and not just economic freedom.</p><p>http://ssrn.com/abstract=2174776</p><p>158 notes to chapter 2</p><p>12. Joyce Shaw Peterson, American Automobile Workers, 1900–</p><p>1933 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987),</p><p>57, 72.</p><p>13. Natasha Singer, “Health Plan Penalty Ends at Penn State,”</p><p>New York Times, September 19, 2013, http://www.nytimes</p><p>.com/2013/09/19/business/after-uproar-penn-state-suspends</p><p>-penalty-fee-in-wellness-plan.html.</p><p>14. Coase, “Nature of the Firm.”</p><p>15. Oliver Williamson, “Markets and Hierarchies: Some Ele-</p><p>mentary Considerations,” American Economic Review 63,</p><p>no. 2 (1973): 316– 25, here 322.</p><p>16. Coase, “Nature of the Firm,” 388.</p><p>17. Ibid., 391.</p><p>18. Only fifteen states do not allow a disclaimer to count as</p><p>a per se defense against a charge of wrongful discharge</p><p>under an implied- contract exception to employment- at-</p><p>will; twenty- two states allow disclaimers and limit implied-</p><p>contract exceptions to written documents; thirteen states</p><p>do not recognize any implied- contract exception to</p><p>employment- at- will. Charles Muhl, “The Employment- at-</p><p>Will Doctrine: Three Major Exceptions,” Monthly Labor</p><p>Review, January 2001: 5.</p><p>19. Nelson v. Knight, Iowa Supreme Court, No. 11- 1857, July 12,</p><p>2013.</p><p>20. Neela Banerjee, “Ohio Miners Say They Were Forced to</p><p>Attend Romney Rally,” Los Angeles Times, August 29,</p><p>2012, http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/29/news/la</p><p>-pn-miners-romney-rally-20120829/.</p><p>21. Dugan Arnett, “Nightmare in Maryville: Teens’ Sexual</p><p>Encounter Ignites a Firestorm against Family,” Kansas</p><p>City Star, October 12, 2013, http://www.kansascity.com</p><p>/news/special-reports/maryville/article329412/Nightmare</p><p>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/business/after-uproar-penn-state-suspends-penalty-fee-in-wellness-plan.html</p><p>http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/29/news/la-pn-miners-romney-rally-20120829/</p><p>http://www.kansascity.com/news/special-reports/maryville/article329412/Nightmare-in-Maryville-Teens%E2%80%99-sexual-encounter-ignites-a-firestorm-against-family.html</p><p>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/business/after-uproar-penn-state-suspends-penalty-fee-in-wellness-plan.html</p><p>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/business/after-uproar-penn-state-suspends-penalty-fee-in-wellness-plan.html</p><p>http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/29/news/la-pn-miners-romney-rally-20120829/</p><p>http://www.kansascity.com/news/special-reports/maryville/article329412/Nightmare-in-Maryville-Teens%E2%80%99-sexual-encounter-ignites-a-firestorm-against-family.html</p><p>notes to chapter 2 159</p><p>-in-Maryville-Teens%E2%80%99-sexual-encounter-ignites</p><p>-a-firestorm-against-family.html.</p><p>22. Armen Alchian and Harold Demsetz, “Production, Infor-</p><p>mation Costs, and Economic Organization,” American Eco-</p><p>nomic Review 62, no. 5 (1972): 777– 95, here 777.</p><p>23. Even the addition of immigration rights to new govern -</p><p>ments— something workers do not enjoy at work— does not</p><p>dissolve their authority. Within the European Union (EU),</p><p>citizens are guaranteed the right not only to exit but also to</p><p>enter other member states. Yet this has not eliminated the</p><p>authority of EU member states.</p><p>24. Michael Jensen and William Meckling, “Theory of the</p><p>Firm: Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs and Ownership</p><p>Structure,” Journal of Financial Economics 3 (1976): 305–</p><p>60, here 310.</p><p>25. John Tomasi, Free Market Fairness (Princeton, NJ: Prince-</p><p>ton University Press, 2012), 23, 77, 81.</p><p>26. This tendency facilitates a common abuse of labor law, in</p><p>which employers pretend that their employees are inde-</p><p>pendent contractors, to avoid minimum wage, maximum</p><p>hours, benefits and safety regulations; to shift the burden</p><p>of employment taxes on their workers; and to force them</p><p>to pay for equipment and uniforms. The court test in such</p><p>cases is always whether the employer exercises control</p><p>over the worker. See, for example, Alexander v. FedEx</p><p>Ground Package System, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 16585</p><p>(9th Cir. Aug. 27, 2014), which ruled that FedEx mis-</p><p>classifiedthousands of its California truck driversasinde-</p><p>pendent contractors.</p><p>27. Josiah Wedgwood, a pioneer of the Industrial Revolution</p><p>in promoting worker discipline in his pottery factory, was</p><p>also a major abolitionist.</p><p>http://www.kansascity.com/news/special-reports/maryville/article329412/Nightmare-in-Maryville-Teens%E2%80%99-sexual-encounter-ignites-a-firestorm-against-family.html</p><p>http://www.kansascity.com/news/special-reports/maryville/article329412/Nightmare-in-Maryville-Teens%E2%80%99-sexual-encounter-ignites-a-firestorm-against-family.html</p><p>160 notes to chapter 2</p><p>28. Blackstone, Commentaries, ch. 14.</p><p>29. Karen Orren tells the story for the United States in Belated</p><p>Feudalism. Similar developments took place in other com-</p><p>mon law countries and the rest of Western Europe during</p><p>the nineteenth century. An important lesson of her work is</p><p>that some nineteenth- century labor law legal doctrines in</p><p>the United States and England that are thought to be nov-</p><p>elties of laissez- faire free contract ideology— for example,</p><p>that an employer could confiscate a worker’s entire accrued</p><p>wage for the slightest insubordination— were in fact merely</p><p>continuations of English labor laws established in the feu-</p><p>dal era. In other words, laissez faire at the level of market</p><p>relations left feudal authoritarianism intact at the level of</p><p>intrafirm relations.</p><p>30. Robert Allen, “Engels’ Pause: A Pessimist’s Guide to the</p><p>British Industrial Revolution,” Explorations in Economic</p><p>History 46, no. 4 (2009): 418– 35.</p><p>31. Under employment- at- will, the legal reach of employers’</p><p>authority extended to the entire day, as it still does today</p><p>except when expressly limited by law or contract, or, in</p><p>fifteen states, by implied contract. However, for practical</p><p>purposes, the separation of the workplace from the home</p><p>substantially raised the costs and reduced the benefits to</p><p>many employers of reaching that far, and thereby opened</p><p>up room for workers to enjoy freedom from their bosses</p><p>when off duty.</p><p>32. As I argue in Elizabeth Anderson, “Equality and Freedom</p><p>in the Workplace: Recovering Republican Insights,” Social</p><p>Philosophy and Policy 31, no. 2 (2015): 48– 69. One con-</p><p>sequence of this point is that the traditional libertarian</p><p>argument that the state should simply stop “interfering”</p><p>with the economy is misguided: it is like saying that the</p><p>notes to chapter 2 161</p><p>commissioner of baseball should stop interfering with the</p><p>game by promulgating its rules. It turns out that to facili-</p><p>tateefficient cooperation at the vast scales of modern devel-</p><p>oped economies, the rules have to be remarkably complex.</p><p>This opens up room both for democratic control in the pub-</p><p>lic interest and for regulatory capture.</p><p>33. For the classic exposition, see Blackstone, Commentaries,</p><p>ch. 15.</p><p>34. As I argue in Anderson, “Equality and Freedom in</p><p>the</p><p>Workplace.”</p><p>35. See, for example, Sidney Pollard, “Factory Discipline in the</p><p>Industrial Revolution,” Economic History Review 16, no. 2</p><p>(1963): 254– 71. He notes the “deliberate or accidental</p><p>modelling of many [factory] works on workhouses and</p><p>prisons, a fact well known to the working population”</p><p>(254). I stress that it did not take Marxists or socialists to</p><p>see the prob lemin the terms in which I have presented</p><p>them. American labor republicans also understood it. See</p><p>Alex Gourevitch, From Slavery to the Cooperative Common-</p><p>wealth: Labor and Republican Liberty in the Nineteenth Cen-</p><p>tury (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015).</p><p>36. Most famously, the inability of comprehensive central-</p><p>ized planning to use the information needed to allocate</p><p>resources efficiently. See Friedrich A. Hayek, “The Use</p><p>of Knowledge in Society,” American Economic Review 35</p><p>(1945): 519– 30.</p><p>37. Those of you who are adjunct or contingent faculty, on the</p><p>other hand, understand firsthand what I am talking about.</p><p>38. Workplace Democracy Association, “Zogby Poll: As Inde-</p><p>pendence Day Nears, Workplace Democracy Association</p><p>Survey Finds One in Four Working Americans Describe</p><p>Their Employer as a ‘Dictatorship,’ ” June 23, 2008, https://</p><p>https://workplacedemocracy.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/workplace-democracy-survey/</p><p>162 notes to chapter 2</p><p>workplacedemocracy.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/work</p><p>place-democracy-survey/.</p><p>39. Pollock v. Williams, 322 U.S. 4, at 18 (1944). In this opin-</p><p>ion, Justice Jackson, writing for the Supreme Court, struck</p><p>down a Florida statute criminalizing failure to specifically</p><p>perform a labor contract on which an advance was made,</p><p>as contrary to the Thirteenth Amendment prohibition on</p><p>involuntary servitude. Note the late date of the decision.</p><p>Risa Goluboff, “The Thirteenth Amendment and a New</p><p>Deal for Civil Rights,” in The Promises of Liberty: The History</p><p>and Contemporary Relevance of the Thirteenth Amendment,</p><p>edited by Alexander Tsesis (New York: Columbia Univer-</p><p>sity Press, 2010), 119– 37, explains how Jackson’s reasoning</p><p>reflected New Deal (positive liberty) rather than Lochner-</p><p>era freedom of contract (negative liberty) principles.</p><p>40. See Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York:</p><p>Basic Books, 1974), 331; Walter Block, “Toward a Liber-</p><p>tarian Theory of Inalienability: A Critique of Rothbard,</p><p>Barnett, Smith, Kinsella, Gordon, and Epstein,” Journal of</p><p>Libertarian Studies 17, no. 2 (2003): 39– 85; Stephen Kersh-</p><p>nar, “A Liberal Argument for Slavery,” Journal of Social Phi-</p><p>losophy 34, no. 4 (2003): 510– 36. For libertarians opposed</p><p>to the validity of slave contracts, see Murray Rothbard, The</p><p>Ethics of Liberty, rev. ed. (New York: New York University</p><p>Press, 1998), 40– 41; Randy Barnett, “Contract Remedies</p><p>and Inalienable Rights,” Social Philosophy and Policy 4,</p><p>no. 1 (1986): 179– 202.</p><p>41. Matt Marx, “The Firm Strikes Back: Non- CompeteAgree-</p><p>ments and the Mobility of Technical Professionals,”</p><p>American Sociological Review 76, no. 5 (2011): 695– 712;</p><p>Steven Greenhouse, “Noncompete Clauses Increasingly</p><p>Pop Up in Array of Jobs,” New York Times, June 8, 2014,</p><p>https://workplacedemocracy.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/workplace-democracy-survey/</p><p>https://workplacedemocracy.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/workplace-democracy-survey/</p><p>notes to chapter 2 163</p><p>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/business/non</p><p>compete-clauses-increasingly-pop-up-in-array-of-jobs</p><p>.html; Clare O’Connor, “Does Jimmy John’s Non- Compete</p><p>Clause for Sandwich Makers Have Legal Legs?” Forbes,</p><p>October 15, 2014, http://www.forbes.com/sites/clare</p><p>oconnor/2014/10/15/does-jimmy-johns-non-compete</p><p>-clause-for-sandwich-makers-have-legal-legs/.</p><p>42. Orly Lobel, Talent Wants to Be Free: Why We Should Learn</p><p>to Love Leaks, Raids, and Free Riding (New Haven, CT: Yale</p><p>University Press, 2013).</p><p>43. Patricia Bromley and John Meyer, “ ‘They Are All Organi-</p><p>zations’: The Cultural Roots of Blurring between the Non-</p><p>profit, Business, and Government Sectors,” Administration &</p><p>Society (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0095399714548268.</p><p>44. There may be legitimate limits to this for higher- ranked</p><p>managers and press agents who are regarded as official</p><p>spokespersons for their firms. It is one thing to fire an or-</p><p>dinary Pepsi worker for drinking Coke on the job (Su-</p><p>zanne Presto, “Coke Employee Fired for Drinking Pepsi</p><p>on the Job,” CNN Money, June 16 2003, http://money.cnn</p><p>.com/2003/06/13/news/funny/coke_pepsi/index.htm),</p><p>and quite another for the CEO of Pepsi to publicly dispar-</p><p>age Pepsi in comparison to Coke.</p><p>45. Mark Linder and Ingrid Nygaard, Void Where Prohibited:</p><p>Rest Breaks and the Right to Urinate on Company Time</p><p>(Ithaca, NY: ILR Press, 1998), 46.</p><p>46. James Whitman and Gabrielle Friedman, “The European</p><p>Transformation of Harassment Law,” Columbia Journal of</p><p>European Law 9 (2002– 3): 241– 74.</p><p>47. Cynthia Estlund, “Why Workers Still Need a Collective Voice</p><p>in the Era of Norms and Mandates,” Research Handbook</p><p>on the Economics of Labor and Employment Law, edited</p><p>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/business/noncompete-clauses-increasingly-pop-up-in-array-of-jobs.html</p><p>http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/10/15/does-jimmy-johns-non-compete-clause-for-sandwich-makers-have-legal-legs/</p><p>http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0095399714548268</p><p>http://money.cnn..com/2003/06/13/news/funny/coke_pepsi/index.htm</p><p>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/business/noncompete-clauses-increasingly-pop-up-in-array-of-jobs.html</p><p>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/business/noncompete-clauses-increasingly-pop-up-in-array-of-jobs.html</p><p>http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/10/15/does-jimmy-johns-non-compete-clause-for-sandwich-makers-have-legal-legs/</p><p>http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/10/15/does-jimmy-johns-non-compete-clause-for-sandwich-makers-have-legal-legs/</p><p>http://money.cnn..com/2003/06/13/news/funny/coke_pepsi/index.htm</p><p>164 notes to chapter 2</p><p>by Cynthia Estlund and Michael Wachter (Northampton,</p><p>MA: Edward Elgar, 2013), 463– 90, here 470– 71.</p><p>48. See John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, edited</p><p>by J. M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,</p><p>1965), vol. 3 of Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, ch. 7, for</p><p>a classic defense in the liberal tradition. For a contemporary</p><p>economic view, see Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis, and Bo</p><p>Gustafsson, eds., Markets and Democracy: Participation,</p><p>Accountability, and Efficiency (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-</p><p>versity Press, 1993).</p><p>49. See Henry Hansmann, “Employee Ownership of Firms,”</p><p>in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and Law, ed-</p><p>ited by Peter Newman, vol. 2 (London: MacMillan, 1998),</p><p>43– 47, here 45– 46. I thank Steve Nayak- Young for this</p><p>reference.</p><p>50. Gerald Mayer, Union Membership Trends in the U.S. (Wash-</p><p>ington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 2004), iv,</p><p>http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent</p><p>.cgi?article=1176&context=key_workplace.</p><p>51. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Union Members— 2014,</p><p>USDL- 15– 0072 (2015), 1, http://www.bls.gov/news.release</p><p>/pdf/union2.pdf.</p><p>52. By contrast, in Europe, unions often deliver benefits to</p><p>workers across entire industries, and often to workers as a</p><p>whole, even when their membership is only a small propor-</p><p>tion of all workers. For international comparisons, see Jelle</p><p>Visser, ICTWSS: Database on Institutional Characteristics</p><p>of Trade Unions, Wage Setting, State Intervention and Social</p><p>Pacts in 51 Countries Between 1960 and 2014 (Amsterdam:</p><p>Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS),</p><p>2013), http://www.uva-aias.net/en/ictwss.</p><p>http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1176&context=key_workplace</p><p>http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf</p><p>http://www.uva-aias.net/en/ictwss</p><p>http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1176&context=key_workplace</p><p>http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf</p><p>notes to chapter 3 165</p><p>53. It does not follow that nonunionized firms are free from</p><p>monopoly. Monopsonistic conditions are pervasive in labor</p><p>markets. Alan Manning, Monopsony in Motion: Imperfect</p><p>Competition in Labor Markets (Princeton, NJ: Princeton</p><p>University Press, 2003).</p><p>54. Richard B. Freeman and Joel Rogers, What Workers Want</p><p>(Ithaca, NY: ILR Press; New York: Russell Sage Founda-</p><p>tion, 2006), 84.</p><p>55. For a brief introduction to Germany’s system of works</p><p>councils, see Rebecca Page, Co- Determination in Germany:</p><p>A Beginners’ Guide (Düsseldorf: Hans- Böckler- Stiftung,</p><p>2009).</p><p>Chapter 3</p><p>1. Rachel Foxley, The Levellers: Radical Political Thought in the</p><p>English Revolution (Manchester, UK: Manchester Univer-</p><p>sity Press, 2013), 1. Since this comment was written, a new</p><p>account of the Levellers, scholarly and politically engaged,</p><p>has appeared: John Rees, The Leveller Revolution (London:</p><p>Verso, 2016).</p><p>2. Andrew Sharp, ed., The English Levellers (Cambridge: Cam-</p><p>bridge University Press, 1998), 103.</p><p>3. Sharp, ed. English Levellers, 136; Alan Houston, “ ‘A Way</p><p>of Settlement’: The Levellers, Monopolies and the Pub-</p><p>lic Interest,” History of Political Thought 14, no. 3 (1993):</p><p>381– 420.</p><p>4. Thomas L. Leng, “ ‘His Neighbours Land Mark’: William</p><p>Sykes and the Campaign for ‘Free Trade’ in Civil War En-</p><p>gland,” Historical Research, 86 (2013): 230– 52.</p><p>5. Sharp, ed., English Levellers, 94.</p><p>166 notes to chapter 3</p><p>6. Sharp, ed., English Levellers, 171– 72. No one could be</p><p>elected to two parliaments in succession, no person receiv-</p><p>ing public money could be elected, and “if any lawyer shall</p><p>at any time be chosen, he shall be incapable of practice as</p><p>a lawyer during the whole time of that trust.” It is clear the</p><p>Levellers thought it unlikely the English people would elect</p><p>any lawyers to Parliament.</p><p>7. The organizers of the summit located it in the context of</p><p>celebrations of the anniversary of Magna Carta: “Rally</p><p>at Runnymede,” https://www.opendemocracy.net/rally</p><p>-at-runnymede-and-join-opposition; Anthony Barnett,</p><p>New Statesman, February 26, 2015, on the “spirit of</p><p>Rainborough.”</p><p>8. Speakers at the “Lilburne 400 Conference” held on</p><p>March 14, 2015, at the Bishopgate Institute in London in-</p><p>cluded several historians who had written on the Levellers,</p><p>alongside the radical lawyer Geoffrey Robertson, and the</p><p>politicians Tariq Ali and Jeremy Corbyn MP. It was orga-</p><p>nized by the Leveller Association: www.leveller.org.uk.</p><p>Corbyn attended the launch of John Rees’s book, Leveller</p><p>Revolution, in November 2016, and see also the article by</p><p>Edward Vallance in the Guardian, August 20, 2015, and</p><p>for Ali, Guardian, February 20, 2015. The original Grand</p><p>Remonstrance was a denunciation of the personal rule of</p><p>Charles I produced by the House of Commons. As Val-</p><p>lance notes, more right- wing British politicians have also</p><p>appealed to the Levellers’ libertarian legacies.</p><p>9. An optimistic account can be found in John Tosh, Why His-</p><p>tory Matters (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).</p><p>On the other hand, David Armitage and Jo Guldi argue in The</p><p>History Manifesto (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,</p><p>https://www.opendemocracy.net/rally-at-runnymede-and-join-opposition</p><p>http://www.leveller.org.uk</p><p>https://www.opendemocracy.net/rally-at-runnymede-and-join-opposition</p><p>notes to chapter 3 167</p><p>2014) that the potential of recent historical scholarship to</p><p>influence contemporary decision-making is not being real-</p><p>ized. Their arguments and conclusions have been attacked</p><p>by Deborah Cohen and Peter Mandler: see the debate in</p><p>American Historical Review 120, no. 2 (April 2015): 530– 53.</p><p>10. Keith Wrightson, Earthly Necessities in Earthly Necessities:</p><p>Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain (New Haven, CT:</p><p>Yale University Press, 2000), 139. My account of social and</p><p>economic change is deeply indebted to this book.</p><p>11. Wrightson, Earthly Necessities, 226.</p><p>12. For a comprehensive study of the social and political impli-</p><p>cations of the poor law, see Steve Hindle, On the Parish? The</p><p>Micro- politics of Poor Relief in Rural England c. 1550– 1750</p><p>(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004).</p><p>13. For the army, see Ian Gentles, The New Model Army in En-</p><p>gland, Ireland and Scotland (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992).</p><p>14. For Rainborough and Walwyn, see The Oxford Dictionary of</p><p>National Biography; and for Walwyn’s 1652 paper defend-</p><p>ing opponents of the Levant Company and delivered to</p><p>the Council of State, see The Writings of William Walwyn,</p><p>edited by J. R. McMichael and Barbara Taft (Athens: Uni-</p><p>versity of Georgia Press, 1989), 446– 52.</p><p>15. Sharp, ed., English Levellers, 130, 170. The visionary and</p><p>failed merchant Digger leader, Gerrard Winstanley, also</p><p>had a profound hostility to wage labor, writing that he had</p><p>been inspired by God to lead an experiment to work col-</p><p>lectively on the common lands of Surrey— “to eat my bread</p><p>with the sweat of my brows, without either giving hire, or</p><p>taking hire, looking upon the land as freely mine as an-</p><p>others”: The Complete Works of Gerrard Winstanley, edited</p><p>by Thomas Corns, Ann Hughes, and David Loewenstein</p><p>168 notes to chapter 3</p><p>(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), I, 517 (The New</p><p>Law of Righteousnes).</p><p>16. Foxley, The Levellers; Ann Hughes, “The English Revolu-</p><p>tion,” in David Parker, ed., Revolutions and Revolutionary</p><p>Traditions in the West, (London: Routledge, 2000), 34– 52.</p><p>17. Barbara Taft, “Walwyn, William (bap. 1600, d. 1681),” in</p><p>Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford</p><p>University Press, 2004).</p><p>18. Craig Muldrew, The Economy of Obligation: The Culture</p><p>of Credit and Social Relations in Early Modern England</p><p>(Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 1998), 150– 51, is</p><p>quoted. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Po-</p><p>litical and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston: Beacon</p><p>Press, 2001), first published 1944, insists on the political</p><p>and social constructions of “the market.” See also Alex-</p><p>andra Shepard, Accounting for Oneself: Worth, Status and</p><p>the Social Order in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford</p><p>University Press, 2015), who stresses the importance of as-</p><p>sessments of people’s economic worth in social relations</p><p>within “a pervasive culture of appraisal” (308).</p><p>19. Shepard, Accounting for Oneself, 278, drawing on Margot</p><p>Finn, The Character of Credit: Personal Debt in English Cul-</p><p>ture, 1740– 1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,</p><p>2003).</p><p>20. Leng, “His Neighbours Landmark”; Melissa Mowry,</p><p>“ ‘Commonwealth Wives Who Stand for Their Freedom</p><p>and Liberty’: Leveller Women and the Hermeneutics of</p><p>Collectivities,” Huntington Library Quarterly, 77, no. 3</p><p>(2014): 305– 29; Foxley, The Levellers, 143.</p><p>21. Andy Wood, The Politics of Social Conflict: The Peak Coun-</p><p>try 1520– 1770 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,</p><p>1999), 289– 90.</p><p>notes to chapter 4 169</p><p>22. My argument is taken from Ann Hughes, “Gender and Pol-</p><p>itics in Leveller Literature,” in Political Culture and Cultural</p><p>Politics in Early Modern England, edited by Susan Amus-</p><p>sen and Mark Kishlansky (Manchester, UK: Manchester</p><p>University Press, 1995), 162– 89. It is challenged and qual-</p><p>ified by Mowry, “Commonwealth Wives,” and Loxley, The</p><p>Levellers.</p><p>23. Carole Pateman, The Disorder of Women: Democracy, Fem-</p><p>inism, and Political Theory (Stanford, CA: Stanford Uni-</p><p>versity Press, 1989); Ann Hughes, Gender and the English</p><p>Revolution (London: Routledge, 2011), 145.</p><p>24. Indeed, a respectable male- headed household had an ad-</p><p>vantage in the relationships of credit and trust described</p><p>by Craig Muldrew.</p><p>25. The small farm too is a household rather than an individual</p><p>enterprise, so it is hard to argue that Paine was proposing an</p><p>individually based egalitarianism in the American context.</p><p>Chapter 4</p><p>1. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the</p><p>Wealth of Nations, edited by R. H. Campbell and A. S.</p><p>Skinner, 2 vols. (Indianapolis: Glasgow Edition, 1981),</p><p>vol. 1, 69, http://www.econ.uba.ar/www/institutos</p><p>/econ omia/Ceplad/HPE_Bibliografia_digital/Wealth%20</p><p>of%20Nations%20-%20Vol.1.pdf.</p><p>2. Roger</p><p>Lonsdale, ed., The Poems of Gray, Collins, and Gold-</p><p>smith (London: Longman, 1969), 678.</p><p>3. Lonsdale, ed., 694.</p><p>4. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon</p><p>Press, 1968), 72.</p><p>5. Polanyi, 73.</p><p>http://www.econ.uba.ar/www/institutos/economia/Ceplad/HPE_Bibliografia_digital/Wealth%20of%20Nations%20-%20Vol.1.pdf</p><p>http://www.econ.uba.ar/www/institutos/economia/Ceplad/HPE_Bibliografia_digital/Wealth%20of%20Nations%20-%20Vol.1.pdf</p><p>http://www.econ.uba.ar/www/institutos/economia/Ceplad/HPE_Bibliografia_digital/Wealth%20of%20Nations%20-%20Vol.1.pdf</p><p>170 notes to chapter 5</p><p>Chapter 5</p><p>1. Elizabeth Anderson, “What Is the Point of Equality?” Ethics</p><p>109 (1999): 287– 337.</p><p>2. With the aid of other work, in a similar vein, that appeared</p><p>around the same time. Most notably, Samuel Scheffler,</p><p>“What Is Egalitarianism?” Philosophy and Public Affairs 31</p><p>(2003): 5– 39.</p><p>3. Of course, to the extent that the patriarchal family was itself</p><p>a little firm, or to the extent that the operation was just a</p><p>sweatshop in what was also a place of residence, there was</p><p>government even in the tenements. For the required con-</p><p>trast, we have to imagine that piecework, perhaps contrary</p><p>to fact, wasn’t like this. This makes the thought experiment</p><p>no longer so “natural.”</p><p>4. Frederick Winslow Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Man-</p><p>agement (New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1911).</p><p>5. R. H. Coase, “The Nature of the Firm,” Economica 4 (1937):</p><p>386– 405.</p><p>6. Granted, this worry may not be limited to the firm. A mo-</p><p>nopsonist might threaten to refuse to do business with an</p><p>independent artisan, unless he votes for his candidate. But,</p><p>at very least, the worry is not a worry about compensa-</p><p>tion, conditions, or security. It’s a worry instead about the</p><p>relations of power between laborers and those buying the</p><p>labor, or its fruits.</p><p>7. Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of</p><p>the Laws, translated and edited by Anne M. Cohler, Basia C.</p><p>Miller, and Harold S. Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-</p><p>versity Press, 1989); Lon Fuller, The Morality of Law (New</p><p>Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1964).</p><p>notes to chapter 5 171</p><p>8. Jean- Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Other Later</p><p>Political Writings, translated and edited by Victor Goure-</p><p>vitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).</p><p>9. Minimizing the low costs of exile: “Exile... can have severe</p><p>collateral consequences. The vast majority have no realistic</p><p>option but to try to immigrate to another communistdic-</p><p>tatorship” (38). “Alternatively, their claim might be that</p><p>where the only sanctions for disobedience are exile, or a</p><p>civil suit, authority does not exist. That would come as a</p><p>surprise to those subject to the innumerable state regula-</p><p>tions that are backed only by civil sanctions. Nor would a</p><p>state regulation lack authority if the only sanction for vio-</p><p>lating it were to force one out of one’s job. Finally, managers</p><p>have numerous other sanctions at their disposal besides</p><p>firing and suing: they can and often do demote employ-</p><p>ees; cut their pay; assign them inconvenient hours or too</p><p>many or too few hours; assign them more dangerous, dirty,</p><p>menial, or grueling tasks; increase their pace of work; set</p><p>them up to fail; and, within very broad limits, humiliate</p><p>and harass them” (55). “Laissez- faire liberals, touting</p><p>the freedom of the free market, told workers: choose your</p><p>Leviathan. That is like telling the citizens of the Commu-</p><p>nist bloc of Eastern Europe that their freedom could be</p><p>secured by a right to emigrate to any country— as long as</p><p>they stayed behind the Iron Curtain” (60). “Freedom of</p><p>entry and exit from any employment relation is not suffi-</p><p>cient to justify the outcome” (61). Minimizing consent:</p><p>“Perhaps the thought is that where consent mediates the</p><p>relationship between the parties, the relationship cannot</p><p>be one of subordination to authority” (55). Minimizing</p><p>the regulation of employment by democratically enacted</p><p>172 notes to chapter 6</p><p>law: “What, then, determines the scope and limits of the</p><p>employer’s authority, if it is not a meeting of minds of the</p><p>parties? The state does so, through a complex system of</p><p>laws.... The state has established the constitution of the</p><p>government of the workplace: it is a form of private gov-</p><p>ernment” (53–54).</p><p>Chapter 6</p><p>1. For two looks at monopsony, see William M. Boal and</p><p>Michael R. Ransom, “Monopsony in the Labor Market,”</p><p>Journal of Economic Literature 35, no. 1 (1997): 86– 112 and</p><p>Orley C. Ashenfelter, Henry Farber, and Michael R. Ran-</p><p>som, “Modern Models of Monopsony in Labor Markets,”</p><p>IZA Discussion Paper No. 4915 (2010). On Walmart, see</p><p>Alessandro Bonnanno and Rigoberto A. Lopez, “Is Wal-</p><p>Mart a Monopsony? Evidence from Local Labor Markets,”</p><p>Working paper (2009). For a look at why the monopsony</p><p>model has not won over most economists, most of all as an</p><p>explanation of medium- to long- run phenomena, see Peter</p><p>Kuhn, “Is Monopsony the Right Way to Model Labor Mar-</p><p>kets? A Review of Alan Manning’s Monopsony in Motion,”</p><p>International Journal of the Economics of Business 11, no. 3</p><p>(2004): 369– 78.</p><p>2. On the wage premium from larger firms, see Brianna Cardiff-</p><p>Hicks, Francine Lafontaine, and Kathryn Shaw, “Do</p><p>Large Modern Retailers Pay Premium Wages?” National</p><p>Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 20313</p><p>(2014).</p><p>3. For analyses of some related scenarios under monopsony,</p><p>see Kip Viscusi, “Union, Labor Market Structure, and the</p><p>Welfare Implications of the Quality of Work,” Journal of</p><p>notes to chapter 6 173</p><p>Labor Research 1, no. 1 (1980): 175– 92; Alison L. Booth and</p><p>Gylfi Zoega, “Why Do Firms Invest in General Training?</p><p>‘Good’ Firms and ‘Bad’ Firms as a Source of Monopsony</p><p>Power,” Unpublished manuscript (2000); and Francis</p><p>Green, Stephen Machin, and Alan Manning, “The Em-</p><p>ployer Size- Wage Effect: Can Dynamic Monopsony Pro-</p><p>vide an Explanation?” Oxford Economic Papers 48 (1996):</p><p>433– 55.</p><p>4. If Anderson really thinks more job perks is the way to go,</p><p>she could argue for higher taxes on worker incomes to bring</p><p>about that end. Furthermore, she might want to oppose the</p><p>Earned Income Tax Credit and other policies that subsidize</p><p>pecuniary wages and likely lower the quality of workplace</p><p>perks (the employer may lower perks to capture more of</p><p>the value of the subsidy for the firm, rather than it going to</p><p>the worker).</p><p>5. See, for instance, Sanford J. Grossman and Oliver D. Hart,</p><p>“The Costs and Benefits of Ownership: A Theory of Vertical</p><p>and Lateral Integration,” Journal of Political Economy 94,</p><p>no. 4 (1986): 691– 719 and also Oliver D. Hart and John</p><p>Moore, “Property Rights and the Nature of the Firm,” Jour-</p><p>nal of Political Economy 98, no. 6 (1990): 1119– 58.</p><p>6. A starting point here is Supreet Kaur, Michael Kremer, and</p><p>Sendhil Mullainathan. “Self- Control at Work,” Journal of</p><p>Political Economy 123, no. 6 (2015): 1227– 77.</p><p>7. See Harvey Silvergate, Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds</p><p>Target the Innocent (New York: Encounter Books, 2011).</p><p>8. On some of these mechanisms, see Richard B. Freeman,</p><p>Douglas Kruse, and Joseph Blasi, “Monitoring Colleagues at</p><p>Work: Profit Sharing, Employee Ownership, Broad- Based</p><p>Stock Options and Workplace Performance in the United</p><p>States,” CEP Discussion Paper No. 647 (2004).</p><p>174 notes to chapter 7</p><p>9. See, for instance, Ben Craig and John Pencavel, “The Be-</p><p>havior of Worker Cooperatives: The Plywood Companies</p><p>of the Pacific Northwest,” American Economic Review 82,</p><p>no. 5 (1992): 1083– 1105.</p><p>10. Gary Gorton and Frank Schmid, “Class Struggle inside the</p><p>Firm: A Study of German Codetermination,” Federal Re-</p><p>serve Bank of St. Louis Working Paper (2002).</p><p>Chapter 7</p><p>1. Debra Satz, comparing classical with neoclassical econo-</p><p>mists, draws up a similar set of contrasts as I do between</p><p>early pro- market advocates and nineteenth- century laissez-</p><p>faire theorists. “[A]lmost everything that the classical econ-</p><p>omists considered of interest in economic life—</p><p>in particular</p><p>their crucial insights into the social effects of different mar-</p><p>kets on human capacities and social relationships and the</p><p>ways that different markets are socially embedded— has</p><p>been omitted” from the models and evaluative standards</p><p>of neoclassical economics. Debra Satz, Why Some Things</p><p>Should Not Be for Sale: The Moral Limits of Markets (Oxford</p><p>and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 61. Smith,</p><p>in particular, has been misread as a theorist of benign “in-</p><p>visible hand” self- interest and socially disembedded, self-</p><p>equilibriating markets. Bromwich rightly invokes Polanyi</p><p>against such illusions, but wrongly supposes that Smith held</p><p>them. For corrections, see Gavin Kennedy, “Adam Smith:</p><p>Some Popular Uses and Abuses,” in Adam Smith: His Life,</p><p>Thought, and Legacy, edited by Ryan Hanley (Princeton,</p><p>NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016), 461– 77.</p><p>2. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the</p><p>Wealth of Nations, Vol. 1, Glasgow Edition of the Works and</p><p>notes to chapter 7 175</p><p>Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty</p><p>Fund, 1981), I.10.2.61. Nor did Locke support unregulated</p><p>labor markets. Although he prescribed harsh measures for</p><p>dealing with those among the poor whom he imagined to</p><p>be voluntarily unemployed, he also argued that property</p><p>owners should be required to hire the involuntarily unem-</p><p>ployed at a state- prescribed minimum wage. John Locke,</p><p>“An Essay on the Poor Law,” Locke: Political Essays, edited</p><p>by Mark Goldie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,</p><p>1997), 188.</p><p>3. Elizabeth Anderson, “Ethical Assumptions of Economic</p><p>Theory: Some Lessons from the History of Credit and</p><p>Bankruptcy,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 7 (2004):</p><p>347– 60.</p><p>4. Bromwich supposes that Locke supported enclosure on</p><p>the ground that those excluded were not possessive indi-</p><p>vidualists. This reading, probably derived from C. B. Mac -</p><p>pherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism:</p><p>Hobbes to Locke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), fails to</p><p>distinguish Locke’s justification for unilateral enclosure of</p><p>the commons in the state of nature from his views of what</p><p>was permitted once a state is established. Locke argued</p><p>that, whereas unilateral enclosure of the (open- access)</p><p>commons in the state of nature was permissible because it</p><p>would leave enough and as good for others, this was not true</p><p>for the (jointly communally owned) commons in England.</p><p>The latter were justly held in common by joint agreement</p><p>of community members. No individual could unilaterally</p><p>abrogate that agreement. See Locke, Second Treatise, §35.</p><p>Locke supported people’s aspirations to self- employment</p><p>on the same basis that Lincoln did: all the “vacant” land</p><p>in America was available to anyone willing to mix their</p><p>176 notes to chapter 7</p><p>labor with it. Second Treatise, §36. In practice, this posi-</p><p>tion had grievous consequences for Native Americans, and</p><p>implementing it was inextricable from genocidal racism.</p><p>However, Locke mistakenly held that privatizing the sup-</p><p>posedly uncultivated land in America would redound to</p><p>everyone’s interests, including that of Native Americans.</p><p>He did not appeal to racist premises to justify his position.</p><p>On this point, see Jeremy Waldron, God, Locke, and Equal-</p><p>ity: Christian Foundations of John Locke’s Political Thought</p><p>(Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press,</p><p>2002), Kindle loc. 2256– 2335, 2402– 15.</p><p>5. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the</p><p>Wealth of Nations, Vol. 2, Glasgow Edition of the Works and</p><p>Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty</p><p>Fund, 1981), V.1.f.61.</p><p>6. Locke contradicted himself on this point. Notoriously,</p><p>he invested in the slave trade, and probably helped draft</p><p>The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, 1669, http://</p><p>avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/nc05.asp, which upheld</p><p>slavery. However, there is no way to reconcile the actual</p><p>institution of chattel slavery with his theory of property. Al-</p><p>though he allowed the traditional justification for slavery—</p><p>punishment in lieu of execution for combatants in an unjust</p><p>war— this principle could never justify enslaving noncom-</p><p>batants, particularly not the passing of slave status from</p><p>mothers to children. See Locke, Second Treatise, ch. IV,</p><p>and the nuanced discussion of Locke on slavery in Waldron,</p><p>God, Locke, and Equality, ch. 7.</p><p>7. Hence he also had no answer to Bromwich’s challenge,</p><p>regarding market- dominating firms such as Google orAp-</p><p>ple. Smith supposed that states were needed to create</p><p>http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/nc05.asp</p><p>http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/nc05.asp</p><p>notes to chapter 7 177</p><p>monopolies. He never imagined that increasing returns to</p><p>scale would create natural monopolies or oligopolies.</p><p>8. I will not discuss what’s bad about occupying the superior</p><p>position, although this is an interesting question in its own</p><p>right. Egalitarians have things to say about it, regarding the</p><p>corruptions of character and deprivations of the goods of</p><p>relating to others as equals, entailed by superior status.</p><p>9. I’ll set aside the “passive- aggressive, that’s- not- how- you-</p><p>do- it- but- far- be- it- from- me- to- interfere father- in- law” in</p><p>the tenement. He is bossing his daughter- in- law around,</p><p>even if he pretends not to, and even though he lacks the</p><p>formal authority to do so.</p><p>10. Erik Loomis, “This Day in Labor History: Decem ber28,</p><p>1973,” Lawyers, Guns & Money, December 28, 2015,</p><p>http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2015/12/this</p><p>-day-in-labor-history-december-28-1972.</p><p>11. Simon Head, “Worse Than Wal- Mart: Amazon’s Sick and</p><p>Secret History of Ruthlessly Intimidating Workers,” Salon,</p><p>February 23, 2014, http://www.salon.com/2014/02/23</p><p>/worse_than_wal_mart_amazons_sick_brutality_and_secret</p><p>_history_of_ruthlessly_intimidating_workers/.</p><p>12. Spencer Soper, “Inside Amazon’s Warehouse,” Morning</p><p>Call, August 17, 2015, http://www.mcall.com/news/local</p><p>/amazon/mc-allentown-amazon-complaints-20110917</p><p>-story.html.</p><p>13. Head, “Worse than Wal- Mart: Amazon’s Sick and Secret</p><p>History of Ruthlessly Intimidating Workers.”</p><p>14. Only after suffering from bad publicity and customer</p><p>complaints about how it treated its workers did Amazon</p><p>improve ventilation at its warehouses. Corporate repu-</p><p>tation and customer satisfaction matters, but workers’</p><p>http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2015/12/this-day-in-labor-history-december-28-1972</p><p>http://www.salon.com/2014/02/23/worse_than_wal_mart_amazons_sick_brutality_and_secret_history_of_ruthlessly_intimidating_workers/</p><p>http://www.mcall.com/news/local/amazon/mc-allentown-amazon-complaints-20110917-story.html</p><p>http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2015/12/this-day-in-labor-history-december-28-1972</p><p>http://www.salon.com/2014/02/23/worse_than_wal_mart_amazons_sick_brutality_and_secret_history_of_ruthlessly_intimidating_workers/</p><p>http://www.salon.com/2014/02/23/worse_than_wal_mart_amazons_sick_brutality_and_secret_history_of_ruthlessly_intimidating_workers/</p><p>http://www.mcall.com/news/local/amazon/mc-allentown-amazon-complaints-20110917-story.html</p><p>http://www.mcall.com/news/local/amazon/mc-allentown-amazon-complaints-20110917-story.html</p><p>178 notes to chapter 7</p><p>health doesn’t. Spencer Soper and Scott Kraus, “Amazon</p><p>Gets Heat over Warehouse,” Morning Call, September 25,</p><p>2011, http://www.mcall.com/news/local/amazon/mc</p><p>-allentown-amazon-folo-20110917-story.html. It is worth</p><p>noting that Amazon’s abuses of workers reach deep into</p><p>their white- collar ranks. See Jodi Kantor and David</p><p>Streitfeld, “Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising</p><p>Workplace,” New York Times, August 15, 2015, http://www</p><p>.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon</p><p>-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html?_r=0.</p><p>Although my replies focus on the bottom half of workers,</p><p>who face the worst conditions, many in the top half also</p><p>suffer from domination at work.</p><p>15. Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, edited by</p><p>D. D. Raphael and A. L.</p><p>Macfie, Glasgow Edition of the</p><p>Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Oxford: Ox-</p><p>ford University Press, 1976), II.3.1.5.</p><p>16. Contra Cowen, the rule of law does not mean every infrac-</p><p>tion should be punished. The optimal degree of enforce-</p><p>ment for nearly all laws is vastly less than 100 percent.</p><p>17. Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (not) Getting by in</p><p>America.</p><p>18. Social Security Administration, Measures of Central Ten-</p><p>dency for Wage Data, https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola</p><p>/central.html, reports a median net compensation for U.S.</p><p>workers of $28,851.21 in 2014, the latest data available.</p><p>19. Saru Jayaraman, Forked: A New Standard for American Din-</p><p>ing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).</p><p>20. U.S. Department of Labor, US Labor Department Seeks</p><p>Enforcement of Subpoena Issued to Forever 21 (Washing-</p><p>ton,D.C., 2012), https://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press</p><p>/whd/WHD20121989.htm#.UIrdYfmfG31.</p><p>http://www.mcall.com/news/local/amazon/mc-allentown-amazon-complaints-20110917-story.html</p><p>http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html?_r=0</p><p>https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html</p><p>https://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/whd/WHD20121989.htm#.UIrdYfmfG31</p><p>http://www.mcall.com/news/local/amazon/mc-allentown-amazon-complaints-20110917-story.html</p><p>http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html?_r=0</p><p>http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html?_r=0</p><p>https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html</p><p>https://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/whd/WHD20121989.htm#.UIrdYfmfG31</p><p>notes to chapter 7 179</p><p>21. Oxfam America, No Relief: Denial of Bathroom Breaks in</p><p>the Poultry Industry, 2– 3.</p><p>22. Marc Linder, Void Where Prohibited Revisited : The Trickle-</p><p>Down Effect of OSHA’s at- Will Bathroom- Break Regulation</p><p>(Iowa City, IA: Fănpìhuà Press, 2003).</p><p>23. Hertel- Fernandez and Secunda, “Citizens Coerced: A</p><p>Legislative Fix for Workplace Political Intimidation Post-</p><p>Citizens United,” 6.</p><p>24. U.S. Government Accountability Office, Enhancing OSHA’s</p><p>Records Audit Process Could Improve the Accuracy of</p><p>Worker Injury and Illness Data (Washington, D.C., 2009),</p><p>22, https://coreyrobin.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/gao</p><p>-report-on-osha-october-2009.pdf.</p><p>25. Ibid., 24.</p><p>26. Susan Lambert, Peter Fugiel, and Julia Henly, Precarious</p><p>Work Schedules among Early- Career Employees in the U.S.: A</p><p>National Snapshot (Chicago: University of Chicago, EINet,</p><p>2014), 13, 7, https://ssascholars.uchicago.edu/sites/default</p><p>/files/work-scheduling-study/files/lambert.fugiel.henly_.pre</p><p>carious_work_schedules.august2014_0.pdf. See also María</p><p>Enchautegui, Nonstandard Work Schedules and the Well- Being</p><p>of Low- Income Families (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute,</p><p>2013), http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/alfresco</p><p>/publication-pdfs/412877-Nonstandard-Work-Schedules-and</p><p>-the-Well-being-of-Low-Income-Families.PDF.</p><p>27. Alyssa Figueroa, “The Ugly Walmart Truth: Some Manag-</p><p>ers Treat Workers Like Dirt,” Alternet, January 29, 2015,</p><p>http://www.alternet.org/labor/ugly-walmart-truth-some</p><p>-managers-treat-workers-dirt.</p><p>28. U.S. Department of State, “2014 Trafficking in Persons Re-</p><p>port” (2014), https://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/coun</p><p>tries/2014/226844.htm.</p><p>https://coreyrobin.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/gao-report-on-osha-october-2009.pdf</p><p>https://ssascholars.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/work-scheduling-study/files/lambert.fugiel.henly_.precarious_work_schedules.august2014_0.pdf</p><p>http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/alfresco/publication-pdfs/412877-Nonstandard-Work-Schedules-and-the-Well-being-of-Low-Income-Families.PDF</p><p>http://www.alternet.org/labor/ugly-walmart-truth-some-managers-treat-workers-dirt</p><p>https://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2014/226844.htm</p><p>https://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2014/226844.htm</p><p>https://coreyrobin.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/gao-report-on-osha-october-2009.pdf</p><p>https://ssascholars.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/work-scheduling-study/files/lambert.fugiel.henly_.precarious_work_schedules.august2014_0.pdf</p><p>https://ssascholars.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/work-scheduling-study/files/lambert.fugiel.henly_.precarious_work_schedules.august2014_0.pdf</p><p>http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/alfresco/publication-pdfs/412877-Nonstandard-Work-Schedules-and-the-Well-being-of-Low-Income-Families.PDF</p><p>http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/alfresco/publication-pdfs/412877-Nonstandard-Work-Schedules-and-the-Well-being-of-Low-Income-Families.PDF</p><p>http://www.alternet.org/labor/ugly-walmart-truth-some-managers-treat-workers-dirt</p><p>180 notes to chapter 7</p><p>29. Colleen Owens, Meredith Dank, Justin Breaux, Isela Bañue-</p><p>los, Amy Farrell, Rebecca Pfeffer, et al., Understanding the</p><p>Organization, Operation, and Victimization Process of Labor</p><p>Trafficking in the United States (Boston: Urban Institute,</p><p>Northeastern University, 2014), xii; Jessica Garrison, Ken</p><p>Bensinger, and Jeremy Singer- Vine, “The New American</p><p>Slavery: Invited to the U.S., Foreign Workers Find a Night-</p><p>mare,” Buzzfeed News, July 24, 2015, http://www.buzzfeed</p><p>.com/jessicagarrison/the-new-american-slavery-invited</p><p>-to-the-us-foreign-workers-f.</p><p>30. U.S. Department of State, “2014 Trafficking in Persons</p><p>Report.”</p><p>31. Garrison, Bensinger, and Singer- Vine, “The New Ameri-</p><p>can Slavery: Invited to the U.S., Foreign Workers Find a</p><p>Nightmare.”</p><p>32. David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson, “The</p><p>China Syndrome: Local Labor Market Effects of Import</p><p>Compe tition in the United States,” American EconomicRe-</p><p>view103, no. 6 (2013): http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/aer.103.6</p><p>.2121.</p><p>33. Elizabeth Anderson, “Values, Risks, and Market Norms,”</p><p>Philosophy and Public Affairs 17 (1988): 54– 65.</p><p>34. David Dayen, “The True Cost: Why the Private Prison In-</p><p>dustry Is about So Much More than Prisons,” Talking Points</p><p>Memo, August 18, 2016, http://talkingpointsmemo.com</p><p>/features/privatization/two/.</p><p>35. U.S. Office of the Inspector General, Review of the Federal</p><p>Bureau of Prisons’ Monitoring of Contract Prisons (Wash-</p><p>ington, D.C., 2016), 65, https://oig.justice.gov/reports</p><p>/2016/e1606.pdf.</p><p>36. Kim Bobo, Wage Theft in America: Why Millions of Working</p><p>Americans Are Not Getting Paid— And What We Can Do About</p><p>It, rev. ed. (New York: New Press, 2011), Kindle loc. 259– 72.</p><p>http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicagarrison/the-new-american-slavery-invited-to-the-us-foreign-workers-f</p><p>http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/aer.103.6.2121</p><p>http://talkingpointsmemo.com/features/privatization/two/</p><p>https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2016/e1606.pdf</p><p>http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicagarrison/the-new-american-slavery-invited-to-the-us-foreign-workers-f</p><p>http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicagarrison/the-new-american-slavery-invited-to-the-us-foreign-workers-f</p><p>http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/aer.103.6.2121</p><p>http://talkingpointsmemo.com/features/privatization/two/</p><p>https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2016/e1606.pdf</p><p>notes to chapter 7 181</p><p>37. Ibid., Kindle loc. 283– 84.</p><p>38. Brady Meixell and Ross Eisenbrey, An Epidemic of Wage</p><p>Theft Is Costing Workers Hundreds of Millions of Dollars a</p><p>Year, Issue Brief #385 (Washington, D.C.: Economic Policy</p><p>Institute, 2014), http://s3.epi.org/files/2014/wage-theft.pdf.</p><p>39. Seymour Drescher, The Mighty Experiment: Free Labor Ver-</p><p>sus Slavery in British Emancipation (Oxford and New York:</p><p>Oxford University Press, 2002), 132– 34.</p><p>40. Larry Fauver and Michael Fuerst, “Does Good Corporate</p><p>Governance Include Employee Representation?: Evidence</p><p>from German Corporate Boards,” Journal of Financial Eco-</p><p>nomics 82, no. 3 (2006): 673– 710; John Addison, Claus Schna-</p><p>bel, and Joachim Wagner, “Works Councils in Germany: Their</p><p>Effects on Establishment Performance,” Oxford Economic Pa-</p><p>pers 53 (2001): 659– 94; Simon Renaud, “Dynamic Efficiency</p><p>of Supervisory Board Codetermination in Germany,” Labour</p><p>21, nos. 4/5 (2007): 689– 712; Felix R. FitzRoy and Kornelius</p><p>Kraft, “Co-</p><p>Determination, Efficiency, and Productivity,” IZA</p><p>Discussion Paper Series, No. 1442 (2004), http://hdl.handle.</p><p>net/10419/20741; Steffen Mueller, “The Productivity Effect of</p><p>Non- Union Representation,” BGPE Discussion Paper No. 74</p><p>(2009), http://hdl.handle.net/10419/73422.</p><p>41. Brad Delong, “Hoisted from the Archives: A Non- Socratic</p><p>Dialogue on Social Welfare Functions” (Brad DeLong’s</p><p>Semi- Daily Journal, 2009), http://delong.typepad.com</p><p>/sdj/2009/04/hoisted-from-the-archives-a-non-socratic</p><p>-dialogue-on-social-welfare-functions.html.</p><p>http://s3.epi.org/files/2014/wage-theft.pdf</p><p>http://hdl.handle.net/10419/20741</p><p>http://hdl.handle.net/10419/73422</p><p>http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/04/hoisted-from-the-archives-a-non-socratic-dialogue-on-social-welfare-functions.html</p><p>http://hdl.handle.net/10419/20741</p><p>http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/04/hoisted-from-the-archives-a-non-socratic-dialogue-on-social-welfare-functions.html</p><p>http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/04/hoisted-from-the-archives-a-non-socratic-dialogue-on-social-welfare-functions.html</p><p>183</p><p>Contributors</p><p>Elizabeth Anderson is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and John</p><p>Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and</p><p>Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan. She is the au</p><p>thor of The Imperative of Integration (Princeton), Value in Ethics</p><p>and Economics, and many articles on egalitarianism, democ</p><p>racy, and market society.</p><p>David Bromwich is Sterling Professor of English at Yale. He</p><p>has written on politics and culture for Dissent, The Nation, The</p><p>New York Review of Books, and other journals. He is the author</p><p>of several books including, most recently, The Intellectual Life</p><p>of Edmund Burke: From the Sublime and Beautiful to American</p><p>Independence.</p><p>Tyler Cowen holds the Holbert L. Harris Chair of Economics</p><p>at George Mason University and is a Professor in Economics</p><p>at the Center for the Study of Public Choice. He is also the</p><p>Director of the Mercatus Center. He writes for the economics</p><p>184 contributors</p><p>blog, Marginal Revolution. He is the author most recently of</p><p>The Complacent Class: The Self Defeating Quest for the Amer-</p><p>ican Dream.</p><p>Ann Hughes is recently retired from Keele University in the</p><p>United Kingdom, where she was Professor of Early Modern</p><p>History since 1995, and Director of the Research Institute for</p><p>the Humanities and Research Director for the Humanities and</p><p>Social Sciences from 2012–2014. She is the author most re</p><p>cently of Gender and the English Revolution (Routledge, 2011).</p><p>Niko Kolodny is Professor of Philosophy at the University of</p><p>California, Berkeley. Prior to that he was Assistant Professor</p><p>of Philosophy at Harvard University and Research Associate</p><p>at the Research School of Social Sciences of the Australian</p><p>National University. His main interests lie in moral and politi</p><p>cal philosophy.</p><p>Stephen Macedo is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of</p><p>Politics at the University Center for Human Values at Prince</p><p>tonUniversity, where he has also been the Founding Director</p><p>of the Program on Law and Public Affairs (1999–2001), and</p><p>Director of the University Center for Human Values (2001–</p><p>2009). His books include Liberal Virtues: Citizenship, Virtue,</p><p>and Community in Liberal Constitutionalism (Oxford University,</p><p>1990); Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in a Multicul-</p><p>tural De mocracy (Harvard University, 2000); the coauthored</p><p>Democracy at Risk: How Political Choices Undermine Citizen</p><p>Participation, and What We Can Do About It (Brookings In</p><p>stitution Press, 2005); and Just Married: Same-Sex Couples,</p><p>Monogamy, and the Future of Marriage (Princeton University</p><p>Press, 2015).</p><p>185</p><p>Index</p><p>Adams, Abigail, 42</p><p>Adams, John, on government as</p><p>“everywhere,” 42–43</p><p>Affordable Care Act (ACA [2010]),</p><p>49, 111</p><p>Agreement of the People, 7, 77–78,</p><p>83</p><p>Alchian, Armen, 54–57; on a firm’s</p><p>lack of power and authority,</p><p>54–55; on sanctions against</p><p>employees, 55</p><p>Alexander v. FedEx Ground Package</p><p>System (2014), 159n26</p><p>Ali, Tariq, 78, 166n8</p><p>Amazon, poor treatment of work</p><p>ers at, 128–30, 177–78n14</p><p>American Civil War, and theuniver </p><p>salization of independent labor, 32</p><p>anarchism, 6</p><p>Anderson, Elizabeth, viii, ix, xvii–</p><p>xviii, 89–90, 112; on Cowen’s</p><p>skewed view of working condi</p><p>tions and wages in the United</p><p>States, 134–35; critique of her</p><p>views on early modern economic</p><p>and social change in England,</p><p>80–88; focus of on quasipolitical</p><p>relations of government between</p><p>employees and employers, 101;</p><p>fundamental objections of to</p><p>private government, 127; on</p><p>hierarchies of authority, xi–</p><p>xii; on the modern industrial</p><p>firm as “private government”</p><p>and a “dictatorship,” x–xi, 38;</p><p>onprivate business firms as</p><p>“communist dictatorships in</p><p>our midst,” 39, 108–9; Tanner</p><p>lectures of, 78; on waystoin</p><p>crease worker protections</p><p>against arbi trary treatment, xii</p><p>Anglican Church, 11; as a form of</p><p>monopoly, 16; private govern</p><p>ment functions of, 8–9</p><p>186 index</p><p>Apple, Inc., 145n2, 176–77n7</p><p>apprentices/apprenticeship, xiii,</p><p>9–10, 24, 33, 42, 59, 81–82, 83,</p><p>88</p><p>authoritarianism, x, 12, 36; feudal</p><p>authoritarianism, 160n29; work </p><p>place authoritarianism, 50, 59,</p><p>62, 136</p><p>authority, 66, 133; discretionary</p><p>authority of employers over work </p><p>ers, 113; and the firm, 56–57;</p><p>hierarchies of, 52; interpersonal</p><p>authority, 65; of managers over</p><p>workers, 67; and political power,</p><p>98; scope of and limitations to</p><p>employer authority, 53–54, 63;</p><p>subjection to, 61–62, 127–28,</p><p>161n35</p><p>autonomy, exercise of as a basic</p><p>human need, 128</p><p>Bank of North America, 24</p><p>Baptists, 12</p><p>begging/beggary, 15, 16</p><p>Belated Feudalism (Orren), 160n29</p><p>Bentham, Jeremy, prison plan of</p><p>(the Panopticon), 34</p><p>Bismarck, Otto von, 29</p><p>Blake, William, 22</p><p>Bromwich, David, xiii–xiv, 119,</p><p>174n1; on the human costs</p><p>of market dislocations for</p><p>traditional societies, xiv–xv;</p><p>on the rise of market society,</p><p>121–22, 126</p><p>Cantor, Eric, 156n95</p><p>charity, 29, 81, 83, 121, 151n46</p><p>Charles I (king of England), 76,</p><p>166n8</p><p>Chartists/Chartism, 24, 29–30</p><p>Chidley, Katherine, 13, 87</p><p>Church of England. See Anglican</p><p>Church</p><p>Civil Rights Act (1866), 31</p><p>Clarke, John, on the law of nature, 7</p><p>Coase, Ronald H., 102; on firms as</p><p>“islands of conscious power,”</p><p>52–53</p><p>Cobbett, William, 29</p><p>codetermination, in workplace</p><p>gov ernance in Germany, 70,</p><p>116, 142</p><p>Cold War, the, 6, 62</p><p>collective bargaining, xii, 53, 54,</p><p>63, 69</p><p>collectivism, 65</p><p>common law, of master and servant</p><p>annual contracts, 58–59</p><p>Common Sense (Paine), 24</p><p>communism, 6; state communism,</p><p>62</p><p>competitive equilibrium, 60</p><p>Corbyn, Jeremy, 78, 166n8</p><p>corruption, as caused by state favor</p><p>itism, 26</p><p>Cowen, Tyler, xvi–xvii, 120; on em</p><p>ployers’ competition for worker</p><p>talent, 138–39; questionscon </p><p>cerning the constitution of work </p><p>place governance, 131–35; on</p><p>workplace perks, 173n4</p><p>credit/credit relationships, 85; pro</p><p>market views of credit, 123</p><p>Cromwell, Oliver, 7</p><p>Cuccinelli, Ken, 42, 44, 45</p><p>index 187</p><p>“dark, satanic mills,” 22</p><p>democracy, xv, 65, 90, 91, 92, 98,</p><p>105; direct democracy, 130;</p><p>and the market society vision</p><p>of clas sical economists, 96–97;</p><p>political democracy, 98; social</p><p>democracy, 6; state democ</p><p>racy, 106. See also workplace</p><p>democracy</p><p>Demsetz, Harold, 54–57; on a firm’s</p><p>lack of power and authority,</p><p>54–55; on sanctions against</p><p>employees, 55</p><p>“Deserted Village, The”</p><p>(Goldsmith), 95–96</p><p>Diggers, the, 146n1</p><p>divorce, 9, 12, 61</p><p>due process rights, 62, 67–68, 130</p><p>economies of scale, x, 50–51, 125,</p><p>132; interaction of with the per</p><p>sonal freedoms of workers, 110</p><p>efficiency, xii, 35, 120, 138, 142–43;</p><p>of hierarchy, 52; of production,</p><p>51; productive efficiency, 35, 52</p><p>egalitarianism, x, 88; before the</p><p>Industrial Revolution (and Adam</p><p>Smith), 17–18; before theIndus</p><p>trial Revolution (masterless men,</p><p>the Levellers, and Locke), 7–17;</p><p>before the Industrial Revolution</p><p>(from Paine to Lincoln), 22–33;</p><p>and the dismantling/taming of</p><p>social hierarchies, 8; egalitar</p><p>ian aspirations and an implicit</p><p>esteem hierarchy, 32; and free</p><p>markets,</p><p>ix–x, 3–5; history of,</p><p>6; narrowing of the egalitarian</p><p>vision in the transition to the In</p><p>dustrial Revolution, 58; and the</p><p>perfectibility of human beings,</p><p>149–50n29; selfdestruction of</p><p>the egalitarian ideal in the United</p><p>States, 31–33; the United States</p><p>as the leading hope for, 23–24.</p><p>See also Industrial Revolution,</p><p>the: as shattering the egalitarian</p><p>ideal of universal selfgovernment</p><p>Ehrenreich, Barbara, 134</p><p>emigration, 38; costs of, 63; emi</p><p>gration rights, 55</p><p>employees. See workers</p><p>employers: competition among</p><p>for employee talent, 138–39;</p><p>contempt of for worker dignity,</p><p>140–41; control of workers by,</p><p>112–13, 139; dictatorial power</p><p>of, 69, 109, 141, 142; discretion</p><p>ary authority of, 112–13; lim</p><p>itations to employer authority,</p><p>53–54, 63; poor and/or illegal</p><p>treatment of workers by, 135–37</p><p>employment, freedom of entry and</p><p>exit from, xii, 58, 61, 141–42;</p><p>and the costs of exiting jobs, 111</p><p>employmentatwill, xi, 49–50, 56,</p><p>60, 158n18, 160n31; as the de</p><p>fault employment contract, 53;</p><p>and disclaimers, 158n18</p><p>enclosure movement, 92, 121,</p><p>175–76n4</p><p>England, 25; legacies of mid</p><p>seventeenthcentury English his</p><p>tory, 78–80; market relationships</p><p>as central to early modernEn </p><p>gland, 85; national income of</p><p>188 index</p><p>England (continued )</p><p>(up to 1640), 81; povertyindur </p><p>ing the sixteenth and early seven </p><p>teenth centuries, 81; ruin of the</p><p>wool trade in, 13–14; system of</p><p>poor relief in, 82; the transition</p><p>from feudalism to a capitalist</p><p>market economy in, 17–21, 80–</p><p>82. See also English Civil War;</p><p>Parliament</p><p>English Civil War, 7, 76; central</p><p>religious conflict of, 12</p><p>equality, 99, 105–6; democratic</p><p>equality, 94; distinction between</p><p>market equality and political</p><p>power, 94; social relations of, 100</p><p>European Union (EU), 159n23</p><p>exile, as a sanctioning power, 38, 39,</p><p>55, 107; minimizing the costs of,</p><p>171–72n9</p><p>Facebook, offensive postings on by</p><p>workers, xvi, 112</p><p>Fell, Margaret, 12</p><p>feminism/the feminist movement,</p><p>12–13, 32, 125; and the Level</p><p>lers, 86–88; and the undermin</p><p>ing of monarchy, 13</p><p>feudalism: as based on “hospitality,”</p><p>18–19; transition from feudal</p><p>ism to a market society, 17–18</p><p>Fifth Monarchists, 10; as advocates</p><p>of women’s suffrage, 13</p><p>Ford Motor Company, 49</p><p>Fox, George, 12</p><p>free market progressivism, vii</p><p>free market society, 35–36; change</p><p>in the egalitarian assessment</p><p>of, 3–5; early modern market</p><p>relationships, 85; as a “free soci</p><p>ety of equals,” viii, 1–2; and the</p><p>“left,” 1, 89, 146n1; as a portal</p><p>into relations of domination</p><p>and subordination, 2–3</p><p>free markets: and egalitarianism,</p><p>ix–x, 3–5; and privatesector</p><p>workers, vii–viii; support of the</p><p>Levellers for, 84–85; triumph of</p><p>since the end of the Cold War, 62</p><p>free trade: and the advancement of</p><p>equality, 15; as a natural right, 84</p><p>freedom. See liberties/freedom</p><p>French National Convention, 24, 25</p><p>French Revolution, 24, 25</p><p>Frlekin v. Apple, Inc. (2015), 145n2</p><p>Fuller, Lon, 104</p><p>Georgism, 6</p><p>Global Law Summit, opposition</p><p>to, 78</p><p>Goldsmith, Oliver, xiv, 95–96, 97,</p><p>121–22</p><p>Google, 176–77n7</p><p>government: authoritarian govern</p><p>ment, 44; connections of tofree</p><p>dom, 45–46; as an employer, 65–</p><p>66; government/state distinction,</p><p>42–43; as synonymous with the</p><p>state, 42</p><p>Grand Remonstrance, the, 78–79,</p><p>166n8</p><p>great chain of being, 10, 15; and</p><p>“masterless men,” 11</p><p>Great Transformation, The (Polanyi),</p><p>96–97</p><p>greed, 91</p><p>index 189</p><p>Grossman, Sanford, 113</p><p>guilds, 82; abolition of guild mono p</p><p>olies, 14; guild government, 14,</p><p>150n37; private court system</p><p>of, 9</p><p>Hammond, James, 30</p><p>Hart, Oliver, 113</p><p>hemiagnosia: institutional hemia</p><p>gnosia, 65; political hemiagno</p><p>sia, 58</p><p>Holland, 13, 14</p><p>Homestead Act (1862), 31, 124</p><p>Hughes, Ann, xiii, 119, 125; on the</p><p>rise of market society, 121–22</p><p>immigration/immigrants, 32–33,</p><p>137; immigration rights, 159n23</p><p>Imperative of Integration, The (An</p><p>derson), viii</p><p>independent contractors, 51, 132;</p><p>employees as independent con</p><p>tractors, 57, 159n26</p><p>individualism, 65</p><p>Industrial Revolution, the, vii, ix,</p><p>48; centralized production as a</p><p>product of, 65; and the change</p><p>from egalitarian values to sup </p><p>port for workplace authoritar</p><p>ianism, 61–62; and the divide</p><p>between pre–and post–Industrial</p><p>Revolution promarket theory,</p><p>120–26; as a fundamental turn</p><p>ing point in egalitarian social</p><p>thought, 6; and the movement</p><p>of paid work from the house</p><p>hold to the factory, 49; and the</p><p>pervasiveness of markets in</p><p>labor, 36; pre–Industrial Revo </p><p>lution marketfriendly ideology,</p><p>122–23; as shattering the egali</p><p>tarian ideal of universal self</p><p>government, 33–36</p><p>industrialization. See urban</p><p>industrialization</p><p>inequality, dimensions of (author</p><p>ity, esteem, and standing), 3–4,</p><p>91, 98; example of authorityin </p><p>equality, 127–28; example ofes</p><p>teem and standing inequalities</p><p>at Amazon, 128–30</p><p>inflation, during the Revolutionary</p><p>War, 25</p><p>institutions: spread of across soci</p><p>ety in the nineteenth century,</p><p>34–35; total institutions, 62</p><p>Jensen, Michael, 56</p><p>Johnson, Thomas, 7</p><p>jointstock corporations, 21,</p><p>152n56</p><p>journeymen, 23, 33–34, 82</p><p>justice, xviii, 78, 151n46; distrib</p><p>utive justice, xix, 8, 59, 120,</p><p>148n15</p><p>Kolodny, Niko, xv–xvi, 119–20;re </p><p>jection of the rule of law as an</p><p>illusion, 130; on subjection to</p><p>authority, 126–27</p><p>labor: as a commodity, xiv, 2, 97–</p><p>98, 120, 124; free labor, 35; labor</p><p>shortages, 27; marginalizedna </p><p>ture of academic researchcon </p><p>cerning, 135; migrant labor,</p><p>190 index</p><p>labor (continued )</p><p>137; and the progress of free</p><p>labor to full selfemployment,</p><p>31; the relation between labor</p><p>and property, 92. See also labor</p><p>radicals; organized labor</p><p>labor radicals: on access to self</p><p>employment, 25–26; preindus</p><p>trial labor radicals, 35</p><p>labor unions. See organized labor</p><p>laissezfaire liberals/liberalism,</p><p>36, 60, 61, 120, 121, 160n29,</p><p>171–72n9; hostility of laissez</p><p>faire liberals toward state power,</p><p>58; rhetoric of in the nineteenth</p><p>century, 62</p><p>Larner, Ellen, 87</p><p>law(s): antienticement laws, 10;</p><p>bankruptcy law, 123; common</p><p>law of coverture, 9; common</p><p>law of master and servant, 58–</p><p>59; nineteenthcentury labor</p><p>law legal doctrines, 160n29;pos</p><p>itivist conception of, 157n5;</p><p>reason and honest laws, 151n43;</p><p>responsibility for laws, 105; the</p><p>rule of law, 104–5, 114–15, 130,</p><p>178n16</p><p>Levellers, the, viii, xiii, 1, 7, 22, 58,</p><p>122; collective and communal</p><p>activism of, 86; as defenders of</p><p>private property and free trade,</p><p>7, 8, 14, 15–16; drive of forso </p><p>cial and political reform as the</p><p>result of their religious and po</p><p>litical struggles, 84; egalitarian</p><p>ism of, 11, 76, 78; as a feminist</p><p>movement, 86–88; hatred of for</p><p>concentrations of power and</p><p>mo nopolies, 84; inconsistency</p><p>of in their approach to social and</p><p>economic issues, 85–86; and</p><p>the issue of equality, 76; and the</p><p>is sue of suffrage, xiii, 83; pam</p><p>phlets and petitions of against the</p><p>great monopoly tradingcompa</p><p>nies, 76–77; and the Put neyde</p><p>bates, 75–76, 83, 147n9; reasons</p><p>for their support of free markets,</p><p>84–85; rebellion against/rejection</p><p>of hierarchies of domi nation and</p><p>subordination, 8–9, 15–16, 84;</p><p>on the rights of“freeborn” En</p><p>glishmen, 82; support of for the</p><p>“free miners” of Derby shire, 86;</p><p>various religious backgrounds of,</p><p>12; various social and economic</p><p>backgrounds of, 83; view of pri</p><p>vate governments as oppressive,</p><p>26. See also Agree ment of the</p><p>People</p><p>liberation, from workplace authori</p><p>tarianism, 59</p><p>libertarianism, relationship of with</p><p>authoritarianism, x</p><p>liberties/freedom, 63–64; connec</p><p>tions of to government, 45–46;</p><p>constraints on negative liberties,</p><p>47–48; individual freedom, 66;</p><p>negative liberties, 45, 46, 63, 64;</p><p>positive liberties, 45, 46, 48,</p><p>157n9; property rights and the</p><p>growth of positive liberties,</p><p>46–47; property rights and net</p><p>losses in negative liberties, 47;</p><p>republican freedom, 45–46, 48;</p><p>index 191</p><p>worker/workplace freedoms,</p><p>xviii, 109, 110, 111, 112, 115.</p><p>See also liberties/freedom, strat </p><p>egies for protecting the liberties</p><p>of the governed (exit, rule of</p><p>law, constitutional rights, and</p><p>voice)</p><p>liberties/freedom, strategies for</p><p>protecting the liberties of the</p><p>governed (exit, rule of law, con </p><p>stitutional rights, and voice),</p><p>65–66, 133–34; constitutional</p><p>rights (workers’ bill of rights),</p><p>68–69, 70; exit rights, xviii, 66,</p><p>109, 141–42; rule of law, 66–68;</p><p>voice (recognition of workers’</p><p>voices), 69–70</p><p>Lilburne, Elizabeth, 13, 87</p><p>Lilburne, John, ix, 14, 78, 86, 87;</p><p>attack of on stategranted mo</p><p>no polies, 7–8; on the equality</p><p>of the sexes through the exam</p><p>ple of Adam and Eve, 12–13</p><p>Lilburne 400 Conference (2015),</p><p>166n8</p><p>Lincoln, Abraham, 70, 122, 124;</p><p>belief of in the unlimited avail</p><p>ability of free land for workers,</p><p>125; on free labor and wages,</p><p>30–31, 32–33; on hired labor</p><p>ers,155n90</p><p>Locke, John, viii, 91, 121, 174–75n2;</p><p>belief of in the unlimited avail</p><p>ability of free land for workers,</p><p>125; constitutional principles of,</p><p>16; critique of state power by,</p><p>16; as an egalitarian supporter</p><p>of the right to private property</p><p>and the freedom of contract,</p><p>16–17; on enclosure, 175–76n4;</p><p>on family as the first society,</p><p>148–49n20; investment in and</p><p>support of the slave trade by,</p><p>176n6; on justice and charity,</p><p>151n46; on the relation between</p><p>labor and property, 92; on the</p><p>supremacy of the House of</p><p>Commons, 16</p><p>Lockyer, Robert, 87</p><p>London’s Liberty in Chains Discov-</p><p>ered (Walwyn), 8, 86</p><p>Luther, Martin, 11–12; on the</p><p>priesthood of all believers, 12</p><p>Magna Carta, 15</p><p>Marginal Revolution blog, 113</p><p>market exchanges, 4; transition</p><p>from gift to market exchanges,</p><p>18</p><p>market society, 92, 146n1; justifi</p><p>cation for (securing of personal</p><p>independence from arbitrary</p><p>authority), 57–58; and political</p><p>liberalism, 89–90; reversal of the</p><p>egalitarian assessment of, 90,</p><p>121–22; transition from feud al</p><p>ism to a market society, 17–21,</p><p>80–82</p><p>Marx, Karl, 90; on the egalitarian</p><p>view of market exchange as</p><p>su perficial, 4–5; view of free</p><p>market society, 2–3</p><p>“masterless men,” 10–11, 80, 81,</p><p>121; as the core of Cromwell’s</p><p>New Model Army, 11; descent</p><p>of into masterless servitude,</p><p>192 index</p><p>“masterless men” (continued )</p><p>94–95; and the great chain of</p><p>being argument, 11</p><p>material inequality, 23</p><p>Meckling, William, 56</p><p>Merchant Adventurers’ Company, 14</p><p>migrant labor, 137</p><p>millennialism, 12, 149–50n29</p><p>modernization, 93–94</p><p>monarchy: and the feminist under</p><p>mining of the monarchy, 13,</p><p>16; patriarchalist claims of the</p><p>king, 13</p><p>monopolies, 14–15, 90, 165n53;</p><p>abo lition of guild monopolies,</p><p>14, 22; the Anglican Church as</p><p>a monopoly, 16; charters of, 15;</p><p>diversified monopolies, 91–92;</p><p>as a form of statelicensedpri vate</p><p>government, 14; Lilburne’s attack</p><p>on stategranted mono polies</p><p>(charters), 7–8, 21, 26; monopoly</p><p>power of unions, 70; opposition</p><p>to, ix; product mono poly, 110</p><p>monopsony, xvi, 109–10, 165n53,</p><p>170n6; and workplace freedoms,</p><p>110–11</p><p>Montesquieu, 104</p><p>Moore, John, 113</p><p>Morality of Law, The (Fuller), 104</p><p>Muldrew, Craig, 85, 169n24</p><p>Nabisco, and the rights of women</p><p>workers, 68</p><p>National Labor Relations Act</p><p>(1935), 70</p><p>“Nature of the Firm, The” (Coase),</p><p>102</p><p>New Model Army, 11</p><p>noncompete clauses, 66; prohibi</p><p>tion of in California, 66</p><p>Northwest Ordinance (1787), 23</p><p>Occupational Safety and Health</p><p>Administration (OSHA), 68,</p><p>135, 136</p><p>organized labor, 58; decline of, 62,</p><p>69–70; in Europe, 164n52;mo</p><p>nopoly power of, 70; and tenure</p><p>track professors, 62–63</p><p>original sin, doctrine of, and the</p><p>support of authoritarianism,</p><p>10, 12, 15</p><p>Orren, Karen, 160n29</p><p>OURWalmart, 136</p><p>Overton, Mary, 87</p><p>Overton, Richard, 7</p><p>Paine, Thomas viii, ix, 24–29, 70, 92,</p><p>154n76; critique of state abuses</p><p>by, 58; election of to the Na</p><p>tional Convention during the</p><p>French Revolution, 24; on good</p><p>government, 24; on government</p><p>as the primary source of eco</p><p>nomic problems, 25; on govern</p><p>ment as the principal burden on</p><p>society, 25; on government as a</p><p>“system of war and extortion,”</p><p>25; libertarian economic views</p><p>of, 24, 27–28; objection of to</p><p>wage controls, 155n85; plan of</p><p>to eliminate poverty in England,</p><p>25; on price controls, 25; on the</p><p>problem of systemic poverty,</p><p>28–29; proposed system of uni</p><p>index 193</p><p>versal social insurance, x, 28–29,</p><p>124, 125; on the several forms</p><p>of unjust favoritism, 26, 154n82;</p><p>on taxation, 25, 26, 155n83</p><p>Parliament, 11, 26, 76–78, 84, 142,</p><p>166n6; and the right of women</p><p>to petition Parliament, 13, 87</p><p>patent societies, 14–15</p><p>patriarchalism, 10, 15; patriarchal</p><p>appropriation of women’s labor,</p><p>9, 132; patriarchal justifications</p><p>for state power, 13; patriarchal</p><p>ist claims of the king, 13</p><p>Penn State University, 49</p><p>Petition of Women (Chidley), 13</p><p>philosophy: and economics, 108;</p><p>moral philosophy, 108</p><p>piecework, 101, 106, 170n3</p><p>Polanyi, Karl, 96–97, 98, 174n1</p><p>political power, 98; distinction</p><p>between market equality and</p><p>political power, 94</p><p>politics, ix, 90; liberal theory of, 91,</p><p>98; nineteenthcentury politics,</p><p>25; political hemiagnosia, 58;</p><p>popular politics, 26</p><p>Pollock v. Williams (1944), 162n39</p><p>price controls, 25</p><p>Priestley, Joseph, 34–35</p><p>Prince, Thomas, 7</p><p>privacy, as relative, 43–44</p><p>private government, x–xi, 6–7, 36,</p><p>37–41, 63; concept/idea of, 41–</p><p>48; as a contradiction in terms,</p><p>41–42; as defined relative to the</p><p>governed and not the state, 45;</p><p>evaluation of the costs to work</p><p>ers of private government, 138;</p><p>fundamental objections to, 127;</p><p>power of, 45, 54; state regula</p><p>tion of, 48, 55; subjection to,</p><p>44–45, 126–31; substate private</p><p>governments, 47–48; work</p><p>places as private governments,</p><p>41, 50, 54, 70–71</p><p>private sphere, 41–42; public/</p><p>private sphere distinction, 43</p><p>production efficiency, 67</p><p>profits, 21, 23, 91, 110, 120, 142</p><p>property rights, 46, 60, 123; assaults</p><p>on longheld property rights,</p><p>124; and the customary rights of</p><p>the poor to the commons, 123–</p><p>24; growth of positive liber ties</p><p>with the establishment of a sys </p><p>tem of property rights, 46–47;</p><p>and massive net losses in nega</p><p>tive liberties, 47</p><p>public sphere, the, 41; association</p><p>of with the state, 44; public/</p><p>private sphere distinction, 43</p><p>Puritans, 12</p><p>Putney debates, 75–76, 83, 147n9</p><p>Quakers, 12</p><p>Rainborough, Thomas, 75, 77, 78,</p><p>87; advocacy of for the political</p><p>rights of poor men, 83</p><p>Ranters, 12</p><p>Reconstruction, 31</p><p>Reformation, the, 11–12</p><p>Republican Party, 58, 154n76; anti</p><p>slavery as the central principle</p><p>of, 30</p><p>republican unfreedom, 47–48, 64</p><p>194 index</p><p>rights: due process rights, 62, 67–68,</p><p>130; exclusive rights, 46, 47;</p><p>in dividual rights, 66, 68; work </p><p>place constitutional rights, 68–</p><p>69. See also property rights</p><p>Rights of Man, The (Paine), 28</p><p>Robertson, Geoffrey, 166n8</p><p>Root and Branch Petition (1640),</p><p>13–14</p><p>Rousseau, JeanJacques, 146n1</p><p>Satz, Debra, on classical versusneo </p><p>classical economists, 174n1</p><p>selfemployment, ix, xii, 11, 15, 22,</p><p>27, 28, 64, 175; the ideal of uni</p><p>versal selfemployment, 32, 36,</p><p>50, 132; labor radicals’ view of,</p><p>25–26; opportunities for, vii, x,</p><p>33; the progress of free labor to</p><p>full selfemployment, 31; in the</p><p>United States during the age of</p><p>revolutions, 23–24</p><p>selfishness, 90; and relations with</p><p>others, 5</p><p>Sen, Amartya, 112</p><p>sexual harassment, in the work</p><p>place, 135, 141, 142–43</p><p>sexual identity, 48</p><p>Skylab astronauts, labor strike of,</p><p>127–28</p><p>slavery, 30, 32, 66, 122, 124, 125,</p><p>142, 153n62, 176n6; abolishment</p><p>of in the Northern states (1804),</p><p>23; abolishment of under the</p><p>Thirteenth Amendment, 31,</p><p>162n39; as a blot on the hope for</p><p>an egalitarian society, 23; as an</p><p>inefficient means of labor, 21;</p><p>justification for, 10; prohibition</p><p>of in the northwestern territo</p><p>ries (1787), 23</p><p>Smith, Adam, viii, x, xiv, 5, 17–18,</p><p>80, 121, 123, 125, 174n1; onecon</p><p>omies of scale, 22, 125; on free</p><p>market society, 1–2, 17, 152n57;</p><p>on jointstock corporations, 21,</p><p>152n56; on market relations as</p><p>egalitarian, 4; on monopolies, 91,</p><p>176–77n7; on the personal insults</p><p>of others, 129–30; and the “pin</p><p>factory” example, ix, 22; on the</p><p>rise of commerce and manu</p><p>facturing, 19–20; on the</p><p>rise of</p><p>mar ket society, 20–21; on self</p><p>interest, 90; on social and eco</p><p>nomic change in early modern</p><p>England, 82–83; tension be tween</p><p>the moral and economic theory</p><p>of, 146n6; on yeoman farmers, 21</p><p>social democracies, 46</p><p>social hierarchies: dimensions of</p><p>(authority, esteem, and stand</p><p>ing), 3–4, 32, 33, 91, 98; and the</p><p>English poor law, 82; hierarchies</p><p>of authority, xi–xii; rationaliza</p><p>tions for, 10</p><p>social insurance, x, 28–29, 124, 125</p><p>socialism, 29; democratic state so</p><p>cialism, 6, 62, 161n36; utopian</p><p>socialism, 6</p><p>sovereignty, popular, 16</p><p>Spirit of the Laws, The (Montes</p><p>quieu), 104</p><p>state(s)/the modern state: associ</p><p>ation of with the public sphere,</p><p>44; as a “compulsory organiza</p><p>index 195</p><p>tion,” 42; and democraticaspi </p><p>ration, 106; government/state</p><p>distinction, 42–43; and the legal</p><p>infrastructure of developed</p><p>econ omies, 60, 160–61n32</p><p>suffrage, xiii; male suffrage, 76, 77,</p><p>83; women’s suffrage, 13</p><p>Sykes, William, 7, 14</p><p>syndicalism, 6</p><p>Tabarrok, Alex, 113</p><p>tariffs, 21, 22</p><p>taxes/taxation, 25, 26, 111; inheri</p><p>tance tax, 29, 124</p><p>Third Agreement of the People, 7</p><p>Tomasi, John, 56–57</p><p>underemployment, 139, 141, 142</p><p>unemployment, 56, 116, 122, 138,</p><p>139, 141, 142; among African</p><p>Americans, 139; negative effects</p><p>of on workers, 114</p><p>United States, 30; commerce in, 27;</p><p>as the leading hope for egalitar</p><p>ianism, 23–24; selfdestruction</p><p>of the egalitarian ideal in, 31–33</p><p>United States Constitution, Thir</p><p>teenth Amendment of, 31</p><p>urban industrialization, 32–33</p><p>Values in Ethics and Economics</p><p>(Anderson), viii</p><p>wage labor system, 30, 32, 81, 83,</p><p>86, 121–22, 124, 134, 137; hos</p><p>tility toward, 167–68n15</p><p>wage laborers, 31, 32, 33, 58, 81,</p><p>125, 156n95</p><p>wage theft, costs of, 140–41</p><p>wages, 27, 134; argument that higher</p><p>wages result from adverse work</p><p>ing conditions, 139–40; and</p><p>market power, 109–10; wage</p><p>slavery, 35</p><p>Walmart, 109; abusiveness of man</p><p>agers at, 136–37; poor worker</p><p>scheduling practices of, 136</p><p>Walwyn, William, 7; defense of free</p><p>trade as a natural right, 84; jus</p><p>tification of free trade as “most</p><p>advantageous to the Common</p><p>wealth,” 83</p><p>war, as state corruption, 26–27</p><p>wealth/acquired fortunes, 22,</p><p>152n59, 152–53n60</p><p>Wealth of Nations, The (Smith), 22,</p><p>90, 93–94</p><p>Weber, Max, 42</p><p>Wedgwood, Josiah, 159n27</p><p>“What Is the Point of Equality?”</p><p>(Anderson), 99</p><p>will: alien will, 105; democratic</p><p>will, 105</p><p>Winstanley, Gerrard, 167–68n15</p><p>women, 61; in dissenting religious</p><p>sects, 12–13; employment of</p><p>in the garment industry, 101,</p><p>170n3; exclusion of from the</p><p>promise of fully free labor, 32;</p><p>and the legal personhood of</p><p>wives, 9; and the Leveller move </p><p>ment, 87–88; patriarchal appro</p><p>priation of women’s labor, 9,</p><p>132; and the problem of women</p><p>and markets, 88, 169n24; and</p><p>the right to petition Parliament,</p><p>196 index</p><p>women (continued )</p><p>13; subjection of, 125; and suf</p><p>frage, 13. See also Nabisco, and</p><p>the rights of women workers</p><p>worker dignity, vii, xvi, xviii, 4, 16,</p><p>69, 80, 135, 138, 139, 140, 144;</p><p>corporate imposition on, 114;</p><p>sources of, xvii; value of, 143</p><p>workers: aim of European work</p><p>ers’movements in the mid</p><p>nineteenth century, 59–60, 62;</p><p>attempted political coercion of</p><p>by employers, 135; fear of re </p><p>porting injuries by, 135–36;fir</p><p>ing of, 112–13; as particularly</p><p>subject to private government,</p><p>48–49; protections for worker</p><p>privacy, 68, 163n44; replace</p><p>ment of contractual relations</p><p>among workers with centralized</p><p>authority, 51–52; struggle of for</p><p>bathroom breaks, 135; struggle</p><p>of for limits on the length of the</p><p>working day, 59; worker free</p><p>doms, xviii, 109, 110, 111, 112,</p><p>115. See also worker dignity</p><p>workplace, the: domination/abuse</p><p>of workers in, xvi, xviii, 128–30,</p><p>135–38; hierarchical organiza</p><p>tion in, xvii, 39; the modern</p><p>workplace as communist, 39,</p><p>156n1; sexual harassment in,</p><p>135, 141, 142–43; workplace</p><p>authoritarianism, 50, 59; work</p><p>place democracy, 6; workplace</p><p>inequality and social relations,</p><p>xv; workplace perks, xvi, 46,</p><p>109, 110, 111–12, 115, 139, 143,</p><p>173n4; workplaces as private</p><p>governments, 41. See also work</p><p>place democracy; workplace</p><p>governance</p><p>workplace democracy, xvii, 6, 69,</p><p>106; and pragmatism, 130–31</p><p>workplace governance, xvi, xvii,</p><p>70–71; constitution of as both</p><p>dictatorial and arbitrary, xii, 63,</p><p>64; evaluation of the constitu</p><p>tion of, 131–44 passim; explicit</p><p>examples of, 49; implicit exam</p><p>ples of, 49–50; and the nature</p><p>of the production process itself,</p><p>101–2; and the political “rule of</p><p>law,” 114–15; and the state that</p><p>establishes the default constitu</p><p>tion of workplace governance,</p><p>60; and the theory of the firm</p><p>as ideological blinder, 48–61</p><p>passim; and the use of justified</p><p>and unjustified power, 102–5,</p><p>127. See also codetermination,</p><p>in workplace governance in</p><p>Germany</p><p>Wrightson, Keith, 81, 82</p><p>yeoman farmers, 11, 21, 22, 23, 30</p><p>The UniversiTy CenTer for hUman valUes series</p><p>sTephen maCedo, ediTor</p><p>Multiculturalism and “The Politics of Recognition” by Charles Taylor</p><p>A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law by Antonin Scalia</p><p>Freedom of Association edited by Amy Gutmann</p><p>Work and Welfare by Robert M. Solow</p><p>The Lives of Animals by J. M. Coetzee</p><p>Truth v. Justice: The Morality of Truth Commissions edited by</p><p>Robert I. Rotberg and Dennis Thompson</p><p>Goodness and Advice by Judith Jarvis Thomson</p><p>Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry by Michael Ignatieff</p><p>Democracy, Culture and the Voice of Poetry by Robert Pinsky</p><p>Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved by Frans de Waal</p><p>Striking First: Preemption and Prevention in International Conflict by</p><p>Michael W. Doyle</p><p>Meaning in Life and Why It Matters by Susan Wolf</p><p>The Limits of Constitutional Democracy edited by Jeffrey K. Tulis and</p><p>Stephen Macedo</p><p>Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve by</p><p>Ian Morris</p><p>Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t</p><p>Talk about It) by Elizabeth Anderson</p><p>Cover</p><p>Title</p><p>Copyright</p><p>Contents</p><p>Introduction</p><p>Author’s Preface</p><p>1 When the Market Was “Left”</p><p>2 Private Government</p><p>Comments</p><p>3 Learning from the Levellers?</p><p>4 Market Rationalization</p><p>5 Help Wanted: Subordinates</p><p>6 Work Isn’t So Bad after All</p><p>Response</p><p>7 Reply to Commentators</p><p>Notes</p><p>Contributors</p><p>Index</p><p>who is at dinner, when it wants to</p><p>be fed by him. Man sometimes uses the same arts with his</p><p>brethren, and... endeavours by every servile and fawning</p><p>attention to obtain their good will.... But man has almost</p><p>constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in</p><p>vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He</p><p>will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self- love</p><p>in his favour, and shew them that it is for their own advan-</p><p>tage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers</p><p>to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give</p><p>me that which I want, and you shall have this which you</p><p>want, is the meaning of every such offer.... It is not from</p><p>the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker,</p><p>that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their</p><p>own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity</p><p>but to their self- love.... Nobody but a beggar chuses to</p><p>depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow- citizens.2</p><p>The second passage is by Karl Marx. He recasts Smith’s image</p><p>of the market as a mere portal into relations of domination and</p><p>subordination:</p><p>[The] sphere... within whose boundaries the sale and pur-</p><p>chase of labour- power goes on, is in fact a very Eden of the</p><p>innate rights of man. There alone rule Freedom, Equality,</p><p>Property and Bentham. Freedom, because both buyer and</p><p>seller of a commodity, say of labour- power, are constrained</p><p>only by their own free will. They contract as free agents, and</p><p>when the market was “left” 3</p><p>the agreement they come to, is but the form in which they give</p><p>legal expression to their common will. Equality, because each</p><p>enters into relation with the other, as with a simple owner</p><p>of commodities, and they exchange equivalent for equiv-</p><p>alent. Property, because each disposes only of what is his</p><p>own. And Bentham, because each looks only to himself....</p><p>On leaving this sphere of simple circulation or of ex-</p><p>change of commodities, which furnishes the “Free- trader</p><p>Vulgaris” with his views and ideas, and with the standard</p><p>by which he judges a society based on capital and wages,</p><p>we think we can perceive a change in the physiognomy of</p><p>our dramatis personae. He, who before was the money-</p><p>owner, now strides in front as capitalist; the possessor of</p><p>labour- power follows as his labourer. The one with an air of</p><p>importance, smirking, intent on business; the other, timid</p><p>and holding back, like one who is bringing his own hide to</p><p>market and has nothing to expect but— a hiding.3</p><p>These two passages encapsulate a dramatic change in the</p><p>egalitarian assessment of market society that took place be-</p><p>tween the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By egalitarian,</p><p>I refer to an ideal of social relations. To be an egalitarian is to</p><p>commend and promote a society in which its members interact</p><p>as equals. This vague idea gets its shape by contrast with so-</p><p>cial hierarchy, the object of egalitarian critique. Consider three</p><p>types or dimensions of social hierarchy: of authority, esteem,</p><p>and standing. In a hierarchy of authority, occupants of higher</p><p>rank get to order subordinates around. They exercise arbitrary</p><p>and unaccountable power over their inferiors. In a hierarchy of</p><p>esteem, occupants of higher rank despise those of inferior rank</p><p>and extract tokens of deferential honor from them, such as bow-</p><p>ing, scraping, and other rituals of self- abasement that inferiors</p><p>4 chapter 1</p><p>display in recognition of the other’s superiority. In a hierarchy</p><p>of standing, the interests of those of higher rank count in the</p><p>eyes of others, whereas the interests of inferiors do not: others</p><p>are free to neglect them, and, in extreme cases, to trample upon</p><p>them with impunity. Usually, these three hierarchies are joined.</p><p>Smith depicts market relations as egalitarian: the parties to</p><p>exchange interact on terms of equal authority, esteem, and stand-</p><p>ing. He implies such egalitarian content by contrasting market</p><p>exchange with begging, a kind of gift exchange in which sub-</p><p>ordinate parties offer tokens of asymmetrical esteem— “servile</p><p>and fawning attention”— in return for something they want. The</p><p>resort to servile fawning supposes that one’s interests have neg-</p><p>ligible standing in the eyes of the other. The prospective bene-</p><p>factor may turn away a beggar just as a master may shoo away</p><p>his spaniel from the dinner table. The transaction is humiliating</p><p>to the beggar, and may involve his submission to the other’s au-</p><p>thority: servility is how servants behave toward their masters.</p><p>Behind every gift exchange, ostensibly an altruistic affair, lurks</p><p>dependency, contempt, and subordination.4 By contrast, in mar-</p><p>ket exchanges with the butcher, the brewer, and the baker, each</p><p>party’s interests have standing in the eyes of the other. Each party</p><p>expresses this recognition by appealing to the other’s interests</p><p>as a reason for him to accept the exchange. The buyer is not an</p><p>inferior, begging for a favor. Equally importantly, the buyer is</p><p>not a superior who is entitled to simply order the butcher, the</p><p>brewer, or the baker to hand over the fruits of his labor. Buyers</p><p>must address themselves to the other’s interests. The parties each</p><p>undertake the exchange with their dignity, their standing, and their</p><p>personal independence affirmed by the other. This is a model of</p><p>social relations between free and equal persons.</p><p>Marx depicts this sunny egalitarian story of market ex-</p><p>change as utterly superficial. The market is a “noisy sphere,</p><p>when the market was “left” 5</p><p>where everything takes place on the surface.”5 If this is Eden,</p><p>it is just before the Fall. The action of real importance takes</p><p>place once the contract is signed and the time comes to execute</p><p>it. The worker is now dragged out of Eden into the sphere of</p><p>production. His employer, like God, curses him to toil by the</p><p>sweat of his brow. Now it is clear where the parties stand in the</p><p>order of esteem: the capitalist enjoys an “air of importance,”</p><p>his employee is timid and cringing before him. They stand un-</p><p>equally in the order of authority: the capitalist strides in front,</p><p>with the employee obligated to follow wherever his employer</p><p>takes him. And they stand unequally in the order of standing:</p><p>where the capitalist beams, in expectation of profit from the</p><p>relationship, his worker “has nothing to expect but— a hiding.”</p><p>The performance of the contract embodies a profound asym-</p><p>metry in whose interests count: henceforth, the worker will</p><p>be required to toil under conditions that pay no regard to his</p><p>interests, and every regard for the capitalist’s profit.</p><p>What happened between Smith and Marx to reverse the</p><p>egalitarian assessment of market society? It is not, as some have</p><p>supposed, a revaluation of self- interest as a motive for relating</p><p>to others. Smith denies Marx’s claim that in market transac-</p><p>tions “each looks only to himself.” On his account, a successful</p><p>bargain requires each to consider how they could bring some</p><p>advantage to the other. Without a sympathetic appreciation</p><p>for what might interest the other in transacting with oneself,</p><p>and without acknowledging the independent standing of the</p><p>other as someone whose property rights must be respected,</p><p>no bargain will be struck.6 Smith, no less than Marx, reviled</p><p>selfishness as a basis for relating to others.7</p><p>What happened, I shall argue, was the Industrial Revolu-</p><p>tion. Smith wrote at the mere threshold of the Industrial Rev-</p><p>olution, well before its implications for relations of production</p><p>6 chapter 1</p><p>could be fully grasped. Marx wrote in its midst, at a point when</p><p>workers were bearing its most frightful costs, and enjoying</p><p>precious few of its benefits. The Industrial Revolution was a</p><p>cataclysmic event for egalitarians, a fundamental turning point</p><p>in egalitarian social thought.8 It shattered their model of how</p><p>a free society of equals might be built through market soci-</p><p>ety. The history of egalitarianism in the nineteenth century</p><p>is a history of extraordinary</p><p>innovation and experimentation</p><p>with alternative models, some of which rejected market society</p><p>wholesale, others of which sought various revisions and sup-</p><p>plements to it. Most of these experiments— utopian socialism,</p><p>anarchism, syndicalism, Georgism, communism, democratic</p><p>state socialism, workplace democracy, to name a few— either</p><p>failed, were denied a real trial, or never managed to scale up.</p><p>The most visible successes— notably, social democracy and</p><p>labor unions— while still with us, are in decline or under stress</p><p>in our postindustrial, globalized economy.</p><p>Intellectually, public discourse is underequipped to cope</p><p>with these challenges. The Cold War induced a kind of am-</p><p>nesia over what the nineteenth- century struggles were about,</p><p>presenting a radically reductionist picture of alternatives, es-</p><p>pecially in the United States. Images of free market society that</p><p>made sense prior to the Industrial Revolution continue to cir-</p><p>culate today as ideals, blind to the gross mismatch between the</p><p>background social assumptions reigning in the seventeenth and</p><p>eighteenth centuries, and today’s institutional realities. We are</p><p>told that our choice is between free markets and state control,</p><p>when most adults live their working lives under a third thing</p><p>entirely: private government.</p><p>My aim is to get a clearer view of what this third thing is,</p><p>what challenges it poses to the ideal of a free society of equals,</p><p>and how it might be reformed to enable that ideal to be realized</p><p>when the market was “left” 7</p><p>under contemporary conditions. To gain clarity, we need to</p><p>recover the intellectual context of egalitarian thought before</p><p>the Industrial Revolution, when the market was “left.”</p><p>Egalitarianism before the Industrial Revolution:</p><p>Masterless Men, Levellers, and Locke</p><p>The Levellers undertook one of the first egalitarian social move-</p><p>ments of the modern world. Arising in the English Civil War</p><p>and strongly represented in Cromwell’s New Model Army, they</p><p>are best remembered for their calls for constitutional reform,</p><p>including a nearly universal male franchise, parliamentary</p><p>representation of districts in proportion to population, aboli-</p><p>tion of the House of Lords and the lords’ privileges, and reli-</p><p>gious toleration.9 Notwithstanding their name, given to them</p><p>by Cromwell, who feared that democratization threatened a</p><p>mass redistribution of property, the Levellers were also firm</p><p>defenders of rights of private property and free trade. Captain</p><p>John Clarke, in the Putney debates, affirmed that the law of</p><p>nature establishes a right to property.10 The Third Agreement</p><p>of the People, promulgated by John Lilburne, William Wal-</p><p>wyn, Thomas Prince, and Richard Overton, denied the state</p><p>the power to “level mens Estates, destroy Propriety, or make</p><p>all things Common”; to hinder freedom of foreign trade; to</p><p>exempt anyone from paying their debts; or to enact perma-</p><p>nent customs or excise taxes on goods, as these were “extreme</p><p>burthensome and oppressive to Trade.”11 Lilburne attacked the</p><p>state- granted monopolies of printing, preaching, and foreign</p><p>trade as infringing on “the Common right of all the free- men</p><p>of England” just as much as the recently barred monopolies of</p><p>soap, salt, leather, and other goods.12 He included, with full en-</p><p>dorsement, the petition of William Sykes and Thomas Johnson</p><p>8 chapter 1</p><p>against the licensed monopolies of the Eastland merchants,</p><p>Merchant Adventurers, and other cartels in Londons Liberty in</p><p>Chains Discovered.13 Walwyn submitted a systematic argument</p><p>for free trade to Whitehall.14</p><p>Given the tendencies of market society to generate in-</p><p>equality in income and wealth, what stake did this egalitarian</p><p>movement see in promoting private property and free trade?</p><p>To understand this, we must get beyond a narrow interpreta-</p><p>tion of egalitarianism in terms of current ideas about distrib-</p><p>utive justice.15 Egalitarianism, more fundamentally, is about</p><p>dismantling or taming social hierarchy. The Levellers’ support</p><p>for free trade formed an essential part of a larger program of</p><p>liberating individuals from interlocking hierarchies of domina-</p><p>tion and subordination. They saw in free markets some essential</p><p>institutional components of a free society of equals, based on</p><p>their proliferation of opportunities for individuals to lead lives</p><p>characterized by personal independence from the domination</p><p>of others.</p><p>To see this, we must consider the social order against which</p><p>the Levellers were rebelling. Early modern England was char-</p><p>acterized by pervasive hierarchies of domination and subor-</p><p>dination. Nearly all people but the king had superiors, who</p><p>claimed nearly unaccountable discretionary authority to rule</p><p>their lives. Lords governed their tenants and retainers, masters</p><p>governed their servants, bishops their priests, priests their pa-</p><p>rishioners, captains their sailors, guilds their members, male</p><p>heads of households their wives, children, and servants.</p><p>Government was everywhere, not just in the hands of the</p><p>organizations we identify today with the modern state. The An-</p><p>glican Church ran its own system of courts, censorship, and</p><p>taxation. Church courts regularly excommunicated and fined</p><p>parishioners for infractions of church regulations, even when</p><p>when the market was “left” 9</p><p>that conduct was lawful. The church censored publications it</p><p>regarded as heretical or blasphemous. It exacted tithes from</p><p>parishioners, regardless of their religious beliefs.16 Excommu-</p><p>nication had consequences beyond expulsion from the church:</p><p>by the Test Act, only those receiving Anglican Communion</p><p>were eligible for public office. Guilds, too, operated their own</p><p>court system, under which they routinely tried, fined, and jailed</p><p>members who violated (or who merely refused to offer an oath</p><p>that they had obeyed) the guild’s minute regulations regarding</p><p>matters such as the prices and quantities of goods for sale, and</p><p>the location and days on which trading was permitted.17 Under</p><p>the common law of coverture, a wife’s legal personhood was</p><p>subsumed under her husband’s: she could not own property,</p><p>make contracts, sue or be sued in her own name. Her husband</p><p>was legally entitled to all of her wages, to control her move-</p><p>ments, and to inflict corporal punishment for disobedience.</p><p>Divorce was very difficult to obtain.18 Wives often acquired</p><p>more leeway than the law recognized: mainly through contes-</p><p>tation of their husbands’ authority and appeal to custom, and</p><p>rarely through prenuptial agreements and use of scattered laws</p><p>and jurisdictions that limited coverture. Nevertheless, to speak</p><p>of husbands’ governing their wives was no mere metaphor.19</p><p>In an era where production was not yet separated from the</p><p>household, servants— that is, any employees under contract—</p><p>lived under the government of their employers as subordinate</p><p>members of an extended patriarchal family.20 Apprentices were</p><p>bound to service without pay. Under the common law of mas-</p><p>ter and servant, regular employees had to work an entire year</p><p>from sunup to sundown before acquiring entitlement to wages.</p><p>Masters (employers) were free to withhold any amount of pay,</p><p>without prorating, if their servants missed even a single day</p><p>of work, or if they judged any part of their employees’ work</p><p>10 chapter 1</p><p>substandard. They were entitled to all of their servants’ wages</p><p>from moonlighting. Anti- enticement laws forbade competing</p><p>employers to offer contracts to servants under contract to a dif-</p><p>ferent master.21 Again, although custom and market conditions</p><p>often gave servants more leeway than the law prescribed, they</p><p>could not be considered free by today’s standards.</p><p>Various ideologies rationalized these hierarchies.22 One was</p><p>the great chain of being. All creatures were linked in a great</p><p>authoritarian chain of being reaching up to God, it was said,</p><p>with everyone fixed to their particular link or social rank by</p><p>birth. Everyone had some creature above and some below</p><p>their place; even the king and pope were accountable</p><p>to God;</p><p>even the lowliest humans had dominion over animals. Breaking</p><p>ranks would break the chain and unleash catastrophic disorder</p><p>upon the world, detaching everyone from their connection to</p><p>God.23 Another was patriarchalism. The king, as father to his</p><p>country, stood to his subjects as the father to all the members</p><p>of his extended family— his wife, children, servants, and slaves.</p><p>Just as the father enjoyed absolute dominion over the subordi-</p><p>nate members of his household, and owned all its property, so</p><p>the king enjoyed absolute authority over all his subjects, and</p><p>owned all the land of the realm.24 A third was the doctrine of</p><p>original sin. Humanity’s inherent proclivities toward sin justi-</p><p>fied comprehensive external constraint. Every sinner— every</p><p>person— needed someone with authority over them to keep</p><p>them in line.25 Original sin rationalized absolute authority over</p><p>others, and was the traditional justification for slavery.26</p><p>In sixteenth- century England, economic and religious</p><p>changes began to set various individuals loose from traditional</p><p>lines of authority, creating groups of “masterless men”— people</p><p>who had no particular individual to whom they owed obedi-</p><p>ence.27 The least advantaged were those displaced by agricul-</p><p>when the market was “left” 11</p><p>tural developments, including enclosures and draining of the</p><p>fens. Some went to London, seeking employment as casual</p><p>laborers. Some became itinerant entertainers, traders, and cob-</p><p>blers. Some hung on in rural areas as cottagers and squatters</p><p>in heaths, wastes, and forests, keeping a few animals, taking in</p><p>knitting, and performing day labor. Some became vagabonds</p><p>and beggars. Many of these individuals lived outside parishes</p><p>or were otherwise unchurched. The more advantaged among</p><p>masterless men were those who attained self- employment in</p><p>a fixed establishment— yeoman farmers and long- term lease-</p><p>holders, shopkeepers, artisans, and printers.</p><p>The rise of masterless men undermined the argument for</p><p>authority based on the great chain of being.28 That argument</p><p>could explain why people fixed in a subordinate position should</p><p>obey whoever was already bossing them around. But it could</p><p>not identify any particular people to boss those unlinked from</p><p>the chain of authority. Nor were many masterless men much</p><p>interested in finding masters. They were making their livings</p><p>on their own.</p><p>When Civil War broke out in the mid- seventeenth century,</p><p>masterless men formed the core of Cromwell’s New Model</p><p>Army, which selected officers by ability rather than birth, and</p><p>practiced open discussion among the ranks. Many men and offi-</p><p>cers were Levellers. Although the Levellers are mostly remem-</p><p>bered for their constitutional demands to limit the authority of</p><p>king, lords, and Parliament, and to make the state accountable</p><p>to the people, their egalitarianism challenged other social hi-</p><p>erarchies as well: the authority of the Church of England, and</p><p>priests more generally, over parishioners; of men over women;</p><p>of guilds and mercantile monopolies over artisans.</p><p>The Levellers arose in a time of religious ferment, the seeds</p><p>of which had been laid in the Reformation. Martin Luther’s</p><p>12 chapter 1</p><p>doctrine of the priesthood of all believers was taken more liter-</p><p>ally by various Protestant sects than he intended. With the rise</p><p>of printing and literacy among the people, laypersons began to</p><p>read and think for themselves in theological matters. If believ-</p><p>ers enjoyed direct connection to God, unmediated by inter-</p><p>vening links in the chain of being, then why grant authority to</p><p>bishops or even to priests? The central religious conflict of the</p><p>English Civil War was over church governance: the Puritans</p><p>wanted to overthrow the Anglican bishops and universalize</p><p>the Presbyterian system of governance by elders. Far more rad-</p><p>ically democratic sects arose during this period, such as Bap-</p><p>tists, Quakers, Ranters, and Fifth Monarchists, featuring lay</p><p>preachers. Leading Levellers came from dissenting sects. They</p><p>demanded religious toleration, the abolition of tithes, church</p><p>courts, and church censorship. Millennialism— the doctrine of</p><p>Christ’s imminent return to rule earth directly— was common</p><p>among the sects. Christ’s return implied his redemption of</p><p>human beings from sin, and hence the demise of the doctrine</p><p>of original sin and its support for authoritarianism. Individuals</p><p>were thereby restored to their natural (prelapsarian) state of</p><p>freedom and equality.29</p><p>Some dissenting sects drew feminist conclusions from their</p><p>theologies. “The soul knows no difference of sex.”30 Women</p><p>participated in church governance. Some became popular</p><p>preachers. Divorce was liberalized, with men and women hav-</p><p>ing equal rights to divorce their spouses. Quaker marriage vows</p><p>omitted mention of a wife’s duty to obey her husband. Margaret</p><p>Fell, the wife of Quaker founder George Fox, had a prenuptial</p><p>agreement denying Fox authority over her estate.31 Leveller</p><p>John Lilburne insisted that Adam and Eve, and hence all of their</p><p>progeny, “were, by nature all equal and alike in power, dig-</p><p>nity, authority, and majesty, none of them having by nature any</p><p>when the market was “left” 13</p><p>authority, dominion, or magisterial power one over or above</p><p>another.” Turning the authoritarian doctrine of original sin on</p><p>its head, he claimed that Adam’s sin and that of all other men</p><p>acting likewise consisted in the arrogant attempt to rule over</p><p>anyone else without their consent.32 Since, in the beginning,</p><p>Adam had no one to rule over but Eve, the feminist implica-</p><p>tion of Lilburne’s view is evident. Women such as Elizabeth</p><p>Lilburne and Katherine Chidley were active in the Leveller</p><p>movement. The Petition of Women, believed to be written by</p><p>Chidley, insisted on the equal right of women to petition Par-</p><p>liament, and claimed for women “an interest in Christ equal</p><p>unto men, as also of a proportionable share in the freedoms</p><p>of this commonwealth.”33 Fifth Monarchists even advocated</p><p>women’s suffrage.34</p><p>In the context of patriarchalist justifications of state power,</p><p>such feminist ideas served also to undermine monarchy. If hus-</p><p>bands had no absolute dominion over their wives, then the</p><p>king’s claim to rule his subjects as the male head of household</p><p>rules over everyone else in the family could not justify absolut-</p><p>ism, or indeed much of any authority. If wives could hold title</p><p>to property independently of their husbands, then the king’s</p><p>patriarchal claim to own all the property in the realm also came</p><p>to naught.</p><p>In this era, support for private property and free trade went</p><p>hand in hand with challenges to the monopoly of the Anglican</p><p>Church over religious matters, as well as the king’s patriarchal-</p><p>ist claims to authority. The Root and Branch Petition of 1640,</p><p>which called for the abolition of the episcopacy, complained of</p><p>monopolies, patents, and tariffs, as well as the church’s impo-</p><p>sitions of fines and excommunication for working and opening</p><p>shop on holy days. Its persecution of dissenters drove clothiers</p><p>to Holland, to the ruin of England’s wool trade and of the poor</p><p>14 chapter 1</p><p>workers who depended on that trade. The petition also railed</p><p>against the church’s control of the press, which was used to sup-</p><p>press dissenting religious tracts and to publish works claiming</p><p>“that the subjects have no property in their estates, but that the</p><p>king may take from them what he pleaseth.”35</p><p>The Levellers’ support for private property and free trade</p><p>should be read in this context. The personal independence of</p><p>masterless men and women in matters of thought and religion</p><p>depended on their independence in matters of property and</p><p>trade. If the king held title to all property, then subjects with</p><p>land were reduced to mere copyholders, whose customary</p><p>property rights could be extinguished by laws made without</p><p>their participation, such as those calling for enclosures and</p><p>expulsions of residents from fens.36 If the church could fine</p><p>dissenters in its own courts</p><p>for violations of church decrees in</p><p>restraint of trade, it would destroy their freedom of religion as</p><p>well as their ways of making a living.</p><p>Monopolies were another form of state- licensed private</p><p>government that threatened the personal independence of</p><p>small traders and artisans. Whereas free trade promised eco-</p><p>nomic growth, its principal advantage, from the Levellers’</p><p>point of view, was its promotion of opportunities for economic</p><p>independence. Abolition of guild monopolies would end the</p><p>arbitrary and oppressive government of guilds over small</p><p>merchants and artisans who did not care to obey the rules laid</p><p>down by the larger ones.37 (William Sykes, whose cause was</p><p>championed by Lilburne, had been imprisoned in Rotterdam</p><p>by England’s Merchant Adventurers cartel, for refusing to swear</p><p>an oath that he had obeyed all of their regulations concerning</p><p>the cloth trade in Holland.38) This was not only a violation of</p><p>rights to liberty. It was a violation of equality: “Patent socie-</p><p>ties swelling with a luciferian spirit, in desiring to advance into</p><p>when the market was “left” 15</p><p>a higher room than their fellows, did by seruptitious Patents</p><p>incorporate themselves,” despite the fact that “every subject</p><p>hath equall freedom with them” by the Magna Carta and other</p><p>laws of England. Monopolies put the people “in a condition of</p><p>vassalage,” and reduce their hearts to “servility.”39</p><p>Abolish the monopolies, and free trade would not merely</p><p>liberate already existing small artisans from arbitrary private</p><p>government. It would expand opportunities for many others to</p><p>create their own businesses— to become self- employed, inde-</p><p>pendent, masterless men. Charters of monopoly limited trade</p><p>to particular towns. Abolish them, and trade, with its atten-</p><p>dant opportunities for attaining independence, would spread</p><p>across the entire country. Eliminate artificial barriers to trade,</p><p>and “even servants” could risk investing in it, with the chance</p><p>of gaining enough profit to become independent taxpayers.40</p><p>The Levellers did not neglect the benefits free trade would</p><p>bring to those who would never attain self- employment. Ab-</p><p>olition of monopolies would also strengthen the bargaining</p><p>power of sailors, due to the multiplication of ships needed to</p><p>bear a higher- volume foreign trade, and increase the purchas-</p><p>ing power of “workmen of all sorts,” by reducing prices.41 The</p><p>higher volume of trade would also employ many who were,</p><p>under monopoly, unable to find work and thereby reduced to</p><p>beggary.42 As we have seen from Smith’s observations, in the</p><p>order of esteem and standing, earning one’s living is better than</p><p>begging. So free trade advances equality for many, even for</p><p>those who do not enjoy full independence from the will of a</p><p>master.</p><p>Thus, the Levellers rejected the principal arguments for so-</p><p>cial hierarchy of all kinds— the great chain of being, patriarchal-</p><p>ism, original sin. Their critique of arbitrary and unaccountable</p><p>state power was part and parcel of their critique of other forms</p><p>16 chapter 1</p><p>of domination— of the church over all English subjects, of men</p><p>over women, of lords over tenants, of guilds over artisans. The</p><p>state underwrote these other forms of government by grants</p><p>of monopoly (the established Church of England being just</p><p>another kind of monopoly), restraints on free trade, and inva-</p><p>sions of the birthrights of English subjects, which they saw as</p><p>a form of property.43 The Levellers supported property rights</p><p>and free trade for the ways they secured and promoted the</p><p>personal independence of individuals from the domination</p><p>of others. These institutions promoted the ability of men and</p><p>women to become masterless, and increased the dignity and</p><p>bargaining power of those who remained servants, by raising</p><p>their wages and real incomes and by lifting beggars from des-</p><p>titution to employment.</p><p>Locke, too, was an egalitarian who supported extensive</p><p>rights to private property and contract. Did he link egalitar-</p><p>ianism to rights to property and contract in the same ways as</p><p>the Levellers? Lacking space for a more extensive commen-</p><p>tary, I shall merely note some profound affinities between the</p><p>Levellers and Locke, writing some decades after them. Locke’s</p><p>constitutional principles— popular sovereignty, a nearly uni-</p><p>versal male franchise, equality under the law, equal represen-</p><p>tation of districts, supremacy of the House of Commons— are</p><p>all Leveller principles.44 Like them, his egalitarian critique of</p><p>arbitrary and unaccountable state power is deeply tied to his</p><p>critique of other forms of government. In particular, his fem-</p><p>inism (his insistence that wives are entitled to independent</p><p>rights to property, freedom of contract, divorce, and personal</p><p>autonomy from their husbands) is indispensable to his critique</p><p>of patriarchalist defenses of absolute monarchy.45 He also in-</p><p>sists that property owners are not entitled to take advantage</p><p>of the poor by conditioning an offer of subsistence on their</p><p>when the market was “left” 17</p><p>submission to arbitrary power.46 As with the Levellers, once we</p><p>focus on the egalitarian interest in avoiding relations of domina-</p><p>tion and subjection, it is much easier to see how, in the context</p><p>of seventeenth- century institutions, market society could be</p><p>an egalitarian cause.</p><p>Egalitarianism before the Industrial Revolution: Smith</p><p>We have seen that in the seventeenth century, egalitarians sup-</p><p>ported private property and free trade because they anticipated</p><p>that the growth of market society would help dismantle social</p><p>hierarchies of domination and subordination. State- licensed</p><p>monopolies were instruments by which the higher ranks op-</p><p>pressively governed the middling and lower ranks. Opposi-</p><p>tion to economic monopolies was part of a broader agenda of</p><p>dismantling monopolies across all domains of social life: not</p><p>just the guilds, but monopolies of church and press, monop-</p><p>olization of the vote by the rich, and monopolization of fam-</p><p>ily power by men. Eliminate monopoly, and far more people</p><p>would be able to attain personal independence and become</p><p>masterless men and women. Even those who remained servants</p><p>would gain esteem and standing through enhanced income and</p><p>bargaining power with respect to their masters.</p><p>Did that vision continue through the eighteenth century? We</p><p>need only consult the leading eighteenth- century advocate of</p><p>market society, Adam Smith, to know the answer. Today, Smith</p><p>is read as advocating market society because it would lead to</p><p>economic growth and an efficient allocation of resources. These</p><p>are unquestionably significant themes in his writings. However,</p><p>he did not think that economic growth and efficiency were the</p><p>leading virtues of market society. Rather, the transition from</p><p>feudalism to market society, driven by the rise of commerce and</p><p>18 chapter 1</p><p>manufactures, led to “order and good government, and with</p><p>them the liberty and security of individuals... who had before</p><p>lived almost in a continual state of war with their neighbours,</p><p>and of servile dependency upon their superiors. This... is by</p><p>far the most important of all their effects.”47</p><p>The critical mediating factor leading to these favorable ef-</p><p>fects was the transition from gift to market exchange as the</p><p>principal basis by which individuals satisfied their needs. Feu-</p><p>dalism was based on “hospitality”: because markets were un-</p><p>developed, the landlord could spend his surplus</p><p>in no other way than by maintaining a hundred or a thou-</p><p>sand men. He is at all times, therefore, surrounded with</p><p>a multitude of retainers and dependants, who, having no</p><p>equivalent to give in return for their maintenance, but being</p><p>fed entirely by his bounty, must obey him.... The occupiers</p><p>of land were in every respect as dependent upon the great</p><p>proprietor as his retainers. Even such of them as were not</p><p>in a state of villanage, were tenants at will.... A tenant at</p><p>will... is as dependent upon the proprietor as any servant</p><p>or retainer whatever,</p><p>and must obey him with as little re-</p><p>serve.... The subsistence of both is derived from his bounty,</p><p>and its continuance depends upon his good pleasure. Upon</p><p>the authority which the great proprietors necessarily had...</p><p>over their tenants and retainers, was founded the power of</p><p>the ancient barons. They necessarily became the judges in</p><p>peace, and the leaders in war, of all who dwelt upon their</p><p>estates.... Not only the highest jurisdictions, both civil and</p><p>criminal, but the power of levying troops, of coining money,</p><p>and even that of making bye- laws for the government of</p><p>their own people, were all rights possessed allodially by the</p><p>great proprietors of land.48</p><p>when the market was “left” 19</p><p>To depend on the good will of another for one’s subsistence</p><p>puts one at the mercy of the other, and under his subjection.</p><p>Gifts are not free: “hospitality” is given in return for obedience.</p><p>The result is private government: the gift- giver’s unaccountable</p><p>dominion over the recipients of his good will. But private gov-</p><p>ernment was bad government. Not only did it reduce most</p><p>people to a state of “servile dependency,” but also the feudal</p><p>lords were always at war with one another, leaving the country</p><p>“a scene of violence, rapine, and disorder.”49</p><p>The rise of commerce and manufacturing had ironically</p><p>beneficial results:</p><p>All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems,</p><p>in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of</p><p>the masters of mankind. As soon, therefore, as they could</p><p>find a method of consuming the whole value of their rents</p><p>themselves, they had no disposition to share them with any</p><p>other persons. For a pair of diamond buckles, perhaps, or</p><p>for something as frivolous and useless, they exchanged the</p><p>maintenance, or, what is the same thing, the price of the</p><p>maintenance of 1000 men for a year, and with it the whole</p><p>weight and authority which it could give them... thus,</p><p>for the gratification of the most childish, the meanest, and</p><p>the most sordid of all vanities they gradually bartered their</p><p>whole power and authority.50</p><p>On Smith’s account, the rise of commerce and manufacturing</p><p>led people to leave the lords’ estates to become artisans and</p><p>tradesmen. Although the latter still depended on the great pro-</p><p>prietors’ expenditures for a living, now any given lord contrib-</p><p>uted only a small proportion of the subsistence of any of them.</p><p>Hence no lord was in a position to command any of them: he</p><p>20 chapter 1</p><p>got only buckles, not authority, for his payment. The substi-</p><p>tution of market exchange for gift exchange thereby liberated</p><p>artisans and tradesmen from “servile dependency.” A similar</p><p>process liberated the farmers. As the lords dismissed their re-</p><p>tainers, they did not need to take so much of the harvest for</p><p>the maintenance of hundreds or thousands. So the lords also</p><p>dismissed many tenants at will, while raising rents on the re-</p><p>mainder. The latter were willing to pay higher rents only in</p><p>return for long- term leases. By this means, the farmers were</p><p>also liberated from servility to the lords. Tenants at will, fearful</p><p>of eviction if they do not obey every whim of their landlord,</p><p>must bow and scrape before them. Farmers protected by long-</p><p>term leases need only pay the rent. The market nexus replaces</p><p>a relation of domination and subjection with an arm’s- length</p><p>exchange on the basis of mutual interest and personal indepen-</p><p>dence. By undermining the authority of the landlords, market</p><p>society also increased the power of the national government,</p><p>which brought peace, order, and the rule of law.51</p><p>So far, Smith’s account of the rise of market society is his-</p><p>torical. It does not take into account the expected effects of set-</p><p>ting markets free— of removing all monopolizing constraints</p><p>on trade. Chief among these constraints were primogeniture</p><p>and entails, which kept nearly all land locked up and undivided</p><p>in the possession of the firstborn sons of a few great families.</p><p>Smith condemned these constraints as “founded upon the most</p><p>absurd of all suppositions, ...that every successive generation</p><p>of men have not an equal right to the earth,” but that land own-</p><p>ership be restrained by “the fancy of those who died perhaps</p><p>five hundred years ago.”52 This arrangement was inefficient,</p><p>because great landowners are more interested in conspicuous</p><p>consumption than improving the land, which requires labori-</p><p>ous attention “to small savings and small gains.”53 The mostef-</p><p>when the market was “left” 21</p><p>ficient agricultural producers are the yeoman farmers, small</p><p>proprietors who work their own land. Neither sharecroppers</p><p>nor tenants at will nor even leaseholders had a great incentive</p><p>to invest in land improvements, because their landlord would</p><p>appropriate part or all of the gains. Nor was slavery efficient,</p><p>because slaves have no incentive to work hard.54 If primogeni-</p><p>ture and entail were abolished, great estates would be divided</p><p>upon the death of the owner and sold. Land prices would fall</p><p>because a greater supply of land would reach the market. This</p><p>would put farms within reach of the most productive— the yeo-</p><p>man farmers. Smith looked to North America as a model of</p><p>what would happen: even individuals of very modest means</p><p>could buy their own farms, and yeoman farmers dominated</p><p>the agricultural sector.55</p><p>Smith believed that in a fully free market, the commercial</p><p>and manufacturing sectors would similarly be dominated by</p><p>small- scale enterprises, run by independent artisans and mer-</p><p>chants, with at most a few employees. Large- scale enterprises</p><p>were a product of state- licensed monopolies, tariffs, and other</p><p>mercantilist protections. It was only necessary to raise the large</p><p>concentrations of capital used by joint- stock corporations for</p><p>four types of “routine” business that required no innovation or</p><p>entrepreneurial vision: banking, insurance, canals, and water</p><p>utilities. With or without special state protections, they would</p><p>tend to fail.56 In a free market, with barriers to entry eliminated,</p><p>firms managed by their owners would out- compete the direc-</p><p>tors of joint- stock corporations because the former, risking</p><p>their own money, would invest more energy, attention, and</p><p>skill in their businesses. With many entrants into the open mar-</p><p>ket, rates of profit would fall. When profits are low, few great</p><p>fortunes can be accumulated, so nearly all capital owners will</p><p>have to work for a living.57</p><p>22 chapter 1</p><p>No wonder Smith’s pin factory, his model of an enterprise</p><p>with an efficient division of labor, employed only ten workers.58</p><p>The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776. Smith was writing</p><p>only at the threshold of the Industrial Revolution. The spinning</p><p>jenny had been invented in 1764, kept secret until it was pat-</p><p>ented in 1770, and was only beginning to be used in a few fac-</p><p>tories by 1776. No one could have anticipated the rise of Blake’s</p><p>“dark, satanic mills” on the basis of such slender evidence.</p><p>Smith reasonably believed that economies of scale were negli-</p><p>gible for the production of most goods.</p><p>Thus we see that Smith’s economic vision of a free market</p><p>society aligns with the Levellers’ vision more than a century</p><p>earlier. Abolish guilds, monopolies, tariffs, restrictions on land</p><p>sales, and other state- enforced restrictions on “natural liberty,”</p><p>and concentrations of great wealth would be dissipated, while</p><p>labor would enjoy a “liberal reward.”59 Any remaining inequal-</p><p>ities of wealth would hardly matter. In Smith’s day, there were</p><p>only two things great wealth could buy that were beyond the</p><p>reach of those of modest means: dominion over others, and</p><p>vanities.60 For the rich, the rise of market society replaced the</p><p>pursuit of dominion with the pursuit of trifling vanities. This</p><p>was a huge win from an egalitarian point of view. Eliminate</p><p>barriers to free markets, and the fortunes of the rich would be</p><p>quickly dissipated, while opportunities for self- employment</p><p>would proliferate.61 This would be another huge</p>
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