“Imagine a government that assigns almost everyone a superior whom they must obey. Although superiors give most inferiors a routine to follow, there is no rule of law. Orders may be arbitrary and can change at any time, without prior notice or opportunity to appeal. Superiors are unaccountable to those they order around. They are neither elected nor removable by their inferiors. Inferiors have no right to complain in court about how they are being treated, except in a few narrowly defined cases. They also have no right to be consulted about the orders they are given.” 1
If you work for a corporation, you don’t have to work too hard to imagine this; you live it daily. In her book, Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk about It), Elizabeth Anderson offers a view of companies quite different from the usual analogies we hear. People often say our organization is a Family, Sports Team, community, etc. What Anderson provides is not meant as an analogy; it is meant to be a description. Companies are private governments in the form of communist dictatorships.
Let’s break it down.
Private Governments in the form of Communist Dictatorships
An organization is Private. With privacy, it is crucial to distinguish whether you are keeping something private or if something is being kept private from you. With a business, as an employee, a significant number of decisions and information are kept private from you despite the impact it can have on your life.
“If something is legitimately kept private from you, that means it is none of your business. This entails at least one of the following: you are not entitled to know about it, your interests have no standing in decisions regarding it, you aren’t entitled to make decisions regarding it or to hold those who do accountable for the effect their decisions have on you.”2
It is a Government based on the idea that “government exists wherever some have the authority to issue orders to others, backed by sanctions, in one or more domains of life.”3
It is a communist dictatorship in that “the government owns all the non-labor means of production in the society it governs. It organizes production by means of central planning. The form of the government is a dictatorship. In some cases, the dictator is appointed by an oligarchy [(a board)]. In other cases, the dictator is self-appointed.” 4
This sounds harsh. Indeed, some companies treat their employees far better than others and could be considered benevolent. One common argument is that while this may be somewhat true, and some companies do act poorly, employees choose to work for a company and can always leave.
Anderson addresses this point directly:
This is like saying that Mussolini was not a dictator, because Italians could emigrate. While emigration rights may give governors an interest in voluntarily restraining their power, such rights hardly dissolve it. 5
One could also argue that if most businesses operate in this manner, there really is no place to escape, and since work is required for survival, there is not nearly the freedom to escape these conditions, as many may assume. (Please see my past newsletter for an overview of what freedom at work could mean)
Solopreneurship to the rescue
If you spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, you will see a solution: solopreneurship. This is the idea that you can build a personal brand and escape the “rat race,” usually, you can find people bragging about how they make 7 or 8 figures a year while working very little. It is all about multiple revenue streams and passive income.
These folks don’t care about the situation that caused the issues; they are happy to be gatekeepers to knowledge, charging others for the recipe to do what they did. (Having taken one of these “courses,” I can easily say it should have been a short book and a fraction of the price, but providing videos allows them to charge more and be less thoughtful about the content. It is a masterclass in packaging and promotion. Still, the value is limited) What is interesting is that the vast majority of personal brand experts teach others to do the same. It is a pyramid scheme.
They replace the idea of work as an ethical responsibility, which is part of neoliberalism, with, and worse, wealth as a right for the few.
Fundamentally, they are not trying to change the underlying conditions. They need them to continue to build their empires. They need people to be miserable at their day jobs, people with enough resources to hire them or take their courses so that their revenue stream continues, but there is no real change in the conditions that reproduce burnout.
It can work for some. As someone who runs their own business, I don’t think business ownership is terrible, but it isn’t a real solution to the problem.
Not everyone can be a solopreneur. We need large companies to accomplish larger goals. Yes, a one-person company can do some things, but very few products you rely on are the work of a single person. You may be able to buy a wallet made by a single craftsperson (I did, and I love it), but that is impossible for a cell phone, laptop, car, or any of the hundreds of other products we use daily. Cooperation makes humans capable of so much, and retreating into solopreneurship doesn’t solve that. It allows a few people to escape, and rather than those people seeing their escape as part of the privilege they may have in society, they see it as earned. What it doesn’t do is try and change conditions so that everyone can have a pathway that escapes the challenges of the current system.
What can we do about it?
Anderson proposes four strategies for “advancing and protecting the liberties and interests of the governed under any type of government: (1) exit, (2) the rule of law, (3) substantive constitutional rights, and (4) voice.” 6
- Exit is the ability to change jobs. As mentioned above, this is not always as easy as it seems. Employees depend on their employers for the salary they need to survive and (in the US) healthcare. The ability to leave a job is a luxury that not all have.
- The rule of Law means having clear policies and procedures. Many companies are reasonably good at providing employee guidelines, but there is more to it. In a government with strong rule of law:
(a) Authority may be exercised only through laws duly passed and publicized in advance, rather than arbitrary orders issued without any process. (b) Subjects are at liberty to do anything not specifically prohibited by law. (c) Laws are generally applicable to everyone in similar circumstances. (d) Subjects have rights of due process before suffering any sanctions for noncompliance. 7
- Constitutional rights build on the rules of law and provide clear rights to employees within the workspace. There are some rights and protections in the US, and many organizations do a good job enforcing rules around harassment and discrimination. However, this is usually the discretion of the business itself.
A just workplace constitution should incorporate basic constitutional rights, akin to a bill of rights against employers. To some extent, the Fair Labor Standards Act, anti-discrimination laws, and other workplace regulations already serve this function. A workers’ bill of rights could be strengthened by the addition of more robust protections of workers’ freedom to engage in off-duty activities, such as exercising their political rights, free speech, and sexual choices. Similar protections for employee privacy could be extended in the workplace during work breaks. 8
- Voice gives employees a genuine say in workplace operations and leadership. I have heard of companies that have a seat on the board for an elected employee, and there are other proposals for more democratic control of firms, but this area seems to have the least traction (at least in the US). One such proposal is for a bi-cameral system with an employee board with equal power to the traditional board. (I may write about this more in the future.)
Many organizations mean well and try to do their best to protect employees. They may even offer some support for these four strategies, but when compared to the expectations of a citizen in a democratic state, most companies fall far short.
All in all, this is a very different conception of a business, and I don’t expect any organization to proudly declare itself a Communist Dictatorship Private Government (the way that they claim they are a family, community, or sports team), no matter how accurate. However, perhaps envisioning organizations through this perspective can awaken new possibilities for how a business can function.
What can you do as a middle manager?
Middle management is one of the most challenging positions of all. You are being asked to be an authority within the dictatorship. You don’t have any absolute authority outside of your immediate domain, and even then, your position is precarious if you stray from the position of your superiors.
- Exit: As a middle manager, helping people transition out of your organization is essential. When things are not going well for someone, it is easy to write them off, but there is an opportunity to help them take the next step in their career.
- Law: Treat everyone on your teams by the same standards, clarify those standards, and know that you don’t have all the answers as the manager. Your view is not 100% accurate. There may be some limitations here; for example, as a middle manager, allowing team members to be a jury on a work infraction may break workplace rules. However, you can seek outside opinions and ensure that you remove biases. And ensure your responses to issues are just.
- Constitutional rights: While there may not be legal protections, there are things you can choose to see and not see as a manager.
- Voice: Perhaps the most important thing is to give your employees a real voice. This often means an anonymous voice so they can express things they may not feel safe to otherwise. Most importantly, take the feedback seriously. Give people a voice in the decisions that impact them. (This is something I continue to try to improve on. )