Eliz. Anderson

workplace:https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/10/16/communist-dictatorship-in-our-midst/

“….But one American scholar, the influential University of Michigan radical philosopher Elizabeth Anderson, has broken through the crust of silence in her provocative book, Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives [and Why We Don’t Talk About It] (2017). Anderson’s purpose is to make a relatively succinct argument for “democratic governance” at the workplace. She does not provide a mighty treatise reviewing the history of the global struggle for the democratization of the workplace as such. Rather, she wants to provoke us out of our lethargy and conventional thinking by upsetting conventional notions of public and private governance. All of this in 70 pages!

Anderson reminds those of us on the left that before the big bad Industrial Revolution changed workers’ conditions of labour, the “market” was imagined as a source of freedom for egalitarian-minded workers. It provided opportunities for self-employment and self-governance. In her words, “The personal independence of masterless men and women in matters of thought and religion depended on their independence in matters of property and trade.”

But the Industrial Revolution upset the great dream of the English Levellers, Thomas Paine and Abraham Lincoln by denying working people opportunities for economic independence. There was little room for egalitarian forms of self-employment. Now, work demanded that those selling their labour power had to subordinate their work-time to authoritarian bosses.

She proclaims boldly: “The Industrial Revolution shattered the egalitarian ideal of universal self-government in the realm of production. Economies of scale overwhelmed the economy of small proprietors, replacing them with the large enterprises that employed many workers.” The gulf between owners and workers was wedged apart and widened over time. Adam Smith’s late 18th century dream of the wage contract as an expression of equality was smashed to pieces in the industrial age as Marx who exposed the wage relation as one of subordination and not freedom.

Now the bomb-shell. Anderson says that the endpoint of the industrial capitalist mode of work design and organization can be named a “communist dictatorship in our midst.” Anderson knows where the sword should pierce: Americans and their CEOs hate dictatorships. They hate the communists and extol American freedom and democracy as their own special treasures. Wall Street might phone Dr. Anderson and ask her to help them locate “communist dictatorships in our midst.” “Do you mean the universities? Left-wing social movements? Where? In the Oregon hills? Please help us find them so we can root them out.”

Perhaps we might imagine that Anderson persuades some Wall Street CEOs to gather together to listen to her thought experiment unfolded. She begins: “Imagine a government that assigns everyone a superior whom they must obey.” Response: “That could never happen in the world’s greatest democracy, Dr. Anderson.” She continues undaunted: “Superiors are unaccountable to those they order around.” They are not elected, or removable by their inferiors, the inferiors have no right to complain at court and no right to be consulted about the orders they are given. The most highly ranked individual takes no orders but issues many. The lowest-ranked may have their bodily movements and speech minutely regulated for most of the day.” And: “This government does not recognize a personal or private sphere of autonomy free from sanction.” The CEOs are getting restless and puzzled.

“Dr. Anderson, we have heard that you have many dangerous ideas and dislike much of our foreign policy. We can elect our political leaders. We can vote them out. We are free citizens who pride ourselves on our resistance to government tyranny. Tell us what you are arguing!” Taking a deep breath, Dr. Anderson lifts the veil. “The economic system of the society run by this government is communist.”

The CEOs are now very restless and getting angrier….” see link