Private Government

How Employers Rule Our Lives

Paperback, 224 pages

Published April 30, 2019 by Princeton University Press.

ISBN:
978-0-691-19224-6
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5 stars (4 reviews)

One in four American workers says their workplace is a “dictatorship.” Yet that number probably would be even higher if we recognized most employers for what they are—private governments with sweeping authoritarian power over our lives, on duty and off. We normally think of government as something only the state does, yet many of us are governed far more—and far more obtrusively—by the private government of the workplace. In this provocative and compelling book, Elizabeth Anderson argues that the failure to see this stems from long-standing confusions. These confusions explain why, despite all evidence to the contrary, we still talk as if free markets make workers free—and why so many employers advocate less government even while they act as dictators in their businesses.

In many workplaces, employers minutely regulate workers’ speech, clothing, and manners, leaving them with little privacy and few other rights. And employers often extend their authority to …

2 editions

Pre-Industrial Egalitarians + Industrial Revolution = Current System

5 stars

Short at 144 pages + references, this is an essay + critical reactions + reactions to the reactions. A good audience would be anyone with a job with interest in history, economics, and labor. The pre-industrial egalitarian ideals and philosophy meeting the industrial revolution and the invention of the firm are covered quite a bit.

It would be interesting to compare the history and thought presented in this book with what happened in other regions that were not colonized by the UK.

Totalitarianism in our mist

5 stars

this was a really thought provoking series of essays by elizabeth andrews (a political philosopher) about how we should treat work as a source of government, and therefore, attempt to abandon the oligarchic structure in favor of actually you know, governing the workplace.

it also features some great tyler cowen burns in the response, so lol.

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5 stars
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4 stars