In a news story about H. Scott Apley, a republican City Council member in Texas, who died of Covid, the writer highlights, with intentional irony, no doubt, one of Apley’s tweets from April. In the tweet, Apley responded to a doctor who had praised the Pfizer vaccine, claiming it is safe and effective, and effective against variants as well. In his response to the doctor, Apley claimed: “You are an absolute enemy of a free people.” Apley surely meant what he said, for freedom is one of those principles most agree upon, but as the previous post pointed out, what is done in the name of such universal principles sometimes results in harm being done. In the story about Apley’s death, for instance, the writer reported that there are many people who are blaming the republican party for Apley’s death since it has peddled in misinformation and skepticism about masks and vaccines, and it has done this in the name of freedom. In Louisiana, for instance, which is where I happen to live, we have had freedom rallies and protests at school board meetings where the threat, as those who attend these rallies and protests largely see it, is a government that is forcing us against our will to wear masks and get vaccinated. Why has there been so much anger and frustration vented at masks and vaccines? Why the vitriol rather than compassion, concern, and doing what one can to help during a pandemic? I want to explore a possible answer.
To address the question of why there is such mistrust of the government, and hence of CDC guidelines concerning masks and vaccines, it would be easy just to dismiss the critics as being simply misinformed. Rather than do this, I want to home in on what may be a partial explanation—namely, the lack of freedom in the workplace. In short, most people spend the bulk of their lives subject to rules, regulations, and intrusions into many aspects of their lives over which they have little to no control. The faculty senate at many universities, for instance, although named for a democratic institution, do not in fact have any real power or say in the rules and regulations that are often delivered to faculty from boards of higher education and the administration. For many others, as we will see, the situation is far worse, and it is the frustration and inability of most people to do anything about their lack of freedom in the workplace that adds extra incentive to the level of energy with which they take issue with the government they claim is failing to protect their constitutional freedoms. If “We the People are pissed off,” as a popular bumper sticker has it, it is in part because they are not free during much of their lives, at work.
In making this last point, I will be extending a claim that Elizabeth Anderson has stressed in her book, Private Government. A philosopher at the University of Michigan, and recent recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship (aka “genius grant”), Anderson is quite forthright in stating that at work 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’ (Anderson 2017, 37). Moreover, whereas there is an attempt to maintain public discourse and discussion about the policies and laws that governments put in place, at work we have very little, if any say in the policies and regulations that are implemented. It is for this reason that Anderson calls the workplace a private government. This is a government for a “government exists,” Anderson claims, “wherever some have the authority to issue orders to others, backed by sanctions, in one or more domains of life” (ibid. 42). These forms of government are private for the decision-making process that determines what the rules, regulations, and sanctions will be are not open to public debate and discussion. They are simply handed down from above. Anderson’s conclusion is that most of us live our lives at work under a private government, and thus “most of us,” Anderson concludes, are “toiling under the authority of communist dictators, and we do not see the reality for what it is” (ibid. 62).
This last claim is quite provocative, and it is ironic for many conservative republicans, such as Apley, will accuse the democrats of wanting to implement policies that are on a par with those of “communist dictators.” But let us recall how she is defining “communist dictator.” According to Anderson, the ‘economic system of the modern workplace is communist, because the government—that is, the establishment—owns all the assets, and the top of the establishment hierarchy designs the production plan, which subordinates execute” (ibid. 39). As Anderson notes (ibid. 38), to see through its “production plan” the establishment hierarchy may implement, without challenge, policies whereby they are able to read emails and record conversations taking place on establishment (i.e., company) owned equipment (see here and here); they may subject employees to bodily searches (here), enforce a dress code, require that certain grooming practices be maintained (here and here), order employees to take medical testing (here), forbid certain topics from being discussed among employees, sanction them for sexual activity or choice of spouse (here), and, finally but not exhaustively, sanction them for engaging in political activity the employer may not agree with (here and here). Even when some of these employer regulations may be restricted by state or federal law—that is, by public government—most employers can still fire without reason employees who have been employed at-will, as most employees are (roughly 66% are at-will employees). Given the precariousness of employees in their workplace, and the lack of input most employees have into any of the powers their employers wield, and the inability of employees to leave their job given the increased use of noncompete clauses in employment contracts, it is no wonder that we the people are pissed off.
When Elizabeth Anderson argues, therefore, that most people are “toiling under the authority of communist dictators,” she is agreeing, or so I argue in extending Anderson’s claims, with people like H. Scott Apley, and many of those who, like Mo Brooks, accuse democrats of attempting a communist takeover of the country, though the target of their invective is misplaced. Rather than protest, through freedom rallies, etc., the government’s intrusion in our lives, we ought instead to transform our workplaces into a public government—that is, a place where the rules, sanctions, and power of those who employee us are subject to approval by employees after a process that involves open, transparent dialogue. As frustrations at the workplace mount, so too are we likely to see a corresponding increase in frustrations with our government. As I noted in my previous post, we need to discern where universal principles like freedom provide cover for other motivations, motivations that may well cause harm. To do this we can begin by looking at the power we have, or lack, at work.