Private Government - (University Center for Human Values) by Elizabeth Anderson

About the Book

"In this book, Elizabeth Anderson examines why, despite all this, we continue to talk as if free markets make workers free, and she proposes a better way to think about the workplace, opening up space for discovering how workers can enjoy real freedom"--

Book Synopsis

Why our workplaces are authoritarian private governments--and why we can't see it

One in four American workers says their workplace is a "dictatorship." Yet that number almost certainly would be higher if we recognized employers for what they are--private governments with sweeping authoritarian power over our lives. Many employers minutely regulate workers' speech, clothing, and manners on the job, and employers often extend their authority to the off-duty lives of workers, who can be fired for their political speech, recreational activities, diet, and almost anything else employers care to govern. In this compelling book, Elizabeth Anderson examines why, despite all this, we continue to talk as if free markets make workers free, and she proposes a better way to think about the workplace, opening up space for discovering how workers can enjoy real freedom.

From the Back Cover

"The extent of the arbitrary authority of owners and managers over employees is surprisingly neglected by political thinkers, given how much time we spend at work and how little in the polling booth. Elizabeth Anderson provides a much-needed, important, and compelling account of this overlooked subject. Private Government deserves to be widely read and discussed."--Alan Ryan, professor emeritus, University of Oxford

"This is a very exciting and extremely important book that presents a major challenge to philosophers and social scientists to think about the modern workplace as a form of private government. It is strange that, in a liberal society, there is so little discussion of the relations of power that characterize the workplace. Anderson deftly brings together history, economic theory, and philosophy to have just that conversation. This book unsettles some very deep, unjustifiable assumptions we have about the nature and organization of work today."--Alexander Gourevitch, Brown University

Review Quotes

"Private Government is a welcome and important call to bring workplace governance back into political theory and discourse, and should be taken seriously if we are to promote greater democracy in the workplace."--David Cowan, Times Literary Supplement

"Anderson explores a striking American contradiction. On the one hand, we are a freedom-obsessed society, wary of government intrusion into our private lives; on the other, we allow ourselves to be tyrannized by our bosses."--Joshua Rothman, NewYorker.com

"Highlight[s] the dramatic and alarming changes that work has undergone over the past century--insisting that, in often unseen ways, the changing nature of work threatens the fundamental ideals of democracy."--Miya Tokumitsu, New Republic

"The extent of the arbitrary authority of owners and managers over employees is surprisingly neglected by political thinkers, given how much time we spend at work and how little in the polling booth. Elizabeth Anderson provides a much-needed, important, and compelling account of this overlooked subject. Private Government deserves to be widely read and discussed."--Alan Ryan, professor emeritus, University of Oxford

About the Author

Elizabeth Anderson is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and John Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan. Her books include The Imperative of Integration (Princeton).