5/4 Anderson Discussion Outline

 Here is the outline for today's discussion as well as some definitions we will be covering:

  • Chapter 1 

    • Question: Is the difference between Smith and Marx ideological (capitalism versus communism) or are their differences merely empirical (pre versus post Industrial Revolution)? 

    • Sarah’s blog post: historical context

  • Locke

    • Hurley’s blog post: Locke’s appeal to the tacit consent to the use of money under libertarian and egalitarian views

  • Chapter 2 definitions

    • Private government of the modern workplace: arbitrary and unaccountable power over those it governs (page 45)

      • Firms as communist dictatorships, internal structure of authority

      • “Government exists wherever some have the authority to issue orders to others, backed by sanctions, in one or more domains of life” (page 42)

    • State governments or workplaces can be public or private governments,

      • “The privacy of a government is defined relative to the governed not relative to the state” (page 45)

      • Struggles for enfranchisement and popular sovereignty are attempts to make the state public (page 44)

    • Private versus public sphere

      • Something is private to or from you, privacy is related to persons

      • “If something is public, that means it is the business of a more or less well-defined group of people (members of the public), such that no one is entitled to exclude any members of the group from making it their business.” (page 43)

    • Tara’s Blog Posts

      • Tara, Hurley (Tara’s response), Daniel H, Thomas, Amari


BREAK


  • Anderson’s argument applied to specific issues 

    • Josh and Jess’s blog posts: How Anderson’s argument applies to technology companies

    • Olivia’s blog post: female CEOs

      • Connection to Anderson’s analogy with women 

      • Alexis: connections between the analogy in Chapter 2 and in “Unstrapping the Straitjacket of Preference”

  • Types of freedoms Activity 

  • Wills Blog Post and Daniel K’s Blog Post

  • Anderson’s 4 Solutions

    • Exit: puts pressure on governments to offer their subjects better deals, employers can hold people in human capital (page 66)

    • Rule of Law: protection of subjects’ liberties, production usually requires centralized objectives (page 66-67)

    • Substantive Constitutional Rights: just workplace constitution, only goes so far (page 68) 

    • Voice: voice adapts workplace rules and conditions better than state regulation, workplace democracy and labor unions (page 69)

  • Discuss: Can the solutions Anderson presented effectively apply to the issues we have discussed in blog posts? (in tech companies, dealing with gender discrimination, exit power, etc)

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