Nagra Blog Post "Fungal 14"

In her paper, Private Government, Elizabeth Anderson uses historical and philosophical context to develop her argument that modern capitalism sets up internal governments in market firms that dictate large parts of employee’s lives, often to the detriment of state legal protections. It is essential to distinguish that these internal governments do not simply ‘govern’ their workers but “dominate them” (xxii). Anderson develops her argument with a discussion of the historical context of free-market capitalism. Free markets were intended by various social movements to be the driving force behind the extinction of hierarchical societal divides and gross inequalities in wealth. 

For some time, this approach worked. In the Lincoln era, many citizens were self-employed and were the sole proprietors of their businesses. A free-market economy, during this time, allowed for an explosion of opportunity. America “was the leading hope of egalitarians on both sides of the Atlantic” (23). Market transactions were, for lack of a better description, simply. However, the Industrial Revolution put a wrench in the egalitarian dream of a free market American society. Employers have become mini-dictators of “little communist governments”, creating internal structures of hierarchy that seem to contradict the notion of a separation between ‘private’ and ‘public’ sectors (40). 

I wish to expand upon Anderson’s idea of private government in the unique market of Silicon Valley. Through various social and economic factors, the large majority of technology companies grew their roots in the very liberal bay area. This creates an interesting dichotomy of a restriction of private rights internally in these firms with a culture of liberalism just outside their doors. Anderson correctly points out that in dictatorships, “people willingly support the regime and comply with its orders because they identify with and profit from it” (39). Still, here instead of a monarch or dictator, we have Apple and Google. 

These firms even go as far as creating quasi ‘societies’ in their workplace environments. This provides a sense of an internal free market, allowing innovation and creativity. This is not the win it may seem to be. While creativity and innovation are embraced, new ideas are co-opted by superiors and eventually become the firm’s intellectual property. Workers feel as though they are serving a higher purpose, essentially creating gods and deities out of CEOs and CFOs, and believe that even though they do not get credited for their ideas, they are somehow helping the world. Employees are served food, given haircuts, provided with child care, and given infinite amounts of caffeine to keep them working for long and grueling hours and separate them from external society and integrate them into their firm’s internal society.