Simionas Blog Post 14

     In chapter 2 of her book Private Government, Anderson debunks many commonly held beliefs in theory and in public discourse about employee interactions in the market, that award much more freedom to the employee than what is actually experienced. Some examples of this include how Alchian and Demesetz are “hoodwinked by the superficial symmetry of the employment contract” when they see “quitting as equivalent to firing one’s boss,” when in reality quitting is often more costly to the employee doing the quitting (56). One especially interesting argument Anderson presents, is in her discussions of the theory and discourse around firms. In this chapter Anderson presents the theory behind why firms exist instead of “why production is not managed by independent contractors acting without external supervision” (51). However, after this Anderson cleverly notes that after giving so much attention to clearly explaining why firms function differently than markets and are thus formed instead of using market relationships between independent contractors, Alchian and Demesetz (and others) “attempt to extend the metaphor of the market to the internal relations of the firm and pretend that every interaction at work is mediated by negotiation between managers and workers” despite the “whole point of the firm” being “to eliminate the costs of markets” (56). The metaphor of the market being applied to a situation that clearly no longer behaves or is organized like a market is an example of where Anderson applies a Marxist perspective to the discourse versus actual behavior of employment, markets, and firms. Anderson clearly shows that there are ideologies promoting our freedoms, metaphors that present freedom that does not exist in practice, in our economic world that are really justifying subordination. 

Additionally, I found it interesting how heavily Anderson’s arguments rely on historically contextualizing popular thinkers and philosophers. Anderson gives so much weight to the context that she says the main differences between Smith and Marx are not so much in their theory, but in the years lying in between their lives that changed their understandings of how markets work. With all of Chapter 1 she paints the backdrop for popular thinkers to show connections between them often overlooked or completely denied, and more importantly their connections to egalitarian principles even with individuals who are characterized as opposing egalitarianism. I find it interesting to compare this strategy to our discussions about textualism and interpreting the Constitution, and whether the context in which laws were written should be taken into account in their interpretation. What are the differing characteristics between philosophical theory and law that alter how we approach the interpretation of them? Can we take historical context into account for one and not the other in our attempt to understand it? Should we be taking historical context into account for either, both, or neither? In our discussion of interpreting the law, we discussed how amendment processes could be used more extensively to alter old laws as an alternative to expanding their interpretations. I wonder if some of Anderson’s characterization of what these thinkers would have agreed on or may have meant, could stand as her own addition (like the equivalent of an “amendment”) of their theory or if it makes more sense to expand the interpretation.