What the heck? How can governments be private? What is governance but organized control of activities of constituents? How many of you work for large private corporations? Pick vegetables and chicken feathers? Wait tables and clean hotels? How are certain aspects of your work and private lives subject to managerial autonomy over you? I thought I was clever in thinking about this, as though I were the only one, until I read Elizabeth Anderson’s book, Private Government.
Let’s start with a definition. This one is from a Gemini search: “A private government exists whenever a private entity—such as a corporation, homeowners association, or charter enterprise—holds power over individuals’ lives, livelihoods, or property without their democratic input or constitutional protections. While traditional governments are bound by public law and electoral accountability, private governments exercise authority through employment contracts, property ownership, or privatized civic agreements.” I invite you to do the same search on Gemini for “examples and abuses of private governments.”
The point of this post is not to launch an anti-capitalistic Marxian diatribe, but to call attention to the real and potential abuses of private governments as they affect individual employees or members and are exercised with a lack of compassion. We expect a lot of our governments, national, State and local and try to hold them accountable to Constitutional and rule-of-law standards. But we seem to not have the same expectations for applying these rights of man/women to the workplace. There is no guarantee of free speech or due process nor of individual autonomy, standing or dignity. Abuses of authority are more likely to manifest on the rank-and-file than on higher-paid, high-expertise and managerial workers. Large corporations seek to protect their image and stockholders to the expense of the average worker. Changes in taxation ideologies and methods in the last few decades have favored the rise of oligarchies of massive wealth. See: Krugman and Krugman. This income and wealth divide furthers the decline of voice and rights of the average wage earner.
I have worked in the health care field most of my life. Even in the medical professional environment inequitable relationships are common; there is no collective bargaining and contacts with non-compete provisions are one-sided. So much more vulnerable are nursing, housekeeping, laboratory staff, food services staff, etc. And the patients having to navigate the morass of hospital and payer practices and procedures are frequently victims of “The System” (a whole new topic).
Here are some links for you: https://www.mcall.com/2011/09/18/inside-amazons-warehouse-3/; https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267037950_Precarious_Work_Schedules_among_Early-Career_Employees_in_the_US_A_National_Snapshot; https://www.alternet.org/2015/01/ugly-walmart-truth-some-managers-treat-workers-dirt; https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-soc-073117-041147.
And, Oh, private prisons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YkucqIo2ho
This is a plea for a more compassionate approach to CEOs, high-level managers, stockholders. Stop spinning about how well your employees are treated, about how wonderful your employee satisfaction scores are (no bias there, right?). Your employee is not a “human resource,” she is a human. Give them more voice; unions have been vitiated, so create more balance in workplace regarding free speech, non-interference with outside activities, respond to issues of workplace conditions, sexual harassment, immigrant abuse, etc. In agribusiness? https://news.asu.edu/20180102-solutions-asu-professor-food-thought-workplace-violence-agribusiness.
A plea for more compassion for those of privilege: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduces-compassion/. A plea to legislators to ensure worker protections and not take a wrecking ball to agencies set up to protect the less advantaged:
From Google…The lack of empathy among legislators often stems from prioritizing corporate campaign donations and economic deregulation over human welfare. Lawmakers frequently view worker protection agencies like OSHA or the NLRB as burdensome to businesses rather than essential lifelines for public health and safety. Key Factors Behind Legislative Resistance:
- Campaign Funding: Powerful industry lobbies give large donations to political campaigns.
- Ideological Beliefs: Many lawmakers believe free markets fix problems better than government rules.
- Cost Focus: Politicians often look only at the financial cost to businesses, ignoring the human cost of workplace injuries.
- Underfunding: Congress cuts agency budgets to slow down enforcement and inspections.
Impacts on Workers: Slower Justice: Backlogs at labor boards leave abused workers waiting years for relief; Fewer Inspections: Safety agencies lack enough staff to check dangerous workplaces; Weak Penalties: Fines for breaking safety laws are often too low to stop bad behavior.
So what does the average person do? Just deal compassionately with the person in front of you, with your co-workers, your managers. What does that mean? It means not acting out of a sense of ill-will toward others. It means being grateful for someone else’s joy and success. It means doing the right thing that is clear in your heart regardless of others’ opinions and denigrating comments. It means acting courageously on behalf of the suffering of others instead of acting only in your own self interest (even Adam Smith believed that). It means listening, investigating, watching out for confirmation bias. Ultimately, it means extending compassion to yourself, for if you cannot do that, you cannot do it for others.
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