Tyranny, Inc.
Sohrab Ahmari on private tyranny
Sohrab Ahmari’s Tyranny, Inc. is an exposé of private tyranny, “coercion in the workplace and the marketplace,” where we’re subjugated “not as citizens but as employees and consumers, members of the class of people who lack control over most of society’s productive and financial assets.” Ahmari thinks private tyranny is “the structural cause behind much of our daily anxiety: the fear that we are utterly dispensable at work, that we are one illness or other personal mishap away from a potential financial disaster” (xx). He sets out to prove that “private actors can imperil freedom just as much as overweening governments” (xxii).
Contemporary neoliberalism makes private tyranny much worse. Classical liberalism ignored private tyranny or denied its possibility. Social democrats try to control Tyranny, Inc. by collective bargaining and political interventions in the market. Neoliberalism, the system that has governed much of the global economy for the past half century, “actively abets private tyranny” (175, his emphasis).
The idea of private tyranny jars, especially for those who, like me, were discipled in a soft form of libertarianism. According to the “neoliberal” view, the private realm is a realm of freedom, choice, competition, spontaneity. Since we consent to our economic relations (employees sign employment agreements, for instance), those relations are freely-entered and freely-exited. Ahmari regards consent a “fig leaf,” which he strips away to show how often consent is quite a bit less than fully-informed.
A few quick examples indicates his mode of argument. Workers are at the mercy of employers. Companies can pay poverty wages that leave workers with no alternative but to apply for welfare. Employers schedule work without concern for their employees’ well-being and family time, and make decisions that upend their employees’ lives without any avenue of appeal (27). Few employees understand the contracts they sign, which often contain provisions that run directly contrary to the employee’s interests (37). An acceptable-use policy concerning company computers, smartphones, and data might, for instance, include a provision allowing the employer to photograph or record employees and permits the company to reuse those photographs and recordings (39). Some contracts prohibit employees from publicly complainging about work conditions, disparaging the company, or encouraging others to leave (40-41). All this, Ahmari claims, renders the notion of liberty of contract “farcical” (41).
When employees seek redress, their complaints often channeled into expensive arbitration procedures that tilt in favor of the employer. In one instance, a Canadian Uber driver’s contract included “a provision mandating that any dispute be resolved using individual, private mediation and then arbitration proceedings, to be held at the International Chamber of Commerce in Amsterdam.” The employee had to fork out $14,500 to begin proceedings, and that didn’t include the cost of travel, lawyers’ fees, or lost wages. Ultimately, the Canadian Supreme Court decided a dispute between Canadian employers and Canadian employees has to be adjudicated in Canada. American courts, however, have upheld contracts requiring arbitration in foreign countries (46-7).
One last example: “The share of the U.S. economy dominated by hedge funds and private equity has ballooned over the past generation. Total assets under their management rose to $2.4 trillion in 2019, up from $2 billion in 1976. More than twice as many Americans now work for private-equity-controlled firms (nine million) as for the federal government and U.S. military combined (about four million)” (71). So what? Many of these hedge funds organize companies as “Eroders.” They don’t grow or maintain their capital base; they don’t and improve or expand operations through reinvestment. Rather, they “actively disinvest from themselves, allowing their capital bases to erode even while paying to shareholders the resources they would have needed if they wanted to maintain their health” (quoted from Oren Cass, 69). Good for hedge funds and managers at the top of the company; bad for the company, which means bad for company employees.
The theoretical heart of Ahmari’s analysis is a 1923 essay by Columbia law professor, Robert Hale.