Week 7: Are Workers Free?

Ivan Tang Woo Ming, A0196647L

Lewee Hoi Han A0188750U
Ng Wei Zhi, Ernest A0201676H
Chew Jun Hao, Javier A0216204W
Natalia Tan Jing Wei A0189576E
 Robert S. Taylor
Market Freedom As Antipower
 ● Neorepublican freedom
○ “Priority of political liberty,
understood as nondomination

Are workers free?

or immunity from arbitrary
power.”
● Taylor’s Response
○ Freedom Through Market
Competition
○ Anglo-Nordic Market
Monopsony Labour Market

Exploitation Wage < Contributions

Discrimination Paid per individual reservation wage

Domination Unemployed and without alternatives

Perfectly Competitive Markets (The Other End)
Public Policy Three Conditions of Non-
manipulable System:
● Eliminate:
○ Pro-labour laws ● Empire-of-law
● Implement
● Dispersion-of-power
○ Laws that promote frictionless
entry and exit ● Counter-majoritarian
○ High redistribution
○ Education on rights and
opportunities
Freedom As Antipower
Voice Government Delivery of
Resources
Capacity to express dissent without exiting
Remaining aloof from relations within firm
● Through the state
○ Worker protection in Accept discretionary power
employment contracts
● Through private power ● Antitrust action
○ Unionization ● Redistribution
● Reciprocal power strategies ○ Universal basic income
● Domination persists
G. A. Cohen

Capitalism, Freedom and the Proletariat.

Are workers free?
- Able to sell their services
- Even if they were unable to opt out of selling, nothing stops them from
participating.

Well, if they are, it’s only economically free.

Flawed perception: Capitalism = Freedom
Jan Naverson Problems with Jan:

- “Do what we wish without the - Confuses liberty with private

interference of others” property
- Mis-definition of ‘liberty’ - Free market economy, in itself, a
free society

Your boat? Can’t touch it then!

Our misinterpretation? Economic freedom?
- Goods and services?
- Unjustified intervention perhaps?
- If so, requires moralised view.

Forced to take a narrow/ specific view of

freedom..
Capitalism doesn’t equal freedom then.
Perception of capitalism?
Many capitalist countries

- Varying forms of freedom enjoyed thoroughly in different countries

- Again though, capitalism only necessitates freedom to buy and sell.

Other systems better?

Does Socialism offer more freedom?
- Communal property
- Sharing of tools as an example
- Does not necessarily grant more freedom, just different freedoms
- Difficult to replicate through contracts
Refining Marxist Definition for Proletariat
- Classical Marxism: Proletariat are forced to sell their labour power
- Some members of the proletariat can accumulate capital and leave proletariat
- Assertion: Therefore, they are not forced to sell their labour
Objections to Assertion
- Objection 1: Proletariat that has become petty bourgeoisie is no longer proletariat,
but proletariat class is still forced to sell their labour power
- Objection 2: Only a small group within the proletariat could become petty
bourgeoisie
- Refutations to these objections
So, are the proletariat free?
- No. Possibility for individuals to be free is contingent on the rest not grasping at
said possibility
- Subjective reasons for inaction in the majority
- Even with the freedom to escape available to most, the proletariat is still unfree
 Elizabeth Anderson
Private Government: How Employers Rule our Lives
Communist Dictatorship & Private Government
● Communist Dictatorship
○ Imagine unaccountable authority and intense surveillance
○ Unable to recognise a private sphere of authority free from sanctions
○ Government owns all nonlabor means of production and organises by means of central planning
○ Secures compliance through use of both sanctions and rewards
○ Is there freedom for people subject to this government?
● Aim: explain why discourse neglect the pervasiveness of authoritarian governance
in our private lives and what can be done
● Private government is not a contradictory idea
○ Government is not synonymous to the state (public sphere)
○ Negative liberty
Workplace Government
Industrial Revolution Modern Examples
● Shifted primary site of paid work from ● Affordable Care Act (ACA) — imposing
household to factory premium penalty for non compliance of
● Early 1900s, Ford Motor Company had a wellness program
sociological department. ● Penn State University — surcharge on workers
who did not answer health survey
● Implicit cases of employer’s authority — ability
to fire for any or no reason
Failure of Pro-Market Egalitarians
● Aspiration of ‘universal self employment’
● Failure (Theory of Firms)
○ Economies of Scale — greater efficiency
○ Excessive costs — too expensive engage independent contractors
● Centralized and open ended authority
○ Ideally the theory suggests that limits of authority is negotiated in the employment contract
○ Default contract is ’employment at will’
● Alchian & Demsetz
○ Resistance to reality: Workers’ freedom to exit OR employer’s sanctions are exile or civil suit means
authority does not exist within the relationship
○ Reality: asymmetric impact on employer and employee + other means of sanctions within work
Failure of 19th C Laissez-Faire Liberals
● Focus on entry and exit conditions of the employment contract
● Liberation of workers’ freedom of entry and exit:
○ Previously, employees bound by one year contract
○ Could quit at the cost of losing all their accrued wages
○ Unable to keep wages from moonlighting
○ Other employers could not bid for their labour while they were still under contract
● Liberation was a double-edged sword
○ Employers were liberated from any obligation to employ workers
○ Not much workers could do unless it was done collectively
● Choose your Leviathan
○ attempts to seek alternatives of restructuring internal government of workplace was unsuccessful
○ options consisted of private governments
4 strategies
Exit Rule of Law

● Forces government to compete for 4 ideals:

1. Authority may only be exercised through laws duly passed
subjects 2. Subjects at liberty to do anything not specifically prohibited by law
● Terms of contracts that include 3.
4.
Laws are applicable to everyone in similar circumstances
Subjects have rights of due process before suffering any sanctions
noncompete clauses from non compliance

How readily can this be transferred into the

employment context?

Substantive Constitutional Rights Voices

● Handbooks and guides that streamline ● More readily adapt workplace rules to
authority along legalistic lines local conditions than state regulations
● Can be further strengthened by ● Employer should be accountable to the
protecting workers’ private lives governed
● Prescribed uniformity can only be a ● 2 models: Workplace democracy and
minimal floor labour unions
In Essence……

FREE UNFREE

Taylor Cohen Anderson

At a Glance
Cohen Anderson

Taylor ● Capitalism provides economic liberty ● State empowerment of workers will place workers in
position to choose from menu of workplaces

● Unfreedom in private property is intrinsic to capitalism

● Voice carries risk of increasing domination

Anderson

Cohen ● State empowerment of workers will place workers in position to choose from menu of workplaces

● Unfreedom in private property is intrinsic to capitalism

● Voice as an alternative to exit but carries risk of increasing domination

At a Glance

Taylor Cohen Anderson

Sphere of Influence Public Public Private

Type of Liberty Positive Negative Negative

Thinkers Smith/Vogel Marx Kuch

Food for Thought……

1) What does a free worker mean to you?

2) Can workers ever be free?

1) What kind of political economy do you want to

work in?