If You're Curious About These Questions...
You should listen to this audiobook
- Did you know that your workplace might actually be closer to a communist dictatorship than the 'free enterprise' we’re taught to believe in?
- Have you ever wondered why we demand democratic rights in our politics, yet surrender almost all personal freedom the moment we clock into work?
- Are you curious about how modern companies gained the power to regulate your speech, your habits, and even your life outside the office?
Listen to Private Government — Free Audiobook
Loading player...
Key Takeaways from Private Government
- Discover why the traditional free-market view of employment as an equal, mutually beneficial contract is a hopelessly outdated illusion.
- Learn how modern corporate workplaces function similarly to communist dictatorships, complete with central planning and unelected leaders who control the means of production.
- Understand the alarming extent of an employer's dictatorial power, which can include invasive surveillance of your personal communications and threatening your livelihood to ensure compliance.
- Recognize how corporate governance resembles an oligarchy where workers have virtually no democratic recourse to elect their superiors or challenge management decisions.
- Find out why the freedom to simply quit your job is highly constrained by market scarcities, a lack of start-up capital, and restrictive non-compete clauses that hold your skills hostage.
Private Government — Full Chapter Overview
Chapter 1: Recommendation
Chapter 2: Many modern workplaces have deeply authoritarian governance structures.
Chapter 3: Despite broad limits, employers still wield far-reaching dictatorial power over our lives.
Chapter 4: Workers retain the right to leave their jobs, yet their ability to do so is heavily constrained.
Chapter 5: The reach of an employer’s power is far greater than many of us realize.
Chapter 6: The problem with the modern workplace isn’t that it has government; it’s the exact sort of government it has.
Chapter 7: The problem with the modern workplace is that it’s ruled by private government rather than by a public one.
Chapter 8: The solution to the problem of private governance is to make workplaces more democratic.
Chapter 9: Workplace authoritarianism frequently gets ignored because of low levels of public awareness.
Chapter 10: Many of us still remain captivated by outdated notions about how labor markets work.
Chapter 11: The Industrial Revolution eroded the early promises of capitalism’s market system.
Private Government Summary & Overview
Private Government (2017) boldly asserts a provocative thesis: most modern companies are run more like communist dictatorships than the “free enterprises” their often libertarian-minded owners, managers, and defenders believe them to be. Drawing on a wide range of ideas, facts, and data from economics, political philosophy, and history, Private Government backs this thesis up with a strong, compelling argument that’s well worth reckoning with.
Who Should Listen to Private Government?
- Employees unhappy with their employment
- Employers wondering why their employees might be so unhappy
- Anyone else wanting to know what’s wrong with the modern workplace
Books Similar to Private Government
Readers who enjoyed this also liked these titles.
Autocracy, Inc.
★ 3.9 / 5 • 58 ratingsThe Dictators Who Want to Run the World
23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism
★ 3.9 / 5 • 224 ratingsWhy capitalism is not what you think it is.
The Happiness Industry
★ 4.0 / 5 • 22 ratingsHow the Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being
Good People, Bad Managers
★ 4.0 / 5 • 80 ratingsHow Work Culture Corrupts Good Intentions