Tyranny Inc.

Sohrab Ahmari

Sohrab Ahmari, in his 2023 book Tyranny Inc has the thesis that private power has crushed American liberty. He points his finger directly at the big corporations that have so much power over our lives. He says that this tyranny subjugates us, not as citizens but as employees and consumers, as members of a class of people who lack control over most of society’s productive and financial assets.

It is the structural cause behind much of our daily anxiety, the fear that we are utterly disposable at work. We are one illness or other personal mishap away from a potential financial disaster. Yet even to speak of private, economic tyranny as tyranny, challenges society’s most fundamental assumptions. A failure to subject the market to sufficient political control and democratic give and take has imperiled the livelihoods of millions of Americans while damaging our economy and the common good. Public authorities are part of the operation of private tyrannies because they refuse to regulate market activity. There are potent state authorities prone to capture by narrow, private cliques and class interests at the expense of society as a whole. Workers' power is much narrower and limited to the actual existing economy.

Amari describes himself as a Pro-life New Dealer but he is of the Right and considers himself to be post-liberalism. He is the founder of Compact and formerly worked for the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal. He believes Biden was the first post neoliberal president. Amari is also against supporting Ukraine, so this is an example of reading an author that has ideas that sharply conflict with my own and yet has some views that really resonate with me. Amari says that the New Deal was a politically successful project with fascism and communism closing in on both sides. It was a more realistic view of the economy.

American labor law allows bosses to pay poverty wages that leave workers joining welfare rolls. They schedule work time with zero regard for worker’s well-being, regulate worker’s speech in and out of the workplace, compel workers to attend rallies for management’s preferred political candidates, mandate attendance at anti-union meetings, and make decisions that can upend worker’s lives with no due process or appeal.

He believes that the New Deal tamed earlier pro-business decisions and their focus on requiring an employer to show just cause to fire an employee was a vast improvement. Today, we have returned to the concept of “at will employees.” This only works if the employer and employee hold equal power. The sheer unfairness of most employment agreements would never be accepted if they came down from the government. The liberty-of-contract framework permits employment provisions that can bind the worker even after leaving the job. There is zero transparency in these agreements and are almost always based in non-disclosure clauses.

He has one chapter that goes into the labor practices of Uber. Canada has ruled that Uber’s labor agreement is unenforceable. They force employees to use arbitration that is ridiculously expensive and could even be located in another country. Many of these pro-business decisions were handed down by Federalist Society certified “originalists.” He praises the dissent of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He criticizes the justices who tout their fidelity to the Catholic Church and yet one of the grave sins of the church is wage theft.

He delves into the financialization of corporations and the stock buybacks that have destroyed companies like Sears. They neglected their core business to make short term profit decisions. He says that there is more than 3 trillion that might have supported operating businesses but has returned to investor pockets.

And then there is the privatization of public services like firefighting and ambulance services where individuals must subscribe and if not, in the event they need an emergency service, they will be billed even if they did not ask for that service at the time. He also blames the destruction of local media to report on all these things, especially the failures in local infrastructure. The geographic isolation of a state capital is a factor as well. An example is Jefferson City in Missouri. Public goods like utilities, health and education have all been eroded.

One chapter goes into how corporations use bankruptcy to avoid paying damages. J&J used Texas corporation law to divide itself into two parts, offloading its asbestos liability into a new unit which then filed for bankruptcy. This put a stop to all litigation. This is called the Texas two-step. For smaller businesses, these laws are beneficial but when abused by a big profitable company like J&J, it is coercive. The Sacklers also used Chapter 11 to limit their personal liability for the opioid crisis. They were able to render much of their $13 billion untouchable. They were also able to manipulate which judge heard the case.

I know it's hard to believe this author comes from the Right. He sounds like Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. James Madison feared a future time when a great majority will not only be without land, but without any means of property, an oppressed rabble that would destroy liberty or become the tool of the rich. President Grover Cleveland called out the gulf between employers and employees because of favor from the government to the corporations. Where there is an asymmetry of power, there is a problem. Amari says that just as in marriage, a restriction is in truth, a source of freedom. So, it is with regulation and control of market economies.

Amari advocates for unions and calls out Elizabeth Warren’s ideas as positive developments. Private tyranny is a political crisis, and it needs a political solution. It cannot be solved with pricey boutique solutions. The solution of just avoiding Amazon is not much of a solution. It requires a left-right consensus.

Here is where his ideas might strike a nerve. He says that the left must get rid of lifestyle leftism suffused with cultural sensitivity that regulates language. He believes that this does not really limit the executive suite’s power but just populates it with a more diverse cast. All you do is replace the old boss with a girl boss. But the girl boss follows the same script as the old boss. Does that sound right to you?

The left has won symbolic victories but still managed to allow companies like Amazon to squash unions. The right continues to ignore that it is these economic situations that cause the cultural problems, drug use, etc. They are all on the payroll of the economic elites. Preaching virtue but acting with none.