On the subject of Service-to-Others vs. Service-to-Self, I’ve been thinking about how Service-to-Hierarchies can either push people towards the latter, or use politics as a proxy to service the desperately frustrated need for the former. In a market populated with small enterprise and self-employment, individuals are given ample opportunity or serve others and demonstrate their own worth to themselves, even if the mode of expression can often be quite humble. A number of individuals prominent in the culture have remarked on the problems of scale or government as a 'corporation at the limit'. It was edifying at the time, because it's always nice when admirable people seem to be thinking along similar lines as oneself. But I also think its highly salient to the ways in which our Western societies are changing, and not for the better.
Under normal circumstances the market naturally orients people towards serving others by necessity, because no business or businessman can survive unless it provides products or services which others want and/or need. Under normal circumstances- but the prevailing economic landscape which dominates the West could hardly be described as normal. One of my irritations about the modern Left is that there is actually quite a bit to criticise about capitalism at the detail level, but it never gets addressed because instead all energy is instead diverted to propagating a deceitful caricature which bears only the most superficial resemblance to reality. Adam Smith himself was an outspoken critic of the East India Company, its monopoly power and perennial penchant for corporate bailouts, yet, apart from the occasional reference to large multinationals not paying their taxes or complaining about the fact that money can somewhat remove the corporate Centre Left's insane messaging advantage (although many more billionaires are funding Biden this cycle, rather than Trump) , they don't really describe in detail the very real problems with crony capitalism.
I recently came across a very interesting 2018 survey from the UK which showed that 75% to 80% of people who worked for small businesses were either 'very' or 'extremely' happy with their employment. Predictably, when one looks at government work, institutions or large corporations the figures are much lower, about a third. Here's a radical thought, what if most people are naturally geared to want to help others? I don't mean this in the selfless sense. I mean this very much in the selfish sense. What if a huge portion of the population is desperate to demonstrate their value and worth to the world, a process which occurs naturally through the reciprocal interactions in the market when the players are small, yet our modern world has completely frustrated this process by making large numbers of us drones to large hierarchies, wage slaves to corporate, governmental and institutional behemoths? Wouldn't that naturally drive people to other, ultimately less fulfilling and destructive ways of serving others, to politics, to activism, to policies which help a few, or make one feel better about oneself, at the expense of many more people overall?
The effect of large organisations is easy to see in economic terms. It’s called the Pareto Distribution, it’s pretty much a universal phenomenon and it’s also a bitch. If one takes the total number of employees in a company or organisation and square root it, then the number of individuals you’re left with produce roughly a half of all the value produced by the organisation. In a company which employs 100 people, 10 people will produce half of all the value. In an institution with 10,000 people, only 100 people will create half of its overall worth to the world.
In economic terms, this picture is bleak enough. But think about what that means in human and spiritual terms. I know that many will point out that whilst all people have intrinsic value as human beings, they don’t have innate equal value as people. Talents, aptitudes and abilities are not evenly distributed, but this ignores the heterodoxy of individual human pursuit. A self-employed gardener may earn money comparable to an Amazon warehouse worker, but I would be willing to bet he derives far greater personal value and satisfaction from his work than the guy who spends his days under the discretion and direction of others. And that’s the fundamental problem with large organisations- in large corporations, institutions and governmental departments we are slaved to the directives and rules of others, robbed of our ability to make real decisions which effect others, stuck delivering scripts written by others from on high, and denied the chance to serve others through the use of our more creative productivity.
The problem is even more profound in its implications. In a landmark Whitehall study completed decades ago, it was found that demanding roles were not the primary source of negative health outcomes associated with work. Instead, it’s the workplace responsibility without authority scenario with which many of us will be familiar, which was the primary cause of workplace stress, tension and long-term negative health outcomes. People further down the corporate or government hierarchy, given responsibility but little latitude to make or alter decisions are the chief recipients of sickness, illness and death caused by work, other than through accidents. Sure, there are many other factors making Westerners unhealthy- diet, age and sedentary lifestyles all play a role- but the changing nature of our work also makes a difference, and a not insignificant one. The nature of working for large corporate employment not only makes most of desperately unhappy, it’s also making us sick.
In a normal world, the market would allow us to serve others my giving us maximum utility to serve others through our labour, our reciprocity and our ability to adapt to individual need with quick and easy solutions. But we don’t live in a normal world. Instead, all too often to sympathise and say ‘I’m really sorry about that, but it’s against company policy’. Often, customers these days will find themselves referred to managers, who themselves don’t have the power to reverse insane and stupid rules. In government agencies, if you’re lucky you might just find the rare employee who sympathises with your position but has to tell you ‘I understand it’s unfair, but I suggest you take the matter up with your political representative’. Frustrating as this can be, just imagine what the dull repetition of such lines or necessities does to human hope and happiness when delivered thousands of times, day after day, month after month, year after year.
In this landscape of corporate, government and institutional behemoths we’ve constructed is it any wonder that people feel helpless, powerless, bitter and frustrated? They’ve been robbed of all agency, autonomy, of the ability to help and serve others, and in so doing demonstrate their value to the world, their worth to themselves. Is it any wonder that in this environment, they turn to politics to help others and/or save the world? Politics has become a proxy for the quiet lives of frustration caused by economies of scale and an employment landscape which is analogous to a rare bookshop sitting next door to a tall monstrosity of glass and steel. And into this dynamic is thrown social media, like a hand grenade, so that we can all fight for the empty promise of reclaiming our personal autonomy through politics and culture, all the while not addressing the real sickness that ails us- the daily frustration of our ability to truly serve others, and demonstrate our relevance by becoming anything over than a very small cog in a very large machine.
This seven year old talk by Simon Sinek discusses many of the problems which millennials encountered when entering the workforce. It highlights several salient points on false promises made to kids by their parents and teachers and the problems of social media acting as a substitute for forming normal teenage friendships. But I think there is a far more fundamental issue to address. The scale, size and scope of large organisations in the modern era has transformed the way we interact in our everyday human lives. In many ways, it’s deeply opposed to the way our ancestors lived for tens of thousands of years- in small groups, demonstrating our existential value to each other in our daily lives. We’re not adapted for this change and social media is taking a maladaptive mode of human employment and taking the frustration and misery it generates and channelling it directly into our politics and culture. Social media takes our angst and turns it into anger against each other.
This this era of organisational behemoths, we need to start celebrating the virtues of the small. To praise the efforts of individual and small groups, while decrying everything big that dehumanises human endeavour. Because although small might be good, and is in many cases great, it might also be the case that it’s our only salvation, the only route out of the current demonization of people with which we disagree,, our cultural insanity. The truth of it is so many of us stuck wanting to help or save the world because our employment landscape has left us with work lives which have little to no human relevance at all.
Ultimately, an inability to provide Service-to-Others through work, frustrated by large organisations rapacious demands for Service-to-Hierarchies, leaves us with a limited number of options. The sensible option would be to actually do charity work, or find some creative outlet through which we can find meaning. The path more often chosen is the frantic weekend and holiday rush to embrace some form of materialistic hedonism, whether it be a bout of retail therapy or self-indulgence. Finally, there is the option to use politics as a phantom proxy for Service-to-Others, most often indulged as an obsessive hobby on social media. It’s a deeply unhealthy preoccupation, but it’s entirely understandable. Deprived of the ability to confer worth to others through the market, people will look for any number of things to fill a gaping hole caused by the absence of meaning.
There is an oasis of hope. One redeeming feature of the new online landscape is that it does occasionally afford the opportunity to have meaningful discourses with knowledgeable people on any number of subjects. This is one of the more optimistic aspects of Substack. But don’t get too optimistic. It’s an election year, and I’ve already noticed an increasing trend on Notes of posts which would be more suited to Twitter or X. As the election cycle continues I’m sure they’ll only get more frantic, emphatic and common. The expression of political beliefs has become an outlet for the personal misery and frustration generated by the unnatural nature of people’s work lives.
Absolutely great essay. Thank you. This nugget particularly: "And that’s the fundamental problem with large organisations- in large corporations, institutions and governmental departments we are slaved to the directives and rules of others, robbed of our ability to make real decisions which effect others, stuck delivering scripts written by others from on high, and denied the chance to serve others through the use of our more creative productivity."
You’ve tapped the vein of existential misery in our industrialized lives. I especially recall ‘responsibility without authority’ in the early ‘90’s, was it? when it hit the corporate scene and fuelled many discontented discussions. Throw internal politics into the cauldron, a remote, inaccessible management and top it off with a long commute and it explains why people daydream of escape or worse.
“One of my irritations about the modern Left is that there is actually quite a bit to criticise about capitalism at the detail level, but it never gets addressed because instead all energy is instead diverted to propagating a deceitful caricature which bears only the most superficial resemblance to reality.”
Man, this is so true! I tend to be a three cheers for capitalism guy, but I’m perfectly willing to engage with legitimate and well-reasoned criticism of the market. The problem is that so much of what passes as anti-capitalism is incredibly bad. It’s poorly argued and often a very watered down and simplistic version of a complex argument, which inevitably leads to castigating a straw man which bears little resemblance to free market capitalism. Many of the most popular anti-capitalist arguments are essentially conspiracy theories.
My one pushback is on the assumption that Adam Smith’s critique of cronyism and the East India Company is a critique of capitalism, rather than a critique of a deviation from it. Many laissez-faire types in the nineteenth century were very critical of giant corporations for the same reasons having to do with preferring small-scale enterprise that you lay out. Libertarians today tend to be the most in favor of freelancing and independent contract work, and it’s the left which is trying to reclassify self-employed individuals as employees (and then to have collective bargaining on their behalf), something which takes away their freedom and will only dramatically worsen the problems you cite here.
If anything, I would say people’s aversion to corporate hierarchy is an aversion to socialism. Internally, a firm is socialistic: the means of production are centrally owned and planning is top down. Ronald Coase famously had this insight. Why does such inefficiency persist? Because of transaction costs: firms can afford higher transaction costs and consolidation is one way of dealing with high transaction costs. When the cost of doing business is low enough, small businesses and individuals will beat out inefficient large firms. Where do high transaction costs come from? Often from government regulation and industrial policy. In other words, large corporations are propped up by an interventionist government and wouldn’t survive as well in laissez faire. The problem is that we don’t have a free market today and the existence of this corporate bureaucracy you deride is evidence of that.
While reading through this I kept thinking "but I need modern pharma, and petrochemicals, and automobiles, and airplanes and all the rest", is it possible to build and deliver these sorts of things in small organizations while still realizing economies of scale.
Ran into a few interesting examples: Northern Oil and Gas Company $4B market cap, 114K barrels of oil equivalent per day, 38 employees.
The Douglas Aircraft Company (later merged to form McDonnell Douglas and later still merged with Boeing) was a few thousand people in 1935 at the time of the D-3 aircraft.
There are plenty of biopharmaceutical companies in the 100s of employees range.
Or course startups in tech and finance (all all businesses!) start small too, though their goal is generally to get acquired and realize a payoff. So we are left with "what would be your incentive to stay small, if you are successful"? Not a lot. There is more market to capture, more ideas and products to bring to market, and the ambition and incentives in each part of the organization are to grow as well.
The counter pressure is from regulatory agencies (should they exist and be endowed with that mandate and choose to exercise it)
As a minor aside, it is worth noting that in the American context almost all this counter pressure is exerted by early 20th century and new deal era legislation and agencies. Today only the center-left/left have the desire and appetite to properly staff and support these agencies.
Absolutely great essay. Thank you. This nugget particularly: "And that’s the fundamental problem with large organisations- in large corporations, institutions and governmental departments we are slaved to the directives and rules of others, robbed of our ability to make real decisions which effect others, stuck delivering scripts written by others from on high, and denied the chance to serve others through the use of our more creative productivity."
You’ve tapped the vein of existential misery in our industrialized lives. I especially recall ‘responsibility without authority’ in the early ‘90’s, was it? when it hit the corporate scene and fuelled many discontented discussions. Throw internal politics into the cauldron, a remote, inaccessible management and top it off with a long commute and it explains why people daydream of escape or worse.
Important essay.
“One of my irritations about the modern Left is that there is actually quite a bit to criticise about capitalism at the detail level, but it never gets addressed because instead all energy is instead diverted to propagating a deceitful caricature which bears only the most superficial resemblance to reality.”
Man, this is so true! I tend to be a three cheers for capitalism guy, but I’m perfectly willing to engage with legitimate and well-reasoned criticism of the market. The problem is that so much of what passes as anti-capitalism is incredibly bad. It’s poorly argued and often a very watered down and simplistic version of a complex argument, which inevitably leads to castigating a straw man which bears little resemblance to free market capitalism. Many of the most popular anti-capitalist arguments are essentially conspiracy theories.
My one pushback is on the assumption that Adam Smith’s critique of cronyism and the East India Company is a critique of capitalism, rather than a critique of a deviation from it. Many laissez-faire types in the nineteenth century were very critical of giant corporations for the same reasons having to do with preferring small-scale enterprise that you lay out. Libertarians today tend to be the most in favor of freelancing and independent contract work, and it’s the left which is trying to reclassify self-employed individuals as employees (and then to have collective bargaining on their behalf), something which takes away their freedom and will only dramatically worsen the problems you cite here.
If anything, I would say people’s aversion to corporate hierarchy is an aversion to socialism. Internally, a firm is socialistic: the means of production are centrally owned and planning is top down. Ronald Coase famously had this insight. Why does such inefficiency persist? Because of transaction costs: firms can afford higher transaction costs and consolidation is one way of dealing with high transaction costs. When the cost of doing business is low enough, small businesses and individuals will beat out inefficient large firms. Where do high transaction costs come from? Often from government regulation and industrial policy. In other words, large corporations are propped up by an interventionist government and wouldn’t survive as well in laissez faire. The problem is that we don’t have a free market today and the existence of this corporate bureaucracy you deride is evidence of that.
I may have mentioned this before!
Western man (in particular) has always been essentially psychotic.
Jack Forbes named it the Wetiko Psychosis - its all-pervasive effect (etc) is described here:
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/undreaming-wetko-introduction
And of course TV and the dark pseudo-"culture" created in its image is the principal "creative"/driving force of this collective psychosis.
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/articles/invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-comes-to-life
It is any wonder (then) that a culturally and religiously illiterate nihilistic barbarian TV "personality" is hugely popular with many people?
This is his latest exercise in faux religious populism http://godblesstheusbible.com
He recently gave an introductory speech/rant introduced at a "conservative" gab-fest which is introduced here -
http://digital.cpac.org/speakers-dc2024
Psychotics-all-the-way-down
While reading through this I kept thinking "but I need modern pharma, and petrochemicals, and automobiles, and airplanes and all the rest", is it possible to build and deliver these sorts of things in small organizations while still realizing economies of scale.
Ran into a few interesting examples: Northern Oil and Gas Company $4B market cap, 114K barrels of oil equivalent per day, 38 employees.
The Douglas Aircraft Company (later merged to form McDonnell Douglas and later still merged with Boeing) was a few thousand people in 1935 at the time of the D-3 aircraft.
There are plenty of biopharmaceutical companies in the 100s of employees range.
Or course startups in tech and finance (all all businesses!) start small too, though their goal is generally to get acquired and realize a payoff. So we are left with "what would be your incentive to stay small, if you are successful"? Not a lot. There is more market to capture, more ideas and products to bring to market, and the ambition and incentives in each part of the organization are to grow as well.
The counter pressure is from regulatory agencies (should they exist and be endowed with that mandate and choose to exercise it)
As a minor aside, it is worth noting that in the American context almost all this counter pressure is exerted by early 20th century and new deal era legislation and agencies. Today only the center-left/left have the desire and appetite to properly staff and support these agencies.