Private Government

Through a state-sanctioned form of government, bosses in the US rule their workers’ lives, yet workers, politicians and the public don’t discuss it.

Prior to the English Civil War of the mid-17th century, a deeply hierarchical society placed most people under the near-absolute authority of a master, argues professor Elizabeth Anderson. Men subjugated women. Noblemen or royal appointees ruled trade and vast swaths of land, including all the people who lived there. They served the king, who answered only to God.

The same era in England saw the beginning of the end of the feudal economy and the slow emergence of a more open, trade- and market-based economy. This period gave rise to the “Levellers” movement. The Levellers sought greater equality for the poor, and saw possibilities in free markets and trade. Increasingly, a class of “masterless men” broke away from their overlords and became small land-holding farmers, artisans and shopkeepers.

The Levellers believed that ending royally sanctioned monopolies would open the markets to more independent merchants. This and free ...