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Thursday, May 06, 2004

From Subject to Citizen by Shoshana Zuboff Via FC

Getting the feudalism out of capitalism.A couple of centuries ago, we were "subjects." New ideas, revolutions, and the spread of democracy transformed us into "citizens" with personal choice and freedom -- except at work. Our industrial-age organizations are the last redoubts of feudalism. CEOs can still be like monarchs surrounded by courtiers. Behind the progressive window-dressing, a one-way chain of command remains in force. As employees and as consumers, most people follow orders with little voice or influence. Instead of mass consumers, we're now complex individuals in search of choice, control, and influence. We're not buying just products anymore, but health care, insurance, credit, education--things that intimately affect our quality of life. We want more from companies than efficiency. We want relationships that help solve our unique problems, not anonymous transactions that create more of them.It's time for a new bargain. Let's drop the myth of consumers and employees. Let's recognize that we are each an individual economic citizen at work or at home. Some of us sell; all of us buy. The cash we spend sustains more than two-thirds of all jobs--so we're actually paying one another. Instead of cash for compliance, we need a new deal in which authenticity, knowledge, and empowerment on the job produces more shared life satisfaction, releasing more cash that in turn supports more jobs. Instead of the old zero-sum roles, let's acknowledge that we are interdependent and assert our rights of citizenship in commerce as well as in politics. If we reconceive the enterprise as being of, by, and for individual economic citizens, what will the monarchs do? Very powerful argument. worth definitely pondering.

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