Hijacked: How Neoliberalism Turned The Work Ethic Against Workers and How Workers Can Take it Back
By Elizabeth Anderson
Cambridge University Press, 384 pages, $29.95
Hijacked: How Neoliberalism Turned The Work Ethic Against Workers and How Workers Can Take it Back, by Elizabeth Anderson, offers a valuable contribution to the ongoing conversation about the nature and future of the neoliberal order. Anderson, a philosopher at the University of Michigan, rendered yeoman service with her previous book, Private Government, in which she demonstrated how the modern workplace operates like a government—indeed, a communist dictatorship, in her provocative comparison—but offers little room for workers to negotiate the coercion to which they are subjected. The book thus opened up new intellectual horizons, offering the conceptual framework for, inter alia, Sohrab Ahmari’s latest book, Tyranny, Inc., which uncovered the private coercion at work in employment settings and numerous other economic realms.
Anderson’s new book, Hijacked, is an expansive treatment engaging with sources ranging from the Reformation to the contemporary era, and covering a wide range of topics, from economics and philosophy to fundamental social theory. Despite its breadth, it is unified by a clear vision, and it relentlessly seeks to answer a tightly interlocking set of questions: How should we understand neoliberalism? How did we get to where we are? Where should we go from here?