Not long ago, I received a request for short answers to some questions meant to prod discussion in a reading group about the book No Bosses. I sent back answers and don’t know what became of them. Perhaps they will be more generally useful. The “back story” is that  for some weeks I had been getting roughly an invitation every other day to some kind of promotion deal/arrangement for the book. This was part of a new cottage industry. Survey Amazon and find titles, new or old, to make such offers about. The first one I got was ostensibly from Oprah Winfrey. Obviously a scam. From there on the efforts got smarter.

Before long, they were writing as participants in, and then founders of book clubs, or then as presidents of promotion agencies, and in one case as the head of the promotion division of Scribners I think it was, a big publishing house. The people existed. Had the roles attributed. But the sender wasn’t them. There were a few versions of this scam but as best I could tell, all used AI to get a grip on the material in the subject book and even on elements of the life of the author. This enabled the invitations to be informed and sound plausible. The communications were very similar. In each case, the idea was to hook in the author, hoping for wider distribution, all without mentioning fees, until the target was sufficiently invested, when the scammer would mention the greater gains to be had if one would just send a fee to cover the costs.

At any rate, in one case, the approach was to get me to do an email interview preparatory to doing a live presentation and q/a for a book club, the latter after the fee of course. So I said, in this one case, sure send the questions. I am always game for an interview. I did it, returned it, suggested some ways the scam was transparent, and noted I wouldn’t be sending any money any time, and then then unsurprisingly nothing further happened. Be aware. I hate to say suspect everything, but it scam-itis does seem to have grown so ubiquitous that it may be good advice. The questions were good, however, I thought, so here is what emerged as an interview.


Why did you feel it was necessary to write No Bosses when you did? What gap or problem did you see in existing conversations about economics, work, and power that this book was meant to address?

People who seek a better society need economic vision to overcome cynicism and to orient activism. So when I write about vision, the gaps or problems that I hope to address are that when asked “what do you want that is better than capitalism,” activists rarely have much to say. And when they do answer that question, their vision violates worthy values people aspire to or it so vague that it is summarily ignored or even ridiculed. We need more and better vision.

No Bosses presents a vision that goes beyond critique and toward an alternative. For readers encountering these ideas for the first time, what makes this vision worthy of serious consideration?

First, I would say that No Bosses presents and explores key core values that a good economy should foster and fulfill, in this case empathetic solidarity, broad diversity, real equity, collective self management, and life enhancing ecological stewardship, or, in sum, if you like, classlessness. 

Second, because they each unrelentingly violate those values, No Bosses rejects private ownership of productive assets; rejects owners or bosses monopolizing decision making; rejects earning income for profits or for what you have the power to take or even for the value of your personal output; rejects a division of labor that elevates a few but subordinates most; and rejects both markets and central planning for allocation. In other words it rejects the defining features of capitalism by demonstrating how they all run roughshod over desired values.

And third, mostly, No Bosses proposes new institutions to replace those it rejects. They are a productive commons; collective self management by nested workers and consumers councils; income exclusively for how long and how hard and the onerousness of our socially valued work; a division of labor that balances jobs for their empowerment effects; and participatory planning for allocation. In other words it proposes a post capitalist economy with defining features that accomplish necessary functions even as they fulfill our sought values.

All that is a mouthful, but the point is, No Bosses presents and explains how new institutions would accomplish production, consumption, and allocation in accord with our highest aspirations.

Many people are skeptical of large-scale alternatives to existing economic systems. What assumptions or habits of thinking do you believe most often prevent people from imagining or attempting something different?

Popular skepticism of alternatives is historically undeniably warranted. After all, past efforts to transcend capitalism have most often either failed to be viable, or have brought on new conditions that were as bad or worse than what was left behind. 

But the problem of imagining desirable vision is overwhelmingly not a matter of technical difficulty. To comprehend the economic thinking in No Bosses is well within range for everyone who works and consumes in existing economies. What makes imagining a better world difficult is not intrinsic complexity but the manner in which prior learning and experience imprint on us a persistent belief that humans can’t do better which is summarized by Margaret Thatcher’s claim that “There is no alternative.” 

Constrained by that imposed belief, we tend to think about economics, if at all, only presupposing economies as we know them. We imagine only policy tweaks to reduce faults here or there. We hesitate to propose desirable values. We don’t even try to conceive new institutions able to fulfill desirable values.

Accompanying that baseline obstacle, there is also understandable fear that to question what is considered unavoidable will brand one as crazy, naive, deluded, or dangerous. To do so may not only clash with one’s prior views but even with one’s identity or the identities of one’s family or friends. To avoid friction, we turn off our imaginations and curb our desires. 

In place of that acquiescence, No Bosses tries to facilitate imagining alternatives—but not only in the hypothetical sense. It hopes to incite and empower that we imagine and elucidate not just to tell a rousing story, but for realistic implementation.

For someone who has not yet read the book, what are the most important questions you hope No Bosses prompts them to ask, even before they agree or disagree with its conclusions?

Why when we are told there is no alternative, do we accept it as gospel? 

Am I as greedy, pushy, and callous as I am constantly told everyone is, and are these traits our true selves or due to external pressures? 

What institutions around us subvert our best potentials to instead impose the twin ills of domination and submission? 

And then, finally, mainly, what new institutions could do better and what can I do to help make them real?

[You can buy No Bosses from here.]Email