Employers in the United States wield an extraordinary amount of power over their employees.

In the workplace, workers can be surveilled by their employer, compelled to work long hours, and even denied bathroom breaks (a stricture that in one recent instance forced employees to wear diapers at work). In most parts of the US, employers can legally terminate employees for being “too attractive,” for having the wrong political affiliations, and for choosing a particular sexual partner. When American workers go to work, they enter a world marked more by unaccountable hierarchy than democracy and freedom.

Yet despite the presence of this vast realm of domination, contemporary economists and political theorists are largely silent about the social relations of work. At most, they offer up apologetics about voluntary contracts, obscuring the reality of extreme inequality.