The concept of authority has to do with whether citizens have moral obligations to obey a government’s rules. A government has authority (over a range within its scope) if and only if when the government issues a rule, this creates at least a prima facie obligation for people within that range to obey the rule. So, for instance, the question of whether citizens have a duty to obey the law is a question of whether governments have authority.By inspection, this is extensible to any which arrangement. Authority is that which you have a moral obligation to obey.
If I happen to take a job with a software company, and they tell me to check in all my code using CVS, with appropriate unit tests, I might seem to have a (conditional) obligation to obey. But not really. I have a choice. If I thing CVS is stupid enough, I might choose to quit and go entrepreneurial so that I could use SVN instead (That's not why I quit my last job).
Fundamentally the discussion of authority within freely chosen arrangements is a mistaken approach. Entrepreneurs face roughly zero authority. If someone wants me to do something that I like enough, and that pays enough...and I like it enough to do it, then I agree to do it. And if I don't I don't. Software developers at entrepreneurial cultures like the one Devin works at are the very next step down. Basically, they're trading agreements...I'll work on item X, in exchange for not having to look for work regularly. It's a deal. A trade. And if the company goes all Dilbertish...the trade stops being worth it. Basically, the real (weasel word) ability to exit an arrangement is what removes it from the realm of authority.
Devin asks a bunch of questions:
a) does the CEO have authority over me? b) do I have authority over the developer on my team? c) do I have authority over the QA person?The basic answer is no to all 3. And I strongly suspect that this is almost absolutely true, because of the willingness of everyone involved to sever the arrangement. It's very close to my relationship with some large tech company I contract for. Do A,B,C, and D, and we will pay you $X. Fine, we agree. If they ex-post ask for E, I might do it, even so. If they ex-post ask for F, I might tell them to go jump in a lake.
Devin's question is (and has seemed to me to be for more than a year) about whether coordination towards a given goal is a good idea. Frequently it is for a small group with very small resource-sets. For larger groups, the idea of having only one goal seems odd, and the idea of trying only one main path to that goal seems odd as well.
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I can certainly accept the distinction between authority accepted via voluntary association, such as in a company, and authority that is imposed involuntarily, such as government.
I find it hard to believe that there's a practical psychological difference between the two. For day-to-day purposes they are equivalent.
Even the libertarian argument is not so much that they are immediately different, as that the effects of competition mean that in the long run, voluntary authority is likely to be applied in a less unpleasant way than involuntary authority. But that is the same kind of argument as the Formalist one made by Devin that absolute authority is likely to be applied in a less unpleasant way than disputed authority.
2 points.
1. You'd be surprised how much of a difference in framing comes between:
A. I have to do this.
B. Do I want to do this, or quit.
Having it as my choice, even with costs, is huge. If I can find a different job relatively easily (true for my personal skillset), then it reframes the whole arrangement.
2. I think the libertarian argument is stronger. If authority is voluntary, and the guy exercising authority is an ass, the worker suffering under him tends to quit, and soon. A person doesn't have to suffer if they don't prefer that to other options.
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