Recovering Personhood – Loyalty, Alienation & Possessive Individualism: Study Notes

Core claim: Possessive individualism under capitalism erodes “full personhood.”
- The individual and the capitalist firm become mutually dependent yet resentful competitors.
- Civic-duty language has withered; the more imaginable path is reviving the ethic of loyalty.
Josiah Royce’s maxim (1908): “Loyalty to loyalty”—a good cause increases loyalty in others, an evil one destroys it.
Albert O. Hirschman’s triad (1970): Exit, Voice, Loyalty.
- Loyalty discourages premature exit, therefore preserving voice.
- Without loyalty, a dissatisfied actor silently departs, weakening the “going concern.”
Illustrations of exit when loyalty fails
- Customers who never return to a restaurant.
- Citizens who stop voting.
- Workers who quit rather than report abuse.
- Parents who yank children from failing schools rather than improve them.

Working definition: Active, affect-laden commitment to persons or institutions beyond the ego.
Psychological opposite of alienation (feeling of separation or isolation).
Historical vignette
- Transition from horizontal violence (personal revenge) to state-run criminal justice signaled state loyalty to citizens.
- “Citizenship exchange” fails in many African states where low taxes ⇄ low state services, eroding reciprocal loyalty.
Paradox of modern rights culture (Glendon, 1991)
- Citizens focus on a “bundle of rights” they expect government to guarantee.
- This implicit social contract understates any duty or loyalty toward fellow citizens—others become obstacles (traffic, queues, cell-phone talkers, etc.).

Pre-intervention atmosphere: isolation, blank stares, minimal communication.
Bill Thomas’s experiment introduced
- $1$ greyhound, $1$ lapdog, $4$ cats, and approximately $100$ parakeets.
- Live plants in every room, child-care center, after-school program, gardens.
Immediate staff reaction: revolt—“We’re nurses, not dog-waste scoopers.”
Observable outcomes after acclimation
- Residents “woke up”; non-verbal patients began to talk, non-ambulatory volunteered to walk dogs.
- All parakeets adopted and named.
- Long-term: still $100$ parakeets, $4$ dogs, $2$ cats, rabbits, hens, hundreds of plants.
Analytical pay-off
- Loyalty blossomed: to animals, plants, staff, and—crucially—other residents.
- Facility shifted from place for dying → place for living; a true community emerged.

Vertical violence: harm inflicted top-down inside firms (echoing Locke’s fear of sovereign power).
Dissatisfied workplaces (see Chapter $4$ data) reveal modern corporations as primary violators.
Unionization saga (e.g., Nissan Mississippi) shows elections pit workers against each other, reinforcing possessive individualism.
Public-sector backlash
- Conservative politics leverage resentment (Cramer, $2016$ ) against teachers & civil servants who enjoy better benefits.
- Rather than raise private-sector standards, policy curtails public benefits.
- Voters often act against economic self-interest, illustrating the grip of possessive individualism.

Rights-talk culture → duties only to oneself (elite universities, gadgets, children’s résumés).
Proposal: Swap the heavy language of obligation for the more inviting practice of loyalty.
- Loyalty includes enlightened self-interest yet extends concern to the collective.
- A loyal worker aids a colleague because it benefits both the colleague and the going concern.
Workplace as community
- Loyalty transforms “place of work” into “place of belonging.”
- Undermines the hedonism of possessive individualism.

Early–mid $20$ th century: implicit bargain between labor & capital; pathway to middle class.
Late $1960$ s– $70$ s: social unrest (Vietnam, civil-rights, assassinations) + inflation.
Reagan era: “welfare queens,” anti-government jokes; Thatcher: “There is no such thing as society.”
Globalization, WTO, mergers ↔ greater physical & emotional distance between workers & management.
Outcome: Familiarity → Resentment → Alienation; managerial capitalism cultivates “fox-like,” atomized workers.

Royce: Full humanity requires
1. Openness—expanded capacity to respond to the surrounding world.
2. Questing—truth/reality must be discovered, not received.
- First condition of “sin”: over-responsiveness to self, under-responsiveness to the world.
- Remedy: Social life leading to self-transcendence through loyalty.
Heidegger’s Dasein: Being-in-the-world entails transcending isolated ego toward shared meaning; aligns with Royce.

Semantic drift: “Community” once geographic; now fragmented into identity silos (Latinos, LGBTQ+, evangelicals, etc.).
Royce’s burdened loyalty
- Extending concern beyond the self is effortful—a burden—yet essential for personhood.
- Dewey’s Trying–Undergoing Arc: genuine experience involves acting (trying) and being acted upon (undergoing). Both parties must participate.
- Animals & gardens at Chase NH forced residents to undergo change, producing rewarded burdens and fuller personhood.
Formula (conceptual): $\text{Personhood} = f(\text{Loyalty},\, \text{Community},\, \text{Undergoing})$ .
Managerial capitalism’s threat: “Automates” humanity by producing numb, loyalty-free workers—no need for mechanized robots.

Josiah Royce – The Philosophy of Loyalty ( $1908$ ).
Albert O. Hirschman – Exit, Voice, and Loyalty ( $1970$ ).
John Dewey – Concept of experience: trying ↔ undergoing.
Martin Heidegger – Being and Time ( $1962$ ): Dasein, transcendence.
Mary Ann Glendon – Rights Talk ( $1991$ ).
Daniel W. Bromley – Possessive Individualism: A Crisis of Capitalism ( $2019$ ); present chapter.
Atul Gawande – Being Mortal ( $2014$ ); nursing-home narrative.
Katherine Cramer – The Politics of Resentment ( $2016$ ).

Loyalty revives mutual responsibilities without coercive “duties” language.
Cultivating community counters both horizontal (peer-to-peer) and vertical (management-to-worker) violence.
Policies that value employee voice, shared governance, and workplace familiarity can reclaim personhood.
Educational & organizational design should encourage burdened loyalty—structured opportunities where people must rely on and respond to one another.

Contrast possessive individualism with burdened loyalty using Chase NH as evidence.
Apply Hirschman’s framework to a modern institution (e.g., social media platform or gig-economy firm).
Evaluate whether managerial capitalism inherently suppresses loyalty or if reforms (co-ops, codetermination) can reconcile profit motives with personhood.
Discuss transcendence (Royce/Heidegger) in terms of contemporary identity politics and community fragmentation.