Smothering Purpose by Design

A free person must be able to choose their purpose, to criticize and assess their purpose, and to change their purpose. A person is the core of work, not a task. Purpose is the intent, and function is the role. Purpose and function are discardable. True purpose cannot be created as subordinate to someone else's purpose. True purpose cannot be instilled within the confines of hierarchical control, because decision is absent. A free person who has chosen their purpose and function will perform better than one who has been coerced. A person who cares about what they do because it fits their purpose will do a better job than one who doesn't care.
For example, consider a publicly-traded corporation.

Corporations are institutions with function dictated hierarchically from their purpose, which is profit. The workers providing functions are human beings, and have little sense of purpose. Instead, they work for money, and that is their purpose. When money becomes their purpose, all other motivation is secondary and irrelevant; no matter what the trick, their purpose remains obtaining money.

If money is required for the workers' livelihood, and it usually is, money is the security of that livelihood. Thus, the workers are coerced, their livelihoods held hostage, with fear as their motivation. Fear gets poor results. If money is seen, not as security, but a reward to be gained, their purpose will still be money. An increasing amount of money is needed to sustain the same amount of work, or the amount of work will go down.

On rare occasions a person might find a challenge and decide to take it on. In these scenarios the person works the hardest and best, because they have a purpose. However, here, again, corporations usually fail through their need for hierarchy and control. The person finds their hands tied at some point, struggles, and finally loses momentum. Although this can happen during any challenge, it's assured within corporations, because they maintain hierarchy and control through hand-tying, and sometimes outright sabotage. Why?

Corporations are competitive. They pit person against person for corporate money share, just as corporations fight for market share. Competition necessitates hierarchy. Hierarchy necessitates control.

Corporations attempt to create a sense of purpose, but their purpose remains profit, and so the sense of purpose corporations create is actually just the functions they require for profit disguised. A worker focused on a reward does not have to consider whether their corporate function is noble or useful. A worker focused on survival needs not care about their corporate function at all.

Further, the worth of a worker to the corporation is a function, but to the worker, fulfilling that function is an impediment between them and either financial reward, or livelihood. They dream of being rid of that impediment, playing the lottery, and investing in retirement. What pride is possible for a coerced worker? What change is possible within a system where purpose cannot be freely chosen? Has not labour been kept purposeless by design to the worker, leaving them to suffer and endure their way to the freedom of retirement?

In a corporation, a worker that discards corporate purpose or function discards livelihood; the worker is not useful, and so is discarded. If a worker has purpose aligned with the corporation's goals, the worker remains a function to the corporation. The worker is always discardable by the corporation; it cannot be any other way. No wonder that workers feel discardable, then: they are. Some may say this is just. The corporation is giving them a chance to live! Has society provided better options? To fulfill some need they see in society, or even their neighborhood, they need startup capital, which they can't get. The person in submission can either admit that they're being controlled, or they can try to justify it as a trade-off that provides security. There is a corollary to Benjamin Franklin's old chestnut about sacrificing liberty for security:

Submission cannot earn freedom, it can only beg for it;

This is the reality of any hierarchical organization that restricts human freedom, whether state, corporation, or church.

If we do something that is necessary to live, it does not smother a sense of purpose; the more unpleasant we find it, the more likely we are to look for ways to do it more easily, or not at all. We would rather have an enjoyable purpose, and so humans over time have developed technology and culture that makes living easier. However, some have made living easier through the coercion and manipulation of others, and one of the most fundamental goals of any society should be to eliminate this immoral inequity. We evolved to punish cheaters; it was necessary for survival. The strategy is simple: tit for tat.

In today's society we all find it hard to punish cheaters. They run the place.

My proposal is that we band together, cut them out, give them tit for tat. This doesn't require long hair, tie-dye, or a red banner. It doesn't require violence, and in fact, violence is counterproductive: violence is the most barbaric form of oppression. It doesn't require reform: does asking a cheater to cheat less make sense?

Banding together requires coordination and cooperation. We create organizations that enable freedom through democracy. We build, in a parallel system, inherent and passive features that select against cheating. Cheating is obvious and isolated. Cheating sticks out like a sore thumb. The bigger the cheating or cheater, the more obvious they are.

We change business. Profit becomes an investment in the people and the purpose. We work for purposes we personally believe in, and play roles for which we personally understand the need. Leaders rise to the occasion where they are needed, when they are needed. We build it where ever we can, on land, or in bits. We network against the cheaters, but provide an offer: stop cheating, agree to the fair terms we all honor, and you can join us; the offer will be open when you decide to step out of the cold.