Merit and Social Sanction

"But Neal you need to think of your clients, you can't just go around acting and saying whatever you'd like, even if it is your right to and freedom to do so."

"But isn't my right and freedom to do so upheld by its exercise, and isn't business itself free to exist only because there were people before us who weren't afraid to speak up?"

"Practicing and exercising certain points of view will only yield you less clients, you must adapt your outlook to the people and culture around you, if people in New York City are outspoken, fine, good for them, but people around here are a certain way."

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I get this all the time from what you'd think of as very reasonable people. But the underlying reality of what it demands, I can assure you, is not.

Given, that to be fair, this excerpt is taken out of context, one in which the discussion (of many on this topic) is concentrated on a general notion of expressing one's views, which could come in contact with the client through a number of indirect ways and is not necessarily meant to be about actually being right there in front of clients, but say, if a client read about my views on my website and then would be potentially discouraged from doing business with me. If you're wondering how real the possibility of exposure of ideological views reaching clients, you may want to consider the multitude of other ways in which political or philosophical/moral views could come in contact with the client, especially these days: any old community site like Facebook and Twitter, web ads, SMS texting via cell phone, not to mention that on top of this there are more conventional means like word of mouth, and perhaps even public rallies, all of which entrepreneurs under the above view (which I am in opposition to) would be discouraged from expressing those views in any way, and to any degree.

Even so, in reading this, at least initially you probably agree with the above first statement, and perhaps think that it sounds quite reasonable. But this is because you've so thoroughly adapted to the culture that you are now unable to recognize that what you swim in, really in fact, is water; a culture that uses etiquette and social graces to veil social conformity and money to sustain a widening class divided social system.

You might say, "Well, isn't it true that one often needs clients to survive, especially as a freelance businessman, and voicing one's point of view openly might threaten the sustenance of those clients, and hence one's survival, and isn't it reasonable to think that one should keep his or her own point of view to themselves in order to survive?"

This first thing (but certainly not the last) that this view fails to distinguish between is merit and social sanction. On a larger scale, it is the failure to conceive of and distinguish between external objective reality, perceptual reality, and reality that is socially defined.

Take the example of web design where the market is geared to the businessman, the freelance web developer let's say. I'd say that web is a business owner's market in the same way that a worker's market or manager's market can exists in retail or a buyer's vs. seller's market in real estate. In other words, a business owner's market is one in which the business owner, not the client, has the upper hand.

What is the reason for this?

Markets tend to lean one way or another, whether it be toward business or the client, and business, especially big business works very hard to keep it leaning to them. Nevertheless, one side or another has the upper hand due to the nature of the service or product being offered and the nature of how much that product costs.
i.e. if a product is not cost effective, it cannot be sold.

In web design or web development, we have a service and product that really very few people know the nature of very well indeed. This is especially true of small businesses struggling to keep up and build websites for themselves. Being a web developer I can see this first hand, and the really small businesses, some of them, don't even know what a website really does, let alone what a drop down menu is, a lightbox or tableless CSS.

In any case, since the client, the buyer of this product/service does not know the nature of the entire process, this gives the business owner the upper hand and makes him into a commodity.

Why?

Because his value is externally objective: that is, it exists in concrete reality, external to perception, external to one person or another's opinion of the market, for example. An externally objective value in business is called merit.

When a person possesses a valuable service and does his job well, it has merit, right?

So, what's the effective difference if the client rejects him for his views or the way he communicates? None. There is no difference in external reality save the fact that the client may not do business with him or her and may actually find someone just as qualified.

But this still leaves the question, in what situation is it reasonable to think one must hide their views in order to retain clients?

I would say, that the goal of a capitalistic endeavor is to achieve the upper hand, and if one works in a situation or market in which they do not have the upper hand, one should either work toward the goal of quickly achieving that upper hand, or get out of the market.

But this is beside the point really. Because what people really mean when they tell you to hide your views in any way whatsoever save, say, extreme public acting out, what they really mean is not that you might lose clients, but that they are afraid of you're 'acting out' around them and would feel more comfortable being your friend if you really didn't speak up as much.

What's my evidence?

Observe the fact that most people don't even mention, let alone delve into even the existence or pertinence of merit, in any way, shape or form.

Observe that when they say "you should think of the client, not your own point of view" that usually they don't even mention the product. Most, if not all discussions I've had on this subject have not in any way even mentioned what the product is worth, only a blind, nodding obedience toward the notion that the client is the only consideration.

A good example of what I mean apart from political or philosophical views, is how the client is approached and communicated with. And the opinion of the status quo is that the client is the one to be catered toward and should dictate the transactional process for the product, not the seller or producer.

The excuse is always "but he's your boss," "you shouldn't be too confrontational," or "he's the client, you need to cater the product to what he wants."

Being a web developer I know that if I catered to exactly what the client wanted in my industry, I would never have one website to speak of, let alone, even a hope at a portfolio. Why?

If the client got his way with my websites every time, I would have static, flashy, awfully gaudy looking slapped together sites border lining a bit below even amateur level. Let us not forget that it is still the expert in a given field that knows the nature of a product, not the client, that's why he needs the seller in the first place. Not to mention the fact that in history it has always been the producer that has lead the public into greater and greater prosperity, not the demands or knowledge of the client.

Someone recently told me that (being an artist as well) in order to sell my art that I needed to be "nice and friendly" to clients. Again, what happened to the intrinsic value of the paintings? Does this person really think I'd mouth off to someone at my own art show? I don't think they do, and since there's really no reason to think that I might tell someone off, by the way, for no reason at my own art show, I surmise again that this is to veil social sanction and conformity with being "nice and friendly to your clients."

And to digress a bit, whatever happened to eternal vigilance in the face of tyranny?

It is obvious to me what people really value when they say democracy and rights are to be spoken up for, and then turn around and do just the opposite. They might say "well I speak up for individual rights, just outside of work, that's all," or "I speak up, just it's not around clients."

Certainly there is something to be said for rationally appropriate times to speak up, and one must pick one's battles, but the culture at large today is not concerned with 'speaking up for rights or democratic processes or rational philosophy' in any way, by any means. It is obvious to me that this is the case when everyone says they value speaking up and are nothing but nonplused and stare at me like a cat that you've suddenly poked in the pose when I ask, "Yes, okay, but when?"

"When do you speak up? In what way, in what form? When???

"We'll I do it in my own way," they might tell you. And if you ask how consider how transparent a truth that is when the question of how had obviously never occurred to them.

The fact of the matter is that we live in an increasingly conformist, fascist oriented culture that holds obedience and social conformity above all things, save whatever money can buy.

"But, you must think of the client first, it is the client who needs special consideration."

"I don't build in order to have clients, I have clients in order to build."

--Howard Roark, from The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand