Where a person chooses to work, and how that person relates with others in the workplace shows that person’s deepest political preferences (as opposed to superficial party loyalties).

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The pragmatic meaning of “respect” litmus test: Some people believe respect means to treat all people as equals (or at least political equals), while others think it means to acknowledge organizational rank (which means accepting inequality), while yet others have personal criteria for earning respect through displays of this or that virtue (industriousness, honesty, intelligence, ingenuity).

It is easy to see how perceptions of “disrespect” can occur across conflicting definition of respect… One person attempts to treat another person as an equal, and this is perceived by the other as insubordinate presumption of an inferior…

Workplace clashes of this kind is the true site of ideological difference (between what Boltanski and Thévenot called “polities“). The appeals that are heard or not heard, the decisions that are praised or condemned, the preferences that are honored or ignored in the daily world of work is the very political substance of a person’s life. “Office politics” is not a metaphor — it is where politics touch down, are lived out as the reality of choice or compulsion.

Compared to the reality of work politics, national politics as reported by Fox News or MSNBC is abstraction. Newscasting might as well be sportscasting. Parties are rival teams playing in distant coliseums. We may have bets placed on one team or another, but mostly it’s just symbol play.

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Every company is a polis. Beneath the surface of missions and core value (and other such internal-communicationy bullshit), every business has a set of values or rival sets of values, which have been operationalized as work practices, and which are regulated through local political norms. These operationalized values determine the character of the businesses offerings and its self-presentation in the market.