Just Following Orders,

Or: How to Escape the Sneering and Just Say No

Imagine a young Englishman living in New York in 1680. He is twenty-seven years old, short and pock marked. His family is known as one of the first to make their way to New York City to take advantage of the Dutch being driven out almost two decades prior. By this point, though, the family, and the young man have grown sick and tired of the governor favoring those damned Dutch traders. This was their colony now, why should the Dutch take precedence over the wants and needs of his fellow countrymen? The young man realizes that it is better to leave than to deal with this impotent leadership. So, he packs up his small, inherited shipping business and moves to Boston. The move is tough, new partners are not easy to find in this cutthroat business, but at least the port is bigger.

He eventually makes a name for himself in the new colony and raises his status to become one of the big traders in the city, though his estate remains modest compared to the families that have been there for generations. After just five years, though, he starts to hear some murmurings about changes the new King (long may he reign) is bringing about. To his dismay, the governor you escaped is now the leader of a colonial conglomerate, and your colony is part of it. To make matters worse, the king insists that the laws of Massachusetts must match those of England, so new taxes are created to harmonize the disparate codes. On top of that, new trade duties destroy his profits, leaving him with yet another choice. Again, he finds it easier to just leave this area altogether than to face the whirlwind. He had heard throughout the past few years that the Virginia tobacco trade, though still depressed from the rebellion over a decade ago, had begun to recover. So, he finds a new home to the south.

In Virginia, he is distraught to find that the doors to trade are sealed more strongly than those in Boston, but he is glad he left the north behind, the endless revolts that come about just three years later—brought about by the new King (long may he reign)—have upended those colonies. He eventually finds a foothold in the tobacco and slave trade, though. Yes, some of the people he works with may or may not be technically illegal shippers, but the money is good. Things are looking up. Then one day, he hears from another trader in the port that chills him to the bone. The governor he escaped twice is now the governor of Virginia. Then he hears about what is expected to be one of his first acts, and his heart sinks to the floor. He is going to try to move the economy away from the tobacco trade.

This man—who may or may not have existed, moving wasn’t exceedingly common for most, but traders were quick to move for the quick dollar—was haunted throughout his adult life by a man named Edmund Andros.

Andros was a political chameleon. Yes, he had his point of view and vision for society, but he was able to become any color he wanted that would keep in the good graces of the Crown. He had enough clout early in his life to gain high offices in the colonies, mainly by supporting the King during the English Civil War, which bought him his first post as the governor of New York and even a knighthood. Throughout his tenure in the colonies, from 1674 to 1689 with his final recall by the Board of Trade as governor of Virginia, he was a strong proponent of the Crown’s agenda, but received little, if any, local support. In short, he was the 17th century equivalent of a perfect middle manager.

Andros wasn’t the only official that fit this archetype. Francis Nicholson was appointed as governor of Virginia after Andros. This followed a career as the lieutenant governor of the Dominion and Virginia, and governor of Maryland. His career would later end in 1725 after a stint as the governor of Nova Scotia.

Andros and Nicholson were just two of the most prominent names that were most active during a period when the English monarch was trying to wrest back control of the colonies after the twin disasters of Bacon’s Rebellion and King Philip’s War. King Charles II, then James II after him, were concerned that they were losing a grip of the ingrates across the sea and needed to ensure they knew who was in charge. William III continued this, though with a much lighter hand despite using many of the same enforcers as before, most notably Andros and Nicholson.

After the two conflicts rocked the colonial world, it seemed necessary for the Crown to regain some semblance of control. The purpose of the colonies was to grow and create for England, not fight amongst themselves or squabble with the Indians. Furthermore, many of the colonies, particularly Massachusetts, had written many laws that strayed from the laws of England. None of this could stand if England was to stand as the greatest empire in the world. America needed to become subservient to the needs of the mother country.

To remedy these issues, the colonies that did not already have appointed governors gained them, charters were revoked, and colonies were merged and separated. This brought chaos to the colonies in a variety of ways. For instance, there is an argument to be made that the revocation of the Massachusetts charter and the enforcement of English law in the colony was a factor in the anxiety surrounding Salem in 1691. More concretely, the Dominion of New England, most notably in New York, along with the colony of Maryland, faced rebellious factions that shaped politics for decades.

Throughout all of this tumult, though, here were those like Andros that were able to ingratiate themselves with the Crown, regardless of who wore it, thoroughly enough to remain unscathed, politically and physically. This is really because he, like most of the appointed governors, was not pursuing anything of his own design; he was merely following orders. He could skirt around responsibility since he was just the middleman.

This immunity did not last forever though; Andros was eventually recalled after James Blair, missionary and founder of William and Mary College, was able to build a case against him, flimsy as it was, to bring to the Board of Trade. He was soon after replaced by none other than Francis Nicholson in 1698. Beyond the change in governor, this was a turning point in Virginia politics, as it was the beginning of a new populist era where the average citizen became much more involved in who they felt best represented their ideals. The most immediate result was a complete flipping of the House of Burgesses in the ensuing election.

All of this is starting to sound vaguely familiar. A bloated bureaucracy full of middle managers bound to the hand that feeds rather than those they are meant to serve. An empire losing its grip and becoming unwilling to accept the changing winds of the world. A new political and cultural pole growing across the sea, with no way to control their spread of trade and influence. Leaders that grow more solipsistic by the year, caring less and less about what happens in the distant reaches of their empire.

I admit these comparisons are stretched so far to become nearly worthless, but this phenomenon may sound familiar even at a personal level. Working in any large corporation can have the same feeling that escaping from poor management is impossible. Imagine an engineer who is, perhaps, on the fifth level of a company. That would mean that his boss’s boss’s boss’s boss’s boss is the CEO. For this employee, the level of impact that he feels is inversely proportional to the number of levels away the decision maker is. If the CEO of the company changes, he will likely not notice a major shift. He is isolated by five levels of management. If his manager changes, that has a much larger impact on his day-to-day work. Unless, of course, the CEO decides that she wants to shake things up. She starts recruiting other upper management from a previous company, picking and choosing the most loyal to promote, and begins to change the culture from the top down.

She creates, and harshly enforces, new rules that spit in the face of the previously established culture. The upper management that agrees with her does the same without question. It is good for business, after all. Those who do not follow along are forced to comply, else they get fired. This continues on down to the manager of that lowly engineer at the bottom. He tries to weather the storm, but eventually decides to change departments, thinking that new scenery will help. Six months later and his old manager has been moved to a higher position over the engineer to reinforce the CEO’s dictates, and so on. At the risk of belaboring this analogy—I may already have—I’ll stop there.

Any company that has continuous sustained success will end up with a massive amount of institutional bloat, just like the 18th century British Empire. The expanded workforce, derived from new products and services, will require management to ensure they are keeping up with the demands of the market. Over time, departments are created to split up the workforce for easier management. Vice presidents are hired, who hire department heads, who then hire functional leads and engineering, marketing, business development, human resources, manufacturing, and research managers. This continues until there are five or six different levels between the average technical employee and the CEO. By the end, after half a dozen re-organizations, 20% of the staff is allocated to management rather than production.

The middle managers¹ in these corporations—or the appointed governors in the colonies—are required to follow certain rules to ensure they are not removed from their post unceremoniously. The most docile among them are able to transition from boss to boss with no consternation arising. Eventually though, many of the old guard, the employees that remember the old ways, the old culture, the glory days, become discontent. They start to seek other opportunities, other companies, or often retirement. Thus, the best and brightest that made the company successful in the first place are replaced by patsies that can toe the line successfully.

This doesn’t often happen quickly. Shocks to any system can force it to take its time before settling back to a normal position, new or old. However, sometimes, if the company, or country, which has received the shock is not one solid footing, the end result can be disastrous. Sometimes the old guard is just the patsies of an earlier generation, glomming on to the whims of their leaders. In that case, it requires a principled group that is willing to call the leadership’s bluff. They must stand up to their managers and say, “fire me, see what I care.”

We have been witnessing that firsthand with the shock of the Covid pandemic. Toss in a couple contentious elections and the flux we are facing has only been amplified. The discontentment that many young people feel—including me, though to a lesser degree than many I know—is due to the normal that we are returning to still being uncertain. The new normal is still not yet set in stone, but the old seems more and more like a distant memory. But we will see if there is a group willing to shine a light on a brighter future.

Despite what our political and cultural leaders—our feeble old guard—tell us about the economy and political moment, we are not yet on the other side of the original shock. This was a shock to a house of cards. We were not thriving as a society before the pandemic. We have been in a slow decline for decades, brought on by poor management decisions from the top that were carried out by willing middle managers. The culture the old guard created was wiped away, leaving only the upper-level dictates, the replacement orthodoxy, holding any purchase. It is time for us to rebuild what was lost. A new guard to shepherd in the future. But it must come from the bottom.

That does not mean going back to the way things were. That will never happen. The complexity of our system has only gotten more complex with time. Who knows what lurks in the strings of that Gordian knot, begging to break out to our dismay.

The only way out is to ignore the middle managers. It’s time to take a page out of the American colonial playbook. The period of salutary neglect—roughly between 1720 and 1763—coincided with the greatest cultural, political, philosophical, and economic growth in the colonies. The German Hanovers who took over from the Stuarts upon the death of Queen Anne in 1714 were much less concerned with the goings-on in the colonies, and a decade's long period of relative neglect took hold.

The relative independence from the Crown and Board of Trade allowed for trades to thrive and new markets to open, so nearly every American became far richer than their respective Briton. Furthermore, the rapid increase in population created bustling cities, distinct social classes, and an environment ripe for burgeoning philosophies to bloom. The power of the legislatures proved insurmountable for many of the governors, so these men appointed by the Crown were forced to abide by the desires of the commons.

Something similar could happen today. The Trump election, though not the overwhelming victory many on the right claim it to be, may have been a similar turning point. The population said enough to the middle managers of society. They said, “what are you gonna do? Fire me?” and then they voted for Trump². This brashness, this willingness to say no to those in power, is the greatest cultural pillar we have as Americans. We better start wielding it again.

The era of salutary neglect ended at the end of the French and Indian War. The British Crown, in an attempt to recoup some of the debts incurred during the previous near century of wars, particularly the latest one, raised new taxes and began to clamp down on the colonies once again. I don’t have to lay out what happened next.

We are not colonists in a land across the sea from our motherland. So, we are not necessarily risking the past repeating itself. However, if this new wave of saying “no” does come to pass, my only hope is that the management steps aside and allows the new way to take hold. Any crackdown, now, or in a decade or two, could push us to that place we were 250 years ago. No one wants that, no matter what they say online. So, let’s hope the middle managers get used to hearing “no.”

1. I should note here that by middle manager, I am speaking beyond just actual management. They may be more succinctly considered the Professional Managerial Class. However, this is more of a cultural phenomenon than an organizational one, so it falls outside of the comparative frame that I started with in this essay. Just know that the mindset that the best middle managers possess extends beyond jsut those that have actual organizational power. The difference is, one is being paid to preserve this system, the other is not.

2. I am not saying that Trump got such an overwhelming amount of the vote that he has a clear mandate. This is not Reagan 1984. But the fact that some 3% of the population shifted from Biden to Trump from 2020 to 2024 does show that there is a trend here. I am of the opinion that the trend started in 2016, and we are seeing the continuation after a short reversal in 2020. We shall see with time whether this is the case or not.