I Do Not Want To Be A Cog In Someone Else's Wheel
Guest Blogger – Chuck Newton
Chuck Newton does not care much for examining credentials over the worth of a person. He is often heard telling people that he graduated from Bob’s Really Big Law School (formally Fred’s), and that he graduated in that part of his law school class that made the upper half possible. In reality Chuck Newton graduated from South Texas College of Law in Houston, Texas in 1985. He began practicing consumer bankruptcy law in 1986. He is licensed to practice in the State of Texas, in all four federal judicial districts in Texas and before the United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. He now practices in the Woodlands, Texas, just north of Houston. Since 1998 his law firm has limited its practice to litigating automatic stay violations in all federal bankruptcy courts in the State of Texas. Consumer bankruptcy attorneys from around the state refer cases to him.
I Do Not Want To Be A Cog In Someone Else’s Wheel
A cog refers to a mechanical cog. It is steeped in the industrial age as is too much of our thinking still. It represents one of the teeth on a wheel or gear that, by engaging other teeth, transmits or receives motion. The industrial age was based on mass distribution, mass consumption, mass education, mass media, mass recreation, mass entertainment and weapons of mass destruction. It was centered on standardization, centralization, concentration and synchronization. It was known for two things — organization and bureaucracy. The point is that a cog was nothing but a part of a much larger organization, and the cog had no autonomy, no sovereignty, no self-determination, no liberty, no freedom and no independence. Whether employed in law firms, or in the secretary pool, manufacturing, service or industry, the truth of the cog’s existence was always the same. The cog was necessary, as a missing tooth might cause greater harm, but in the overall scope of things the cog was also insignificant. And, although most of us can accept being inappreciable, we want to master ourselves. It is, in short, the American dream.
In the Third Wave, whether you call it the post-industrial society, the information age, space age, electronic era, the global village, the technotronic age, or the age of Google, it all stands for the proposition that we no longer have to merely settle for being a cog on a larger wheel. Where information becomes the substitute for most material resources, organizations become fluid and less rigid, mass customization becomes the norm, where all of us in this world become open source, freelancers and pro-sumers, we do not have to be cogs. Today, where knowledge is a source of power, and you can now be in charge as opposed to just going along, your life as a cog is not all that necessary. Your life can be more independent and meaningful.
There are a lot of reasons why attorneys go into the solo practice of law, but I would dare to say that the main reason is that we solos have decided that we do not want to be a cog in someone else’s wheel. We do not even have to be in our own wheel. In this digital age we do not need such mechanics. We survive and thrive on the bases of 1s and 0s. We are binary. We have replaced the old mechanics with digital electronic circuitry We know we can now place the operation of our legal system on the same path.
I would venture to say that the great growling engine of change in the practice of law is the act of going solo. Solos are originative, innovative, avant garde, deviceful, original and nimble enough to pull off change, new practice areas, niches, and state-of-the-art practices that Big Law can only dream about. It is the solo that breaks new ground, and throws the conventional or conservative ideal out the window. And, solos do it in a way that is often much more personally rewarding. We solos do it because life and law are no longer that outwardly complicated to perform.
The difference is intellectual judgment. In the old, non-tech days this required an institutional or organizational pursuit. Today, that is not the case. Intellectual judgment can be accomplished individually. Today, you do not have to be a cog and you do not have to employ cogs as cogs can be replaced or minimized easily through cheap tech so as to make the solo’s life less complicated and more productive.
In the old days management was key because it took a formal organization to think about big things, while cogs were doing the small things, so that all of the small things would go in the direction of the big things. Today, however, it is possible for one person to easily control those small things while simultaneously leading oneself in the direction of the big things. It really is not necessary to whip everybody else into going in the same direction. You can pursue the big things now whether everyone wants to go or nobody but you wants to go in that direction. And, that is the point.
It is hard to let go and think about going solo for some because we were all basically trained to be the thing most of us despise — bureaucrats. Bureaucrats need territory, underlings, and things to control. But, in this day and age, at least in the practice of law, none of this is really necessary with cheap tech and ease of information.
I believe there is great power in simplicity. We tend to over complicate business and the practice of law in this day and age. For that matter we generally over complicate life. In the past, much of this was probably inevitable. Today, who needs the drama, the cost or the aggravation of this? This is the cog’s life, and it is no longer necessary.
Solos yearn for independence, as opposed to hegemony or colonization. We do not wish to be protectorates. This means we want self-governance. I mean we wish to govern ourselves, our time, our interest, our resources, our minds, and cogs are controlled by other powers.
Solos also want freedom of will, or the ability to exercise control over our own actions, decisions and choices.
We do not have to be part of a machine. We do not need to relegate our careers to being merely a part of a machine.
For me, I have decided that I do not want to be a cog in someone else’s wheel.
This is the reason I solo.
I am free.
I am independent.
I refuse to be a bureaucrat or be governed by bureaucrats in my practice.
I exercise my own intellectual judgment.
I am nobody’s colony or protectorate.
I have freedom of will.
I adhere to the power of simplicity.
I am not a cog.
About the Author
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Love this affirming post which can be applied not just to the legal profession, but all entrepreneurs.
Especially appreciated two quotes: “The difference is intellectual judgment” and “there is great power in simplicity” — Thoughts to remember, inspire and guide.
Thanks for capturing and sharing the essence of why so many of us choose solo practice.
I respect your worldview immensely, Chuck. I wish I shared it with you, because I imagine that I’d be a much happier individual. Unfortunately I can’t bring myself to ignore the bureaucrats who rule basically every profession, every industry, every business in today’s world.
I really hope Friedman gets the seasteading idea off the ground. It’s my current best hope, I think.
Well, Wes, I wish everyone shared my world view, but alas that is not so. The World ultimately succeeds because of the argument of everyone’s ideas. If everyone agreed with me I would be King, and what I say would control. The best advice I can give you is my father-in-law’s basic remark. It is “don’t fight the problem”. It does not mean not to pursue your position, but you are never going to succeed or win by just ramming your head against a brick wall. All change is incremental. it is the overall trend you are after. It is the best you can hope for because, as stated, everyone has different opinions. Do what you can and let the World come around to your thinking when it does.
I have come to learn over the years that snake oil salesmen do not see themselves as snake oil salesmen. Likewise, bureaucrats do not see themselves in the same jaded way you might see them. You see them always as obstructionists, and they see themselves as doing good and protecting people and the public. That disagreement over purpose and balance represents the need, the purpose, the objective and reason for the practice of law. The very fact, for example, that a duly elected Congress and President (or elected representatives) can properly and legally pass health insurance reform and that reform can be contested in the Courts is a good thing. That and everything like it is the reason that we as lawyers, and the system, exists. As such, it is the best system ever conceived because it allows these individual differences to have a chance and a voice.
So, stop fighting the problem and think how can you form a niche helping other like minded people fight this problem you see. Will you bust away our governance as it now exists? I doubt it, but there are strides to be made. And, nothing is new in the World. If it is a major concern for you, then it is a major concern for others. Find that niche and maybe you do not solve the problem in the entirety, but you find a life working toward that end. You find a personally enjoyable purpose in life and law.
I see bureaucrats as obstructionists because I see them for what they are, while they see themselves as what they wish to be. The fundamental difference between them and myself is that they hide behind the legal monopoly of force given to them by government while I wish to live absent such a monopoly. They can only do good through the use of evil while I am forced to bow to evil in order to hope to somehow do good. Balance is a meaningless concept that does more harm than good in the realm of wrong and right.
Lawyers would still exist without the system because there would always be a need for people who are educated in the art of arguing for a given position. Nothing about disagreement requires the system to exist as it does, it is simply easier to accept the system and say, “Well, I can at best change this little part of the injustice to make it better”. But how can one who fundamentally disagrees with the system’s premises use the system’s power?
The problem with the system as it exists is that it has been devised and executed by an exceedingly small group of people who have ultimately wielded an immense and immoral power over the entirety of the human population, without any justification. And the population has stood idly by, because it’s easier to do nothing and go along with evil than it is to try to stop it.
I’m sorry Wes, the system is us collectively, which allows us all individually to try to bring some justice, fairness or balance from our perspective to it. The courts and law play an integral part. It is neither run by a small group of people, and by and large these people (whatever the number) are not evil. I cannot imagine what would happen to your positions if there was only argument and no baseline protections from which to work. The problem is that what you see as right, others see as wrong. Or another way to put it is what others see as right, you see as wrong. I personally refuse to divide the World up as good and evil with that baseline being whether they agree with either you or me. In reality it is generally held that people as a group or groups cannot agree on what is right. But, as a group or groups people can come to a consensus on what is wrong. That is what tends to happen and that is were laws come along. Then people who disagree with the will of the consensus have due process rights. That is the court system, or contractually maybe arbitration. We have a rather large government, thousands of elected officials, thousands of judges and court personnel, and it is hard for me to see how that is an exceedingly small group of people wielding “immoral power”. Further, given the number of lawsuits, attorneys, mediations, negotiations, arbitrations, appeals, including class actions and broad-based actions like the various states suing over health reform, it does not look like people are standing around idly by. I agree that it is a messy process sometimes, but maybe I could understand your position if I could understand what you would replace it with that would not result in total anarchy.
From what I have heard from you so far, in trying to figure out your path in life and law, it sounds like you do not want to be part of arguing for or against the various laws and rules, but you want to be shaping them. I think that is a lofty position for anybody to aspire to. You get there by transitioning to elective office, working yourself up, and fighting at the base of where this originates to reach consensus only by mutual consent and argument. It is not easy, but it is admirable in my book. Have you thought about a career in politics? Because whether I agree with you or not on the broader issues, it sounds like to me that you have a perspective and position to offer. You should try that.
I think it’s fairly universal that the initiation of physical force (or the threat thereof) or fraud against people and their property is ethically illegitimate. Everything the system does stems from its legalized monopoly on the initiation of force. That monopoly is what I reference when mentioning the immoral power wielded by the system.
Government employees (at all levels) account for less than 8% of the population, which seems to me to be a rather small group of people who are determining, interpreting, and enforcing the rules for everyone else. That number includes full-time and part-time government employees as well as all lawyers currently licensed and active in the United States. I certainly wouldn’t want to live in a neighborhood of 100 properties where 8 of them got to decide the rules governing all 100 properties. Now, I realize that relatively speaking that neighborhood would be better than living in another neighborhood where 1 owner decided everything, but if everyone has equal ownership interests in their respective properties (e.g. 100%) I’m not sure what right any property owner has to dictate any rules.
I can’t understand the need for me to explain a system with which to replace the current order given the fact that if it was possible for any one person to explain how it should all work then the representative process would be entirely unnecessary. Asking for a better system to be designed to avoid “anarchy” (I assume you’re using this term merely to mean chaos, rather than the absence of government) is akin to a person in the antebellum south asking an abolitionist, “But where are all these slaves going to find jobs? It would be chaos if they were free and had to go out and find something to do on their own!” (I’m not using this analogy to cast aspersions, merely to make the point that freedom cannot logically be condemned using fear of the unknown.) The beauty of human society is that we are a self-organizing species when given the freedom to operate. There will always be disputes but processes would arise that did not rest upon initiating force.
I’ve previously considered a career in politics but given my current beliefs I don’t think it makes sense to again endorse the system by further ensconcing myself in its power. There’s a logical disconnect in using the system to fight the system that I can’t get past, due to its nearly wholesale failure as a political strategy over the past century. That’s why I’m looking for a way to work outside the system. Maybe I should say I do not want to be a cog in ANYone else’s wheel.
Wes, I agree that what you argue is the full extension of not being a cog in someone else’s wheel, but we are talking about a matter of degree. In the past, we have been wading through where you can go and what you can do, with your legal education, so as to better effectuate your political beliefs. Outside of forming your own country of one, which I do not know how to do, I thought politics would be an effective outlet for you exercise those beliefs. I do not have to agree with your beliefs to believe you need to find an outlet for your talents that is comfortable for you. So, it was a suggestion. I think a good suggestion. Consider it some more. It takes a good deal of effort and planning to do it successfully, but it probably beats just writing about it.
Chuck, I absolutely agree that it’s simply a matter of degree and I’m not really trying to advocate that anyone else should join me this far out on the proverbial limb, although I’m sure some of my rhetoric has implied otherwise.
A country of one…I like the way you’re thinking now! But, I’d do it without the country and create it as merely one sovereign individual.
I’ll consider the political office angle. I just see it as becoming part of the machine, which concerns me deeply. As always, I appreciate the thoughts and discussion. I realize I’m a tough nut to crack but I hope you know that I don’t bring these things up just to be obstinately combative.
Chuck,
You have got to have the healthiest attitude of anyone in the blogosphere. Wish there were more like you.
Carolyn
Well thanks, Carolyn.
But Chuck, that is the beauty of having some experience with the practice of law in all its incarnations. When you arrive you appreciate the journey and can celebrate your hard-earned scars, too. Then others get to benefit from it!
Is that the old saying that it is great to be a trailblazer but the arrows in the back hurt?
I’ve felt a few of those myself…but I would never stop being a trailblazer