I think the problem is businesses are tiny little fascist dictatorships. They are always trying to pay less taxes, evade regulations, layoff workers, monopolize, destroy competitors etc. This is their first time ever having to think about the public sphere, or common good, or government, or democracy, or rule of law. They suck at that, it goes against all their training and instincts.
>I think the problem is businesses are tiny little fascist dictatorships. They are always trying to pay less taxes, evade regulations, layoff workers, monopolize, destroy competitors etc
Are you just using "fascist dictatorships" as a generic label for things you don't like? The things you've listed might be bad, but they're neither dictatorial nor fascist. It's even questionable whether some of the things are even bad. Don't we all try to minimize our tax burden? Is there anyone out there who refuse tax credits because that means "paying less taxes"?
Not a huge fan of calling random things you don't like fascist but op has a point here
> The things you've listed might be bad, but they're neither dictatorial nor fascist.
Uhh I'm pretty sure that CEOs/executives act very similar to dictators. Large companies certainly don't act like democracies. Companies often employ many forms of totalitarian control used by fascist dictatorships. There's often mass surveillance (mouse trackers, email auditing, etc), suppression of speech, suppression of opposition, fear of termination, cult of personality.
One member one vote doesn't seem very imaginative.
Compared to a dictator a focused team effort will have better results but a set of people who don't care or have an overly limited grasp of the topic won't do well. This probably doesn't matter to much if things are going well.
I fool around with the concept of department specific voting certificates with each component of the department written into its own "law" that one can vote yes/no and remove on. Each cert adding weight to the vote. People writing the rules are elected by the same mechanic. To activate a rule or board member it needs 55% "yes" to deactivate it needs 55% "no" and to remove it needs 65%.
One can participate in all departments and each certificate comes with a small pay raise.
Better anti-monopoly enforcement, better worker-rights regulations, better taxation schemes for redistribution, better healthcare etc. Even stuff you wouldn't think about like free college or good Singapore-style public housing reduces economic pressure on workers, which reduces companies' leverage.
Interesting, yes employee maintenance cost like healthcare and specially housing hurts the economy magnificently. That said, those things only make the dictatorship model more palatable. I want a system to compete with it and kill it.
The puzzle should be considered exciting. If I've learned one thing in life it is that it is easy to do better than a thousand people convinced it can't be done. Illusions of grandeur are useful.
As the article points out, there is a lack of a long term plan. If there is such a thing (however idiotic) you can promise specific taxes and regulations for things that get in the way and specific tax breaks and subsidies for projects complimenting it. It has to be clear and specific so that one can bank on it. NIMBY is fine, you get a reasonable bill for it.
>Uhh I'm pretty sure that CEOs/executives act very similar to dictators. Large companies certainly don't act like democracies. Companies often employ many forms of totalitarian control used by fascist dictatorships. There's often mass surveillance (mouse trackers, email auditing, etc), suppression of speech, suppression of opposition, fear of termination, cult of personality.
Where does employment/voluntary association end and "fascist dictator" begin? If you're being paid for your time, it's only fair that whoever's paying you can monitor your work and decide what you're doing. I agree that some businesses go beyond this and try to regulate what you do outside of work, but it's a stretch to make a broad claim like "businesses are tiny little fascist dictatorships". That makes as much sense as "governments are tiny little fascist dictatorships", just because some of them are authoritarian.
All I am saying is that there certainly are similarities between the way fascist governments and large corporations, not that they are the same thing.
Based on your response, it sounds like you agree that companies often act in an authoritarian manner, its just that you think it is justified in some way.
To be clear, I am not making a value statement here, I am just pointing out similarities between two systems. I don't claim to have better systems for managing corporations. Tbh, I wouldnt want the majority of my coworkers calling the shots and if I was CEO, I would work to consolidate power
You're missing the point. My response was to the article:
> The report somehow fails to mention the bit where the Silicon Valley VC and executive crowd worked their backsides off to elect Trump and several of them sat in the front row at his inauguration. Then they were actually surprised when the leopard ate their faces too.
They vibe with Trump because they have the same training, and they've done very little actual democratic governance. Very little thinking about the common good. You can argue most companies are actually more like benign dictatorships, but that's irrelevant.
To be fair I'm often a fan of markets, but not when the companies are monopolies larger than most nation states, actively increasing inequality and fighting counters like regulation/unions, not to mention affecting elections like fb/musk. In that case it's not voluntary. Wikipedia has an entire section on market failures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure
I don't think that's true at all, business has had to think about the public sphere and how to shape it to their benefit since corporations started.
For a long time Silicon Valley tried to avoid politics, or at least that was the vibe of everyone. But even in the 1980s, when Japan was rising and threatening to outcompete the US semiconductor industry, Captains of Industry that had been former strident libertarians went hat in hand to Uncle Sam to tilt the field to favor their survival.
there might be insight there, but.. too broad brush. As "everyone knows" Silicon Valley started as a dot-mil fab but California invented the personal computer and sold it. Hey wait, just California?! yes, mostly.. See the West Coast Computer Fair .. shout out to Byte Magazine from New England too.
"avoid politics" was true for some stripes of participants and completely not true for others.. It is true IMHO that consumer gear generated a lot of success and was largely apolitical.
You missed the point. Yes I agree they're more concerned with "how to tilt the field", but that's not what good governance is (should be) about. It's a bit like a kid trying to push the bounds of acceptable behavior, versus a parent trying to figure out how to raise multiple kids well.
No, they always very actively did everything they could to get as much money and influence out of whatever political system they're operating under.
The Nazis very happily and intentionally worked together with corporations and the corporations were happy to exploit the free slave labor and lack of competition.
I've heard modern US politics described like the following:
A rich man, a blue-collar worker, and an immigrant are sitting around a table. In the center of the table is a plate of a dozen cookies. The rich man takes 11 of them, then leans in and whispers to the blue-collar worker "hey, I think that guy wants your cookie."
The most insane are the science minded who understand it’s made up social gossip but role play sycophant nonetheless.
All our best thinkers, the propaganda goes. Their best idea for the economy is submit the status quo.
Their biology lives the experience every day that as a knowledge worker with little real world skill at providing for themselves, it’s actually they who are the most easily manipulated and kowtowed.
