Submitted 1 year ago by bernieecclestoned@sh.itjust.works to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
As a person with family living under an actual dictatorship, I’d like to point out some differences.
You can leave a job. You’re generally not killed for poor performance at a job.
I’ll stop there. I think that’s enough to shatter this very poor comparison.
You think working for a corporation is the same as living under a dictatorship?
Yeah, this thought is someone trying to comprehend apples to oranges.
Then there’s the throw away comment of how you barely know anyone there, that’s a personal thing. I work for a small company now but I used to work for a hospital with over 2,000 employees, I didn’t know most of them but I knew the 100 or so people I interacted with pretty well and did things outside of work with many of them on more than one occasion.
As I walk through the front door of my air-conditioned office building and say hello to the receptionist I can’t help but feel this is just what it was like living under Marco or Pinochet.
/s
Plenty of people live comfortable lives under dictatorship, you can compare that office worker to a citizen in Qatar and they’d probably live similar lives materially.
You could also compare the sweat shop worker for the company that office workers company contracts their manufacturing out to, to the migrant pseudo-slave workers in Qatar.
The CEO can take away your livelihood at a whim, destroying your future career, and everyone has to tug the forelock.
Dictatorships are not bad in and of themselves. A benign dictatorship could be the most effective form of governing, there’s just no mechanism to stop them when they stop being benign.
And on the flip side a CEO can improve and expand many people’s careers and therefore wealth.
A dictatorship like Mao Zedong, Mussolini, Hitler, etc can flow all the wealth and power to themselves, oppressing the people under them.
The point it: You can’t talk about best case scenario of one and not the other. Usually, as it’s human nature, both are going to sequester wealth and power for themselves over the people under them, but a bad dictatorship is leagues worse than a bad company/CEO.
To the level that the corporation has control over your life, yeah. What do you think banana republics are? The more the company can control your life, the more its undemocratic nature becomes apparent. Working for a small company in a competitive market might not look like a company town, but it has the same fundamental structure as one. The main difference is that the small company has to offer a good deal to their employees compared to competitors. If the company is the only hirer in town, then they’ll suddenly not have as much motivation to treat you well. If they control the housing, means of travel, and cops as well, you’re basically enslaved.
Exactly. It’s soul-crushing, but generally not body-crushing.
That’s not what dictatorship means
Workplaces are structured without democracy by default, and adding democracy can be helpful to workplace problems.
Sorry.
Directorship*
Functionally, they are the same.
You don’t get shot for quitting your job.
What job (aka enslavement apparently)do you have irl
Search for a new job since your current one is treating you terribly
Yes, because that’s not what happens lol. You don’t immediately lose those things unless you sit around and do nothing. That’s true of literally everything, even communism.
Just because A and B have overlap doesn’t mean A = B. My boss can’t throw me in a jail cell or have me shot.
You are incorrect. I absolutely run my businesses as a dictatorship because I’m the owner. We don’t “vote” on what to do, if you don’t like my ideas you are FIRED. Same goes for my tenants, if you don’t like my rules then get out of my property!!
I dictatorship would mean they’d die if they didn’t do what you liked lol. It’s in a government context, not a contractual obligation. A tennet can find another place to live, and a worker can find another company.
Not sure I’d die for democracy… it’s a popularity contest where 80 year old millionaires compete to see who looks best in a suit.
Freedom, sure. But that’s not the same thing.
That’s elections, democracy is a system of government by consent
But I agree with the current state of US and UK politics, 2 party systems are only better because a 1 party system is even worse
You’re describing a representational democracy. What do you think about direct democracy?
I have a problem with the willingly in this thought.
The issue is that people are pretty unwilling to be homeless or starve if there’s an alternative (no matter how terrible).
But we don’t need to accept a dictatorship to work. We should be working towards democratizing the workplace, forming unions, and creating worker owned businesses.
Yes, agreed 100%. Should. Til then though, still gotta eat and also not be homeless.
The issue is that people are pretty unwilling to be homeless or starve if there’s an alternative (no matter how terrible).
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you but I’ve been homeless before and I don’t think it’s an “issue” that I don’t want to go back to that.
It’s not an issue, that’s just an effect of the sarcastic phrasing. There’s kind of an embedded notion within the original thought that people actually do this by choice. I think most work in dictatorial companies because there’s really no other choice except destitution.
Working is better than being homeless for most people. Because you can, doesnt mean everyone can.
Lots of people are not willing to die for democracy, some even fight against it out of ignorance or powerlust.
The overlap of people willing to let themselves be beat down and exploited at work, and the people that would actually fight and die for democracy is slim to none.
Resource extraction companies are notoriously bad employers. I’d bet there’s more of an overlap in those sort of jobs.
Oh look a tankie trying to push bullshit tankie rhetoric.
Last time I checked I didn’t get thrown into prison for life, shot or run over by tanks because I disagreed with my boss.
I swear that tankies logic is that of a person who gets busted doing meth in the bathroom at work and then complains when they get fired, claiming their boss is an “oppressive fascist”.
Tankies would support the USSR (a dictatorship). This logic is Socialist. More like, pro-union, but then a bit more radical than that.
And spot on that you’d be in prison for disagreeing with your boss in the good old USSR.
Perhaps you are right there.
Workplace democracy is tankie bullshit now? Ok then.
Oh please, the intention of this post is so fucking transparent in its tankie rhetoric of trying to paint the west as an evil blight.
Right? I’m trying to figure out how I could be a tankie but also in the US…
The world is bigger than the USA. Most western capitalist democracies do not have medical care or insurance tied to employment.
And your example of people “ending up on the streets” is such a fucking edge case. So don’t try and paint it like this is an every day occurrence you disingenuous extremist.
I see a lot of that kind of sentiment here.
It’s… not weird at all. Democracy is a form of governance that permeates all our lives and controls the monopoly of violence that can be used against us. It’s not something we can opt-out of so it’s important that everyone has a say in it.
Small groups forming to do things like commerce or non-profits or whatever are completely voluntary and can’t take our rights away. The fact is, these authoritarian-like structures are efficient and effective. Even employee-owned corporations tend to organize this way by electing a the officers.
Would love to see more companies experiment with democratic organizations though.
Arguably technology has changed this paradigm a lot. More people now just means more thinkers, who work best not under stress
No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country.
-George Patton
I worked for a cooperative once. It had its upsides. But it eventually lost steam because of the diffusion of responsibility. At its peak it had a strong core council of 5-7 official members looking after it and it flourished. But it was somewhat of a labor of love and over time they had kids, moved away, etc and eventually there just weren’t enough committed core people to keep it going.
A small business generally has one person who is ready to do absolutely whatever it takes to make it a success. This can be game changing for a business. All their skin is in the game. If they have to skip a paycheck they do. If they have to work all night they do.
You know, a dictator, as you call them -_-
We have a choice not to work?
Choosing death by starvation is not a choice. Work or die, slave.
Sartre would disagree, but then Sartre was a professional philosopher.
You think a company should pay you even if you decide not to work? As much as I wish the universe rained down food, housing, and smart phone but the reality is that it cares not of you get a meal at the end of the day.
I have no idea what point you are trying to make.
sure, just sign up to like 10 credit cards, max them out getting good reliable camping equipment, and take a large loan out for one of those survival vans and flea the country
sure, just sign up to like 10 credit cards, max them out getting good reliable camping equipment, and take a large loan out for one of those survival vans and flea the country
This must be the same thought process of the people I see living in camping vans and tents down the street from me.
Yeah, I would never lay down my life for my country or democracy…
You can go to work for yourself, you can’t fork your own country.
Careful you might start thinking about democratizing the workplace. If you start doing that you might wind up one of us filthy syndicalists
In a workplace you’re trading your labour, skills, and time for money. Think of it more like a convenience store, do you get to vote for the guy behind the counter, do you get to vote for the prices of the products? How would a convenience store be able to function if the customers could vote on these things?
Democracy works with government because most voters are also taxpayers. There’s a an incentive not to vote for things that aren’t affordable because the people voting have to pay for it.
In a workplace you’re trading your labour, skills, and time for money. Think of it more like a convenience store, do you get to vote for the guy behind the counter, do you get to vote for the prices of the products? How would a convenience store be able to function if the customers could vote on these things?
Isn’t that supply and demand? If something doesn’t sell enough, it stops being on the shelf. You vote with your purchases.
Some places even give out surveys where you would rate the person who helped you. Some places take those surveys seriously and if you get bad ratings, they fire you.
Which is why I only give five star rating for my rideshare driver.
Plenty of businesses function with workers in control.
Also, the basic understanding (though not totally accurate) is that customers do vote on prices by choosing what, where, and when to purchase. The issue is they don’t organize to vote on it, and businesses do shady deals to rig the vote.
I don’t have a choice. If I wanna do the kind of work I enjoy and pays enough to feed my family, I have to submit to corporate dictatorship.
Frankly, I’m a coward. There’s very little I’d be willing to die for and Democracy certainly isn’t one of those things.
I’m sure plenty of Ukrainians thought the same pre invasion
I doubt I would suddenly get brave if the U.S. was invaded. I’ve never even picked up a gun.
I feel like most ukrainians aren’t fighting for democracy. They’re kleptocracy is marginally better than the one in Russia, but not worth dying over. Their fighting either for nationalism and hatred of Russian imperialism that’s oppressed them for centuries, or personal honor and fear of being called a coward by their wider social group.
In general nationalism and personal honor are the main reasons people will voluntarily sign up, outside of personal gain and mercenaries. In the west that nationalism gets tied up with ideas of democracy, but if a dictatorship took over the u.s. I doubt there’d be much of a difference in volunteers for the next war.
I’m not prepared to die for democracy.
I’d rather live my life.
If you think about it, Thomas Hobbes was right but on a smaller scale. Society only works when people submit themselves to their bosses.
Did he say that?
Well, he argued that we should all submit ourselves to an absolute sovereign, by which he meant a king or queen. Unfortunately he kind of lost out that argument since most places have rejected absolute monarchy, but luckily, people can still submit themselves to the new ruling class of business and property owners 😊
Every single civilization with every single type of governance in human history requires most people to work. That will continue to be the case for a long time into the future.
Is the current system perfect? No. However it does allow for a greater degree of latitude than basically everything that came before it. It also has safeguards to ensure there’s some sort of safety net if you fall on hard times.
You also mentioned democracy. Assuming you live in America, you can vote in a way that introduces reform to the system.
Starting a violent revolution is a last resort sort of thing.
The dominant cultural ideology blinds us to the obvious contradictions.
There is a difference even between an autocracy and a dictatorship. There’s a difference between specialization and dictatorship.
The things you don’t fully grasp should get questions; not the host outrageous label you can think of at the time.
People are not willing to die for democracy.
People are willing to die doe their cunt tree.
Yes that actually the key difference. We willingly enter those communist dictatorships and we are not prisoners there but can leave.
That is fundamentally different than a place like a communist dictatorship country, which builds walls to turn itself into a prison.
Being willing to enter and able to leave a dictatorship makes it a whole different thing than a dictatorship you are born into, and cannot leave.
Consent is everything. Like, a person can tie you up, beat you with a whip, pour hot wax on your skin to burn you, and put clothes pins on your nipples, and it’s okay as long as there’s consent. That is, objectively, a bad way to treat someone. But consent changes everything.
And it goes the other way too. Helping a person without their consent is wrong. This is the problem with a lot of the social movements these days: not seeking consent from those they seek to help.
cognitive dissonance or something
In my country i can choosr who runs it…
I cant, at my job
But i can easily choose to quit and find a different job, or start my own company. I dont have those options, when it comes to my country.
Not everyone can just quit and do a different job, and some people can just packup their stuff and move to a different country without issues.
So, I don’t understand your point.
Democracy, the God that failed.
In the US? I only work full time because of the constant threat of death if I don’t.
Veraticus@lib.lgbt 1 year ago
The power a government has over you, and the power your employer has over you, are totally different.
The government is legally authorized to separate you from your possessions, your freedom, and even your life in extremis. Your boss can’t do any of that and if they try the government should stop them.
Some people believe democracy is what prevents the government from punishing you capriciously, or allowing corporations to just do whatever they want to you. So they are willing to die to defend it.
I would say traditional liberal ideals are closer to what they’d want to defend than democracy itself, and I don’t 100% agree in either case, but I can see the point of view.
RubiksIsocahedron@reddthat.com 1 year ago
They should, but they don’t. Over here in real life, the government works for the corporation. When the boss murders, he’s called an “innovator” and a “job creator”.
Veraticus@lib.lgbt 1 year ago
If you think your boss can just murder you I’m not sure what to tell you.
cubedsteaks@lemmy.today 1 year ago
there was just a work email put out where I work about how employees shouldn’t be going to the bathroom super often and if they are in the bathroom they should only be doing bathroom things.
I can’t report them for that but it is fucking extreme and dehumanizing. To be policed in the bathroom. Because company time is more important than bodily functions. Or whatever other reason someone might be in the bathroom.
Veraticus@lib.lgbt 1 year ago
I get this sucks but you can quit your job and walk away from your employer, theoretically.
If the government decides to separate you from your possessions, your freedom, or your life, you can’t walk away from it and find a new government.
Your boss and your government are just totally different.