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Americans think they live in a democracy. But workplaces are small tyrannies
- forgottenacc57 9y agoEdward DeBono calls democracy a "dictatorship of the majority", i.e. we vote in a new dictator every 4 years.
- sharemywin 9y agoExcept the courts override a lot. And he doesn't make any actual laws(although regulations are trouble enough half the time).
- bobwaycott 9y agoThat idea was discussed quite long ago in such terms[0], during the founding of this upstart little republic. [0] at the time, they used 'tyranny of the majority'
- djmips 9y agoYep, and then people said we need a businessman running America and surprise they got someone who wants to run it like a dictatorship.
- justadeveloper2 9y agoI don't see it that way at all. Trump is not responsible for what has taken place here, as fun as it is to blame him. I see him as someone who is trying to undo a lot of the problems and fix them but he has no support from either the Democrats or the Republicans because both sides are vested in continuing the slave plantation that we have here in service of the ultra .01%. In Trump, we have a guy who is part of the system who has rebelled from it because he no longer could live with what he saw it doing and what he knwos it to be. He deserves a little bit of sympathy and the American people deserve credit for finally waking up to what is going on. It's going to take more than one guy to fix this, though. I don't hold out a lot of hope. It is what it is now--we're headed for third world style living, and let's be honest--a large number of Americans are already living in third world squalor. It's not "heading" it's here.
- mac01021 9y ago> we're headed for third world style living, and let's be honest--a large number of Americans are already living in third world squalor. What constitutes third world squalor? Not many Americans are starving, having to make do without indoor plumbing, or spending 12 hours per day collecting firewood.
- coldtea 9y agoMillions of Americans are homeless or leave in crapy trailers and ghettos, even more eat with food stamps, and even more can't afford health care. Heck, the U.S. "Has The Worst Rate Of Maternal Deaths In The Developed World"... http://www.npr.org/2017/05/12/528098789/u-s-has-the-worst-rate-of-maternal-deaths-in-the-developed-world http://www.npr.org/2017/05/12/528098789/u-s-has-the-worst-ra...
- jerrylives 9y agoHAHAHAHAHAHA
- kesselvon 9y agoTrump isn't interested in actually fixing things, and I don't know what evidence has led you believe he is.
- octopoc 9y agoWhen politicians keep their campaign promises, that is democracy working properly. President Trump is keeping his campaign promises to reform lobbying[1], cracking down on illegal immigration[2], cracking down on ISIS[3], and he's making America no longer be the world's police officer[4]. [1] http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-sets-5-year-lifetime-lobbying-ban-officials-n713631 http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-sets-5-year-lifeti... [2] http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/economy/sd-fi-border-wal-20170404-story.html http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/economy/sd-fi-b... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/15/us-mother-of-all-bombs-moab-afghanistan-donald-trump-death-toll https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/15/us-mother-of-a... [4] http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/donald-trump-congress-speech-nato-235543 http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/donald-trump-congress-...
- sharemywin 9y agogenerally because most people work better with supervision. For the person that downvoted me what are you doing on HN in the middle of the day if you're so personally motivated.
- empthought 9y agoThis guy doesn't understand time zones.
- sharemywin 9y agogood point. but I'm still right.
- saint_fiasco 9y agoMy code is compiling.
- sauronlord 9y agoWait till all new businesses run on Aragon, District0x and Ethereum. Bye bye oligarchs
- fallingfrog 9y agoAgree. The central idea behind capitalism is a hard logical division between employment and ownership, so it's almost tautological to say that workplaces are small tyrannies- but it's good to see someone say it. I mean, I think the real issue with our democracy might be that we've never experienced it on a personal level, so we don't really understand how government by the people is even supposed to work. Our day to day experience is authoritarianism, so that's what we project on a national level.
- justadeveloper2 9y agoI have the same thoughts every July 4th. I ask myself 'what exactly am I celebrating here?' Our rights and freedoms seem heavily curtailed and most people have to work and are wage slaves in service of their debts. I am debt-free, but have not yet managed to extract myself from this system. Health insurance is a big reason why. Also, there are few part-time jobs that pay anything and although I have been attempting a career downshift, I can't find decent paying work. It's either I kill my body as a software developer and make decent money but work way too much, or I go be a $10/hr schmuck checkout clerk, I guess. I need that in between thing...but it's not there...on purpose.
- GhostVII 9y ago> It's either I kill my body as a software developer and make decent money but work way too much If you are a half decent developer, there are tonnes of good paying software jobs with decent hours, it's probably one of the easiest high paying jobs in the world... I think what you are celebrating on July 4 is that you have free speech, and are in such a good position that you are actually trying to downscale your career from one of the best careers in the world.
- blacksmith_tb 9y agoI agree overall, but I would say that in terms of your work killing your body, software dev is clearly much less destructive than, say, working in construction. But likely anything you do nonstop for hours on end is going to exact a toll. I am interested in what you think the purpose of the our system is - social control? Simple snatch-and-grab by the 1% ?
- aaronhoffman 9y agoThe article mentions that the industrial revolution has made it too difficult for small business to compete with large companies. To solve that problem, let's eliminate all taxes for everyone making less than $100k. No income tax, no payroll tax, no property tax, no sales tax, no...
- bigzen 9y agoI personally am drawn to this idea. $100k seems arbitrary though. I would like to see it adjusted for the COL of an average American family. Would you happen to have any reading material or studies related to this tax scheme?
- aaronhoffman 9y agoYou're absolutely right, I pulled $100k out of the air for it's nice-roundedness... I don't have any reading material on it unfortunately, no. I'm mostly libertarian, so https://mises.org/ https://mises.org/ maybe?
- Jabanga 9y agoI hate to get pedantic, but with the misuse of terms for the purpose of demagoguing against those with more capital, I feel compelled to point out that an employment relationship is wholly contractual, and therefore not a "tyranny", and perfectly consistent with a completely democratic society. Maybe the author means "egalitarian" or some other concept tangentially related to democracy. Voluntarily formed hierarchies are perfectly consistent with a free and democratic society. But points to the author on hitting people's emotional buttons with her victim/outrage politics.
- trendia 9y agoThis is my disagreement with the article as well. I agree with the author that Amazon Fulfillment should need to give employees adequate breaks, but I don't agree that the rules make Amazon a government: they don't have law enforcement, a court system, the power to make laws, an army, etc. At least a majority of these are necessary to be considered a government.
- ctulek 9y agoIf the government backs your inhuman activities, you practically have all these institutions at your disposal.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- cphoover 9y agoHaven't read the article... but my response to you is that not every "contractual" agreement is voluntary. Think people working minimum wage jobs to feed their children, or children working in sweatshops in asia. I get what you are saying... that it is a click bait title, but the fact remains that the late-stage capitalistic hierarchies that form are not totally unlike other labor systems (indentured servitude/slavery) that we have generally deemed as immoral.
- GhostVII 9y agoHow is a minimum wage job not optional? People stay in their minimum wage jobs because it is better than their other options, not because the company forces them too. Really, the company giving the person their minimum wage job is more 'moral' than the other companies in the area, because the other companies offered an even worse job, or didn't offer one at all.
- calafrax 9y agoIt is interesting that no one with money believes that democracy is a credible way to run a business and yet people still believe it is a credible way to run a government. Fun fact: the US Constitution has exactly ZERO uses of the word "democracy" in it.
- kerkeslager 9y agoThere are numerous examples of cooperatives, businesses that are run democratically, which are successful. Sure, no one amasses huge piles of money that way, just like nobody in a (effective) democracy amasses huge amounts of power. But that's kind of the point. Saying nobody with money thinks democracy is a good way to run a business is like saying no dictators with power think democracy is a good idea. It's not a criticism of democracy/cooperatives, it's an obvious statement of the motivations of dictators/business leaders.
- namlem 9y agoI like the worker council idea. Though perhaps a more elegant solution would be to eliminate all corporate tax deductions and set the rate to a flat 20% while taxing co-ops at 5%. Over time, this would Incentivize the formation of co-ops over corporations and reduce the negative effects of having an economy controlled by large corporations.
- convivialdingo 9y agoA bit off topic, but I think it speaks to the more general issues that voters (as employees) have little say in the laws which govern their workplaces. The notion that America is currently a functioning Democracy is still a bit up in the air for me. Americans in general have little factual policy knowledge, and for the few issues that do get fairly well covered there is a strong politicization which verges on propaganda. More to the point - many political arguments that we see today in the national press usually has the strong cashflow backing of a few elite pocketbooks. It is likely impossible to run an apolitical cause for the public good. If not for overwhelming politicization, is there another reason why so many US voters are basically anemic to political causes (e.g. wages, education, vacation, medical) which (in general) they could easily vote into law - but don't? Anyway, just my opinion. Gilens and Page[1]: >>>What do our findings say about democracy in America? They certainly constitute troubling news for advocates of “populistic” democracy, who want governments to respond primarily or exclusively to the policy preferences of their citizens. In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule — at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it. Some rebuttles: >>> Bashir and Branham/Soroka/Wlezien find that on these 185 bills, the rich got their preferred outcome 53 percent of the time and the middle class got what they wanted 47 percent of the time. The difference between the two is not statistically significant.[2] >>> The researchers found the rich’s win rate for economic issues where there's disagreement is 57.1 percent, compared with 51.1 percent for social issues. There's a difference, but not a robust one. "The win rates for the two issue types are not statistically different from one another," Branham, Soroka, and Wlezien conclude.[2] [1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B/core-reader https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-poli... [2] https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-study https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-...
- TheCoelacanth 9y agoIn a democracy, shouldn't the middle class get their preferred outcome far more often than the rich since their are far more of them? If the rich get their preferred outcome even just as frequently as the middle class do, they have way more power than they would in a pure democracy.