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Google is showing the hands of private government. How authoritarian will Americans let their employers become?

pmiller2 8y ago
Most Americans would find a job loss to be a total financial disaster. This gives employers the ability to be as authoritarian as they want, more or less. Toe the line or be out of a job (and lose health insurance, possibly risk homelessness, etc.) is a powerful coercive mechanism. In many states, people can be fired for political activity outside of work.
- zeroname 8y ago
  > Most Americans would find a job loss to be a total financial disaster. Yeah, but probably not all those Googlers that feel like they need to be both activists and work in Silicon Valley.
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  Chomsky points this out in this [1] interview. >Incidentally, there’s an interesting book that just came out finally, says some of the obvious things about this, by a woman named Elizabeth Anderson. She’s a philosopher and an economist. It’s called Private Government or some name like that, but her point is that, which is a major point, yes, there is a government, but governments can be repressive. But most of our lives are under private government, which she says are indistinguishable from communist dictatorships. >Any business, for example. If you subject yourself to it, you become essentially a slave of the institution with no rights, give away your liberty, and so on. >....And when the Industrial Revolution came along, everything changed. You could only survive by being subordinate to a major corporate structure, and wage labor became the norm. [1] https://taibbi.substack.com/p/preface-an-interview-with-noam-chomsky-the-fairway https://taibbi.substack.com/p/preface-an-interview-with-noam...
  - pmiller2 8y ago
    Specifically, the concept of being so beholden to an employer as to be essentially forced to obey their (nearly) every whim is called “wage slavery”[0]. While it’s not nearly as bad as the days of the “company town,” [1], when workers could be paid in company scrip good only at company stores[2], while renting company living quarters, more people are wage slaves today than will admit it, and they get angry when you suggest they are! [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store
    - GW150914 8y ago
      Aren’t some of these mega corps contemplating building their own employee cities? We could see people forced to re-learn just what a company town implies, and all out of a drive to centralize in SV and lower housing costs.
claydavisss 8y ago
In the past, such a message wasn't needed because people tended to keep their views private and maintained a sense of decorum at work. Most political expression these days is shallow and negative, and as a result is potentially divisive. I doubt many employers would have a problem with positive, constructive sentiment...but these days people just talk about who they want to punch.
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  Yeah, speaking out against total censorship [1] and AI drone programs [2] is "shallow and negative". Have you not been following the Google political & moral blunders lately? Work shouldn't be private governments, work shouldn't be authoritarian. Workers do the work, they deserve a say -- not just the shareholders. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/technology/google-employees-protest-search-censored-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/technology/google-employe... [2] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/05/google-employees-resign-in-protest-of-googlepentagon-drone-program/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/05/google-employees-res...
  - throwaway8879 8y ago
    Yes workers deserve a say, but a say about work-related things. Leave the politics, religion, controversy at home.
    - prolikewh0a 8y ago
      I'm not talking about anything else, I'm talking about workers having a say over what they produce in a moral and ethical sense. Without the workers, you don't have a business. >Leave the politics, religion, controversy at home. This only strengthens the authoritarian Private Government argument.
    - salawat 8y ago
      You don't get to throw those out and say you're not censoring people. "I'm trying to run a business here," is not an excuse to quash completely acceptable communication between people at work. In fact, if your worker's are incredibly divided on a topic, it may be time to have a good think about it. Not that you should have to. Citizens United was a farce in dire need of being undone. Either way. I get where you are coming from, and agree to a point, but enforcing a schizophrenic divide between personal and work lives isn't a very good answer either, and just creates fear amongst people that keeps them from speaking out when something is genuinely wrong.

Most Americans would find a job loss to be a total financial disaster. This gives employers the ability to be as authoritarian as they want, more or less. Toe the line or be out of a job (and lose health insurance, possibly risk homelessness, etc.) is a powerful coercive mechanism. In many states, people can be fired for political activity outside of work.

zeroname 8y ago
> Most Americans would find a job loss to be a total financial disaster. Yeah, but probably not all those Googlers that feel like they need to be both activists and work in Silicon Valley.
prolikewh0a 8y ago
Chomsky points this out in this [1] interview. >Incidentally, there’s an interesting book that just came out finally, says some of the obvious things about this, by a woman named Elizabeth Anderson. She’s a philosopher and an economist. It’s called Private Government or some name like that, but her point is that, which is a major point, yes, there is a government, but governments can be repressive. But most of our lives are under private government, which she says are indistinguishable from communist dictatorships. >Any business, for example. If you subject yourself to it, you become essentially a slave of the institution with no rights, give away your liberty, and so on. >....And when the Industrial Revolution came along, everything changed. You could only survive by being subordinate to a major corporate structure, and wage labor became the norm. [1] https://taibbi.substack.com/p/preface-an-interview-with-noam-chomsky-the-fairway https://taibbi.substack.com/p/preface-an-interview-with-noam...
- pmiller2 8y ago
  Specifically, the concept of being so beholden to an employer as to be essentially forced to obey their (nearly) every whim is called “wage slavery”[0]. While it’s not nearly as bad as the days of the “company town,” [1], when workers could be paid in company scrip good only at company stores[2], while renting company living quarters, more people are wage slaves today than will admit it, and they get angry when you suggest they are! [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store
  - GW150914 8y ago
    Aren’t some of these mega corps contemplating building their own employee cities? We could see people forced to re-learn just what a company town implies, and all out of a drive to centralize in SV and lower housing costs.

claydavisss 8y ago

In the past, such a message wasn't needed because people tended to keep their views private and maintained a sense of decorum at work. Most political expression these days is shallow and negative, and as a result is potentially divisive. I doubt many employers would have a problem with positive, constructive sentiment...but these days people just talk about who they want to punch.

prolikewh0a 8y ago
Yeah, speaking out against total censorship [1] and AI drone programs [2] is "shallow and negative". Have you not been following the Google political & moral blunders lately? Work shouldn't be private governments, work shouldn't be authoritarian. Workers do the work, they deserve a say -- not just the shareholders. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/technology/google-employees-protest-search-censored-china.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/technology/google-employe... [2] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/05/google-employees-resign-in-protest-of-googlepentagon-drone-program/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/05/google-employees-res...
- throwaway8879 8y ago
  Yes workers deserve a say, but a say about work-related things. Leave the politics, religion, controversy at home.
  - prolikewh0a 8y ago
    I'm not talking about anything else, I'm talking about workers having a say over what they produce in a moral and ethical sense. Without the workers, you don't have a business. >Leave the politics, religion, controversy at home. This only strengthens the authoritarian Private Government argument.
  - salawat 8y ago
    You don't get to throw those out and say you're not censoring people. "I'm trying to run a business here," is not an excuse to quash completely acceptable communication between people at work. In fact, if your worker's are incredibly divided on a topic, it may be time to have a good think about it. Not that you should have to. Citizens United was a farce in dire need of being undone. Either way. I get where you are coming from, and agree to a point, but enforcing a schizophrenic divide between personal and work lives isn't a very good answer either, and just creates fear amongst people that keeps them from speaking out when something is genuinely wrong.