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That's not what a reasonable objection is about, and you're being intellectually dishonest when you attack this, the weakest argument. Here is a stronger argum
by rexpop 6y ago
That's not what a reasonable objection is about, and you're being intellectually dishonest when you attack this, the weakest argument. Here is a stronger argument, for your benefit:
Working requires us to form social relationships with our coworkers to get work done. Oftentimes, we're establishing shared language, and working tempo with coworkers through "inside" jokes, and other human forms of camaraderie. Not only would it be unethical to stamp the social aspect out of our working lives–which make up the majority of our waking hours, and a gross majority of our social ties–but it would also be imprudent, since removing social elements from working relationships would cripple them. It is necessary, and desirable, that we socialize with our coworkers to some extent.
The firm pits individuals–and groups–against one another in competition. Even in an ostensibly friendly, collegial workplace, the zero-sum reality of budgets and headcount encourage workers to jockey for position and push difficult, or unprofitable work onto others. Surveillance like this enables the most manipulative to exploit secret knowledge of the social relationships that are, again, necessary throughout the firm. A secondary effect of surveillance is the chilling effect: trust and camaraderie are hampered by the knowledge that one's every word can be used against them without recourse.
Firms regularly use information freely given to prioritize workers for layoffs. Decades of "employee satisfaction" surveys have facilitated the efficient firing of dissatisfied, burnt-out or mistreated workers. Surveillance offers the same facility, at higher fidelity.
If you are an executive, and you want to maintain dehumanizing working conditions, surveillance is a necessity and a boon. As surveillance increases, our working life becomes more prison-like, and our society progresses towards private autocracy. What astonishes me is how giddily those who profess to love Liberty readily shed it at work.
- abstrct 6y agoYou bring up a lot of important points and I do agree with you on many. I’d love to hear your perspective when sensitive data is involved, what takes priority? Is it the privacy of the employee, or the customer? Can there be a balance that respects both?
- someguyorother 6y ago>What astonishes me is how giddily those who profess to love Liberty readily shed it at work. It's not coincidental that certain forms of right-libertarianism allow for voluntary slavery, which is this taken to its ultimate conclusion.
- rexpop 6y agoYou put me in mind of the debt peonage Europeans forced upon indigenous Americans in 1907: > It was the agents and overseers sent into the region who were, much like the conquistadors, deeply indebted—in their case, to the Peruvian company that had commissioned them, which was ultimately receiving its own credit from London financiers. These agents had certainly arrived with every intention of extending that web of credit to include the Indians, but discovering the Huitoto to have no interest in the cloth, machetes, and coins they had brought to trade with them, they’d finally given up and just started rounding Indians up and forcing them to accept loans at gunpoint, then tabulating the amount of rubber they owed. > In reality, then, the Indians had been reduced to slavery; it’s just that, by 1907, no one could openly admit this. A legitimate enterprise had to have some moral basis. – David Graeber "Debt: The First 5,000 Years"