4 ms·

This can be put in the same bucket as the "Great Man" theory of history. But really, what was the issue? That corporations today put a greater emphasis on perfo

by manv1 4y ago

This can be put in the same bucket as the "Great Man" theory of history. But really, what was the issue? That corporations today put a greater emphasis on performance, efficiency, and profits? Why is that a bad thing?

socialismisok 4y ago
I'll bite, because we're humans. Humans are complex social creatures with many needs that we fulfill throughout our days. Being efficient is good, sure, but being efficient through the alienation of individuals from their communities, their culture, and themselves trades away something essential. I used to believe efficiency above all else. But as I've gotten older I've come to realize that efficiency is only good to a point. After that point we lose what makes us human. Same with profits and performance.
pixelfarmer 4y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpQYsk-8dWg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpQYsk-8dWg (The Corporation) I'm soon leaving a company after having seen it grown from a mere startup to what it is today. It had a goal at the beginning, had to fight an entire industry to get an idea across which is accepted broadly nowadays. But there is also a strong inertia towards making these non-goal "goals" more and more important, which in turn define more and more how this company operates inside and what comes out of it in the end. It requires strong and really good leadership to see this problem in the first place and then prevent such a construct from sliding down that slippery slope. The problem with stuff like socialism, communism, but also capitalism is simple: Humans. You create rules, you have conceptions of how something could work. You add humans, and things go sideways. Even if you aware of the issue, there is potentially no way to create something stable, it requires humans to stop other humans from being dicks, as sad as it sounds. It only needs a few dicks to break pretty much everything into pieces. Worse, more often than not, there was not even real ill-intent in the first place, like with the company I've written about above. The only way we can change things on a larger scale is to change the incentives, to change the overarching goals. Check https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th3KE_H27bs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th3KE_H27bs (TED talk Nick Hanauer)

by manv1 4y ago

socialismisok 4y ago

I'll bite, because we're humans. Humans are complex social creatures with many needs that we fulfill throughout our days. Being efficient is good, sure, but being efficient through the alienation of individuals from their communities, their culture, and themselves trades away something essential. I used to believe efficiency above all else. But as I've gotten older I've come to realize that efficiency is only good to a point. After that point we lose what makes us human. Same with profits and performance.

pixelfarmer 4y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpQYsk-8dWg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpQYsk-8dWg (The Corporation) I'm soon leaving a company after having seen it grown from a mere startup to what it is today. It had a goal at the beginning, had to fight an entire industry to get an idea across which is accepted broadly nowadays. But there is also a strong inertia towards making these non-goal "goals" more and more important, which in turn define more and more how this company operates inside and what comes out of it in the end. It requires strong and really good leadership to see this problem in the first place and then prevent such a construct from sliding down that slippery slope. The problem with stuff like socialism, communism, but also capitalism is simple: Humans. You create rules, you have conceptions of how something could work. You add humans, and things go sideways. Even if you aware of the issue, there is potentially no way to create something stable, it requires humans to stop other humans from being dicks, as sad as it sounds. It only needs a few dicks to break pretty much everything into pieces. Worse, more often than not, there was not even real ill-intent in the first place, like with the company I've written about above. The only way we can change things on a larger scale is to change the incentives, to change the overarching goals. Check https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th3KE_H27bs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th3KE_H27bs (TED talk Nick Hanauer)