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My answer to that is basically that these are the same things people say about autocracies vs democracies and it doesn’t really play out that way in practice. T

My answer to that is basically that these are the same things people say about autocracies vs democracies and it doesn’t really play out that way in practice. The argument goes that autocracies have a big advantage in agility through top down control. But somehow when you mobilise them for wars, democracies are much better at it. Somehow they keep winning, but only when the citizens agree with the aims of leadership. The huge information flow in an open society producing better analysis and better technology, and the enablement of distributed effort through distributed power, amounts to a better machine. Even if democracies have a tendency to become more centralised in wartime, because to some extent there is an optimal balance for each scenario like you say. But the underlying forces of democracy stick around, and leaders still act in a way that’s constrained by it lest they get thrown out. Modern democratic wartime politics is not much like the Consuls at all. Back to companies, if you can find a goal that your employees support, then they will similarly be a better machine at working towards that goal. If your response to challenges as a company is to shut out your employees and tell them to obey, you are missing out on this machine’s power. The only reason you would want to miss out on that power is if you had no other choice, because you were unable to frame the challenge in a way the employees can respond positively to. Democracies have a way of correcting that (among other things), which is called getting voted out; companies don’t by default, so at best you’re usually running a shitty version of democracy and yeah, bad democracies sometimes perform pretty poorly.

ericd 4y ago
Thanks for the well thought-out response. Good point, if you can get people to feel real ownership of the company, that’s extremely powerful (I’ve experienced that in my own small company, but I don’t think I’ve seen it in a large company, maybe somewhat at Apple under Jobs). I think my main argument is to not mandate structure with law, I’ve seen a number of people calling for that. I think that if we strengthened social safety nets, this sort of thing would become more common, as people became more free to leave workplaces they didn’t feel invested in, and more companies would try to foster it to attract employees.
- cormacrelf 4y ago
  If it’s a better strategy then companies that do adopt it will out-compete those that don’t. Social safety nets are a fine idea generally but I don’t think they would specifically encourage this practice. You don’t really want people feeling free to leave the workforce entirely. (This is an unpopular conclusion of capitalism but if nobody has to work then nothing happens and then nobody gets to eat.) The better structure is for people to be able to move to better places that make them feel empowered and rewarded etc. Safety nets are useful in that people can try things and fail, which is another desirable quality in a society, but I don’t think you can rely on them to make employers improve their offerings. A pretty huge issue in modern capitalist economies is that people are locked into underpaid jobs with no prospects and no investment in their future other than to hold on for dear life. That’s a massive waste of our potential and a terrible experience for those workers. (And because failing these people is part of the complex of interconnected root causes that lead to anti-democratic sentiment, it is an existential problem.) You want companies to compete to use people better than that, and sharing in the rewards and the decision-making makes for a much better plight for a worker at the lower end of the pay scale. Heck, there are companies today that pay everyone the same salary, determined by the company’s profit divided by N. Their people post on HN sometimes.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    The great thing about the free market in America is you can create a company and run it as you please. If you're more successful, other corporations will copy it.
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      Apple is the most successful company in the history of the world, and yet it's one of very few tech corporations not doing layoffs at the moment.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        Every company is in a different situation.

ericd 4y ago

Thanks for the well thought-out response. Good point, if you can get people to feel real ownership of the company, that’s extremely powerful (I’ve experienced that in my own small company, but I don’t think I’ve seen it in a large company, maybe somewhat at Apple under Jobs). I think my main argument is to not mandate structure with law, I’ve seen a number of people calling for that. I think that if we strengthened social safety nets, this sort of thing would become more common, as people became more free to leave workplaces they didn’t feel invested in, and more companies would try to foster it to attract employees.

cormacrelf 4y ago
If it’s a better strategy then companies that do adopt it will out-compete those that don’t. Social safety nets are a fine idea generally but I don’t think they would specifically encourage this practice. You don’t really want people feeling free to leave the workforce entirely. (This is an unpopular conclusion of capitalism but if nobody has to work then nothing happens and then nobody gets to eat.) The better structure is for people to be able to move to better places that make them feel empowered and rewarded etc. Safety nets are useful in that people can try things and fail, which is another desirable quality in a society, but I don’t think you can rely on them to make employers improve their offerings. A pretty huge issue in modern capitalist economies is that people are locked into underpaid jobs with no prospects and no investment in their future other than to hold on for dear life. That’s a massive waste of our potential and a terrible experience for those workers. (And because failing these people is part of the complex of interconnected root causes that lead to anti-democratic sentiment, it is an existential problem.) You want companies to compete to use people better than that, and sharing in the rewards and the decision-making makes for a much better plight for a worker at the lower end of the pay scale. Heck, there are companies today that pay everyone the same salary, determined by the company’s profit divided by N. Their people post on HN sometimes.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  The great thing about the free market in America is you can create a company and run it as you please. If you're more successful, other corporations will copy it.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    Apple is the most successful company in the history of the world, and yet it's one of very few tech corporations not doing layoffs at the moment.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      Every company is in a different situation.