6 ms·

It's almost like every company is its own little authoritarian regime. Hmmmmm, maybe Karl Marx was onto something...

by whitemary 3y ago

runlaszlorun 3y ago
Ha, I’ve never read Marx myself but that’s a great viewpoint. And it’s on my list.
- vorpalhex 3y ago
  Marx actually says the opposite. People form a dictatorship (dictatorship of the proletariat) to engage in a transition period away from Capitalism. Saying "the people own" is just a way of saying the state owns something. The state owns all the things under Communism. Every business is a state business.
  - FpUser 3y ago
    >"The state owns all the things under Communism." The state owns nothing under Communism as Communism assumes no state, social classes, private property and money. I do not think Communism can be achieved though, maybe in prehistoric society of docile gatherers of which we are not.
    - mordae 3y ago
      Perhaps eventually, after we learn to live better. But that's no reason to give up and make greed mandatory.
      - FpUser 3y ago
        People are greedy to a various degree by nature. Same for violence and desire to control other people. This is in our genes. I have no idea how you could suppress it without The State (comprised of control freaks willing to use violence) being on top
        rambojohnson 3y ago
        are you a geneticist? got an sources to back up that claim, that we are all inherently selfish? take a critical look at the society you were raised in.
        FpUser 3y ago
        I am not and I do not have to be. One can see it plain all around. I am very critical of the society but it does not change a fucking thing.
    - alphanullmeric 3y ago
      The group exercising their monopoly on force to implement the laws of communism is the state, unless you plan on making participation voluntary. Calling it “the people” makes absolutely no difference.
      - FpUser 3y ago
        I am not calling it anything. This is how Communism is defined. It never happened and what we have instead is anything but. Under original doctrine there is no State because "the people" will have evolved enough to do without it.
        alphanullmeric 3y ago
        Capitalism is a stateless society where individuals are free to associate how they wish. Any problems with this definition?
        dragonwriter 3y ago
        > Capitalism is a stateless society where individuals are free to associate how they wish. Any problems with this definition? Well, yes, since “capitalism” was literally coined to describe a particular then-existing system in which the instrumentality of the state not only exists but also, most particularly through a specific structure of property rights, directly serves the interests of the capital-owning class to the relative disadvantage of other segments of society, and has consistently since then referred to that system (or ones sharing some of its salient features) both for those who have advocated moving farther from it and for those advocating its adoption or a return to it in places which have moved on, in whole or in part, from it.
        alphanullmeric 3y ago
        I'm glad we agree that defining a state to be stateless does not make it stateless. So back to what I was saying, when "the people" come together to enforce laws onto others, they form a state.
    - whitemary 3y ago
      Communism and private property are not at odds. Communism and private capital are.
  - xtian 3y ago
    The kolkhozes were not owned by the state in the Soviet Union. State-owned enterprises represent about 20% of total employment in China. Ownership is simply contingent and limited according to determinate social ends (as opposed to the total anarchy of the market in classical capitalism), but the same is true of every modern economy in the world. As you say, the difference is whose interests dictate these ends: those of ordinary citizens or those of the monopolies and international finance.
    - vorpalhex 3y ago
      92% of China's top 500 companies have major CCP board ownership. https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/expressions/influence-without-ownership-chinese-communist-party-targets-private-sector https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/expressions/influence-w...
      - xtian 3y ago
        What percent of boards in the US are staffed by Democrats and Republicans (our one party with two names)?
        vorpalhex 3y ago
        CCP party membership is 6.7% of the population. It is restricted and a point of honor and power to be a party member. 6.7% of the country runs 92% of the boardrooms.
        xtian 3y ago
        So no answer to my question. In the US can anyone be a corporate board member? Or is it gated by myriad social factors such as having attended an elite B school and proving yourself as a loyal servant of Wall Street bankers?
        shrimp_emoji 3y ago
        > our one party with two names ... If you're not a woman, gay, trans, black, poor, ...
  - amw 3y ago
    In Marx's usage (the common usage of the time), dictatorship just means "leadership", and doesn't have the same connotation of "ruling over others without their consent". Which is his point, really: socialism exists to take the reins of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (whose contradictions are propped up by a force-monopoly in the form of "a state") into a dictatorship of the workers so society can be transitioned over time into one where a state no longer needs to exist ("communism"). So, yes, in the meantime, the state takes control over some amount of enterprise and manages it for its own goals rather than to generate profits for a small number of owners. Is that a bad thing? In a world where for-profit healthcare in the US is famously more expensive and less effective than nationalized healthcare in any other OECD country, where the (unionized!) USPS is one of this country's most-popular and most-reliable services even despite years of meddling from capitalists in government pushing to gut it, in a world where famously most of our R&D is publicly funded, is it really so hard to imagine that it might be an effective way to manage production?
    - whitemary 3y ago
      Pinching myself as I witness actual Marxist analysis on HN of all places.
    - vorpalhex 3y ago
      > socialism exists to take the reins of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie > doesn't have the same connotation of "ruling over others without their consent". Usually taking things by force requires violating consent. That is a very basic tenant of Commmunism. The bourgeoisie are forcibly removed from power, with arms, usually killed, and their property taken. > whose contradictions are propped up by a force-monopoly in the form of "a state" And how is the dictatorship of the proletariat preserved against the minority who disagrees? Hint, it involves rifles and usually firing squads. > society can be transitioned over time into one where a state no longer needs to exist Yes, that's gone so well up to date. Dictators with extreme powers over entire states are well known for quietly surrendering their power and moving to a form of utopic anarchy. Even Marx couldn't answer how the utopic Communist post-state society actually continued it's existence without a state. "The vanguard" who at best are stateless secret police? > in the meantime, the state takes control over some amount of enterprise and manages it for its own goals Correct > Is that a bad thing? DMV, VA, Census Bureau, the IRS. > USPS is one of this country's most-popular and most-reliable services and is private but government directed > In a world where for-profit healthcare in the US is famously more expensive and has no waiting lists compared to 14.5 weeks in the UK at the moment and 20.9 weeks in Canada > and less effective than nationalized healthcare The US is in the top 10 for survival rates for most diseases/conditions (eg cancer) and we beat out the UK and Canada significantly. We have a lower life expectancy because we are too fat.
ALittleLight 3y ago
Yes, if there's one thing Marxists are known for it is definitely avoiding authoritarian regimes. Oh, apart from literally every country that tried Marxism.
- pedantismo 3y ago
  [flagged]
- baremetal 3y ago
  Oh but "true Marxism has never been tried", they will retort.
  - andrewaylett 3y ago
    Well, it hasn't. Because humans aren't capable of true Marxism. (This is not a suggestion to try anyway, nor a suggestion to eliminate humans in order to further any kind of Marxist "ideal")
    - mordae 3y ago
      Maybe, but so they aren't capable of living in a 100% transactional capitalist dystopia. As evidenced by everyone popping neurol (or another coping mechanism) with ever increasing frequency.
      - adventured 3y ago
        There is a huge difference still. At 3/4 Capitalist, your nation can prosper dramatically. At 3/4 Communist, you will know nothing but suffering and deprivation. Countries that have gotten closer to a free market orientation have prospered. Singapore, Hong Kong, the United States; all of the success stories of post USSR Europe are stories of market economics winning (including the dramatic example of the Baltics). All of Scandinavia operates via market based economic systems. Germany is a market based economy, not a Socialist economy, and they're the economic dynamo of Europe; the same goes for Britain, and even France (which certainly has a large welfare state, and is a mixed economy but not Socialist). There isn't a single prosperous Socialist nation in the world today. There are dozens of prosperous market based economic systems by contrast (the top several dozen most prosperous economies are dominated by market systems). Going the other direction, the closer you get to Socialism, the worse things get. And there are obviously limits to the market direction, anarchy does not work (although I'd argue that's not the market direction; market based economies in particular require the rule of law and a government to enforce it). The only country that can be argued to stand apart from this, even if temporarily, is China. However they're still drifting on the liberalizations of Deng and the benefits it spurred, that is grinding down under Xi. Their situation has worsened as they have headed back toward Socialism (and its inevitable increased authoritarianism) and away from market liberalization.
bheadmaster 3y ago
I don't think ownership (owning vs. working class) itself is the problem here. You can see similar behavior (hiding issues, lying about them) in any scenario in which punishment is tied to the failure to meet the metrics. When the metric becomes the goal, people will game the metric in order to avoid punishment and/or reap the rewards. The only kind of measurement that doesn't cause this behavior is the neutral measurement - measurement which is guaranteed not to change the decisions directly, but only serve as information which is later used in high-level optimization of systemic processes. In context of software companies, it would mean that status reports should only be reviewed in combination to other factors, such as tool used, features implemented, deadlines tightened, etc., and only to further understand how to optimize the process to avoid human error. It's risky to implement that, because you have to trust your employees enough to say "you won't be fired because of your metrics, ever", but I believe it's less worse than having people falsely report good metrics.
- whitemary 3y ago
  In the real world, owners simply don't care about your enlightening idea. Why would they? And what are you gonna do about it when they don't?
  - latency-guy2 3y ago
    Make my own. Just a reminder for you lefties but people are capable of creating things, many times it really doesn't take that much to do so, nor does getting rich in the process. Besides, why should anyone trust a leftist in power? We already know your lot will immediately outlaw and jail the opposition and pretend their uni-party system is "democratic". So I don't think you actually care about owners and power, you're just mad that you aren't in power perpetually.
  - bheadmaster 3y ago
    I don't quite understand the context of this post. I was talking about metrics such as uptime percentage, not enlightening ideas. Can you explain what do you mean?
za3faran 3y ago
He wasn't.
formerly_proven 3y ago
Socialist and communist regimes are legendary around the world for lying to supervisors syndrome. The politburo always gets the numbers it wants.
- mordae 3y ago
  Yeah. Almost like the capitalist pyramid shaped corporations while actually being... The same?! What a shock! I know you probably heard that one, but as long as there is a boss or a general, it's not communism. Also, democracy is vulnerable to this as well. No politician wants to appear incompetent, leading to lying about results and taking unnecessary risks.
  - nannal 3y ago
    > as long as there is a boss or a general, it's not communism. I believe you may be confusing communism with anarchy.
- amw 3y ago
  They're legendary to people mostly exposed to capitalist-owned media, that is.
rambojohnson 3y ago
tech has been unraveling for years now, especially with constant layoffs despite reporting record profits. Marx was most certainly onto something.
- bretticus 3y ago
  The murder and starvation of millions of people? Even the “communist” government still around like China just have capitalist economies in sheep’s clothing.
  - rambojohnson 3y ago
    the stockholm syndrome in tech / capitalist america is astounding. While it's true that some communist regimes have been responsible for the suffering and death of millions, it's important to recognize that this is a distortion of Marx's ideas, rather than a direct result of them. Additionally, many capitalist societies have also had their share of social injustices and economic inequalities. It's essential to separate the philosophy from its historical implementations and consider the context in which Marx's ideas were formed. In the case of tech companies reporting record profits amidst massive layoffs, it's worth exploring whether certain aspects of Marxist theory could shed light on the systemic issues within our current economic system, rather than dismissing them outright based on past examples of "communism"
alphanullmeric 3y ago
[flagged]
- amw 3y ago
  These responses are the worst of bad-faith every time I see them. If you live in a place, with family and friends and social ties, but it has some stuff you want to change, why would the solution ever be "move away" rather than "stay and make it change", except that the former is more convenient for assholes who are fine with how things are? As far as getting "shot" in Cuba, you're more likely to get shot by a cop in the US than in Cuba for any particular reason. Stop just soaking in wild propaganda uncritically.
  - alphanullmeric 3y ago
    That’s right, collectivists never want to reside in collectivist countries, they insist on converting capitalist countries so that they can leech off of wealth and businesses that wouldn’t otherwise exist under their own system. If Cuba is so great, put your money where your mouth is and live there. I have always and will continue to always have absolutely zero issue when communists steal from each other, all I ask is that others be left out of it.
  - lemmiwinks 3y ago
    Talking about bad faith... you know you're replying in a thread about GitHub incidents where someone is blaming capitalism for that right?

It's almost like every company is its own little authoritarian regime. Hmmmmm, maybe Karl Marx was onto something...

runlaszlorun 3y ago

Ha, I’ve never read Marx myself but that’s a great viewpoint. And it’s on my list.

vorpalhex 3y ago
Marx actually says the opposite. People form a dictatorship (dictatorship of the proletariat) to engage in a transition period away from Capitalism. Saying "the people own" is just a way of saying the state owns something. The state owns all the things under Communism. Every business is a state business.
- FpUser 3y ago
  >"The state owns all the things under Communism." The state owns nothing under Communism as Communism assumes no state, social classes, private property and money. I do not think Communism can be achieved though, maybe in prehistoric society of docile gatherers of which we are not.
  - mordae 3y ago
    Perhaps eventually, after we learn to live better. But that's no reason to give up and make greed mandatory.
    - FpUser 3y ago
      People are greedy to a various degree by nature. Same for violence and desire to control other people. This is in our genes. I have no idea how you could suppress it without The State (comprised of control freaks willing to use violence) being on top
      - rambojohnson 3y ago
        are you a geneticist? got an sources to back up that claim, that we are all inherently selfish? take a critical look at the society you were raised in.
        FpUser 3y ago
        I am not and I do not have to be. One can see it plain all around. I am very critical of the society but it does not change a fucking thing.
  - alphanullmeric 3y ago
    The group exercising their monopoly on force to implement the laws of communism is the state, unless you plan on making participation voluntary. Calling it “the people” makes absolutely no difference.
    - FpUser 3y ago
      I am not calling it anything. This is how Communism is defined. It never happened and what we have instead is anything but. Under original doctrine there is no State because "the people" will have evolved enough to do without it.
      - alphanullmeric 3y ago
        Capitalism is a stateless society where individuals are free to associate how they wish. Any problems with this definition?
        dragonwriter 3y ago
        > Capitalism is a stateless society where individuals are free to associate how they wish. Any problems with this definition? Well, yes, since “capitalism” was literally coined to describe a particular then-existing system in which the instrumentality of the state not only exists but also, most particularly through a specific structure of property rights, directly serves the interests of the capital-owning class to the relative disadvantage of other segments of society, and has consistently since then referred to that system (or ones sharing some of its salient features) both for those who have advocated moving farther from it and for those advocating its adoption or a return to it in places which have moved on, in whole or in part, from it.
        alphanullmeric 3y ago
        I'm glad we agree that defining a state to be stateless does not make it stateless. So back to what I was saying, when "the people" come together to enforce laws onto others, they form a state.
  - whitemary 3y ago
    Communism and private property are not at odds. Communism and private capital are.
- xtian 3y ago
  The kolkhozes were not owned by the state in the Soviet Union. State-owned enterprises represent about 20% of total employment in China. Ownership is simply contingent and limited according to determinate social ends (as opposed to the total anarchy of the market in classical capitalism), but the same is true of every modern economy in the world. As you say, the difference is whose interests dictate these ends: those of ordinary citizens or those of the monopolies and international finance.
  - vorpalhex 3y ago
    92% of China's top 500 companies have major CCP board ownership. https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/expressions/influence-without-ownership-chinese-communist-party-targets-private-sector https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/expressions/influence-w...
    - xtian 3y ago
      What percent of boards in the US are staffed by Democrats and Republicans (our one party with two names)?
      - vorpalhex 3y ago
        CCP party membership is 6.7% of the population. It is restricted and a point of honor and power to be a party member. 6.7% of the country runs 92% of the boardrooms.
        xtian 3y ago
        So no answer to my question. In the US can anyone be a corporate board member? Or is it gated by myriad social factors such as having attended an elite B school and proving yourself as a loyal servant of Wall Street bankers?
      - shrimp_emoji 3y ago
        > our one party with two names ... If you're not a woman, gay, trans, black, poor, ...
- amw 3y ago
  In Marx's usage (the common usage of the time), dictatorship just means "leadership", and doesn't have the same connotation of "ruling over others without their consent". Which is his point, really: socialism exists to take the reins of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (whose contradictions are propped up by a force-monopoly in the form of "a state") into a dictatorship of the workers so society can be transitioned over time into one where a state no longer needs to exist ("communism"). So, yes, in the meantime, the state takes control over some amount of enterprise and manages it for its own goals rather than to generate profits for a small number of owners. Is that a bad thing? In a world where for-profit healthcare in the US is famously more expensive and less effective than nationalized healthcare in any other OECD country, where the (unionized!) USPS is one of this country's most-popular and most-reliable services even despite years of meddling from capitalists in government pushing to gut it, in a world where famously most of our R&D is publicly funded, is it really so hard to imagine that it might be an effective way to manage production?
  - whitemary 3y ago
    Pinching myself as I witness actual Marxist analysis on HN of all places.
  - vorpalhex 3y ago
    > socialism exists to take the reins of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie > doesn't have the same connotation of "ruling over others without their consent". Usually taking things by force requires violating consent. That is a very basic tenant of Commmunism. The bourgeoisie are forcibly removed from power, with arms, usually killed, and their property taken. > whose contradictions are propped up by a force-monopoly in the form of "a state" And how is the dictatorship of the proletariat preserved against the minority who disagrees? Hint, it involves rifles and usually firing squads. > society can be transitioned over time into one where a state no longer needs to exist Yes, that's gone so well up to date. Dictators with extreme powers over entire states are well known for quietly surrendering their power and moving to a form of utopic anarchy. Even Marx couldn't answer how the utopic Communist post-state society actually continued it's existence without a state. "The vanguard" who at best are stateless secret police? > in the meantime, the state takes control over some amount of enterprise and manages it for its own goals Correct > Is that a bad thing? DMV, VA, Census Bureau, the IRS. > USPS is one of this country's most-popular and most-reliable services and is private but government directed > In a world where for-profit healthcare in the US is famously more expensive and has no waiting lists compared to 14.5 weeks in the UK at the moment and 20.9 weeks in Canada > and less effective than nationalized healthcare The US is in the top 10 for survival rates for most diseases/conditions (eg cancer) and we beat out the UK and Canada significantly. We have a lower life expectancy because we are too fat.

ALittleLight 3y ago

Yes, if there's one thing Marxists are known for it is definitely avoiding authoritarian regimes. Oh, apart from literally every country that tried Marxism.

pedantismo 3y ago
[flagged]
baremetal 3y ago
Oh but "true Marxism has never been tried", they will retort.
- andrewaylett 3y ago
  Well, it hasn't. Because humans aren't capable of true Marxism. (This is not a suggestion to try anyway, nor a suggestion to eliminate humans in order to further any kind of Marxist "ideal")
  - mordae 3y ago
    Maybe, but so they aren't capable of living in a 100% transactional capitalist dystopia. As evidenced by everyone popping neurol (or another coping mechanism) with ever increasing frequency.
    - adventured 3y ago
      There is a huge difference still. At 3/4 Capitalist, your nation can prosper dramatically. At 3/4 Communist, you will know nothing but suffering and deprivation. Countries that have gotten closer to a free market orientation have prospered. Singapore, Hong Kong, the United States; all of the success stories of post USSR Europe are stories of market economics winning (including the dramatic example of the Baltics). All of Scandinavia operates via market based economic systems. Germany is a market based economy, not a Socialist economy, and they're the economic dynamo of Europe; the same goes for Britain, and even France (which certainly has a large welfare state, and is a mixed economy but not Socialist). There isn't a single prosperous Socialist nation in the world today. There are dozens of prosperous market based economic systems by contrast (the top several dozen most prosperous economies are dominated by market systems). Going the other direction, the closer you get to Socialism, the worse things get. And there are obviously limits to the market direction, anarchy does not work (although I'd argue that's not the market direction; market based economies in particular require the rule of law and a government to enforce it). The only country that can be argued to stand apart from this, even if temporarily, is China. However they're still drifting on the liberalizations of Deng and the benefits it spurred, that is grinding down under Xi. Their situation has worsened as they have headed back toward Socialism (and its inevitable increased authoritarianism) and away from market liberalization.

bheadmaster 3y ago

I don't think ownership (owning vs. working class) itself is the problem here. You can see similar behavior (hiding issues, lying about them) in any scenario in which punishment is tied to the failure to meet the metrics. When the metric becomes the goal, people will game the metric in order to avoid punishment and/or reap the rewards. The only kind of measurement that doesn't cause this behavior is the neutral measurement - measurement which is guaranteed not to change the decisions directly, but only serve as information which is later used in high-level optimization of systemic processes. In context of software companies, it would mean that status reports should only be reviewed in combination to other factors, such as tool used, features implemented, deadlines tightened, etc., and only to further understand how to optimize the process to avoid human error. It's risky to implement that, because you have to trust your employees enough to say "you won't be fired because of your metrics, ever", but I believe it's less worse than having people falsely report good metrics.

whitemary 3y ago
In the real world, owners simply don't care about your enlightening idea. Why would they? And what are you gonna do about it when they don't?
- latency-guy2 3y ago
  Make my own. Just a reminder for you lefties but people are capable of creating things, many times it really doesn't take that much to do so, nor does getting rich in the process. Besides, why should anyone trust a leftist in power? We already know your lot will immediately outlaw and jail the opposition and pretend their uni-party system is "democratic". So I don't think you actually care about owners and power, you're just mad that you aren't in power perpetually.
- bheadmaster 3y ago
  I don't quite understand the context of this post. I was talking about metrics such as uptime percentage, not enlightening ideas. Can you explain what do you mean?

za3faran 3y ago

He wasn't.

formerly_proven 3y ago

Socialist and communist regimes are legendary around the world for lying to supervisors syndrome. The politburo always gets the numbers it wants.

mordae 3y ago
Yeah. Almost like the capitalist pyramid shaped corporations while actually being... The same?! What a shock! I know you probably heard that one, but as long as there is a boss or a general, it's not communism. Also, democracy is vulnerable to this as well. No politician wants to appear incompetent, leading to lying about results and taking unnecessary risks.
- nannal 3y ago
  > as long as there is a boss or a general, it's not communism. I believe you may be confusing communism with anarchy.
amw 3y ago
They're legendary to people mostly exposed to capitalist-owned media, that is.

rambojohnson 3y ago

tech has been unraveling for years now, especially with constant layoffs despite reporting record profits. Marx was most certainly onto something.

bretticus 3y ago
The murder and starvation of millions of people? Even the “communist” government still around like China just have capitalist economies in sheep’s clothing.
- rambojohnson 3y ago
  the stockholm syndrome in tech / capitalist america is astounding. While it's true that some communist regimes have been responsible for the suffering and death of millions, it's important to recognize that this is a distortion of Marx's ideas, rather than a direct result of them. Additionally, many capitalist societies have also had their share of social injustices and economic inequalities. It's essential to separate the philosophy from its historical implementations and consider the context in which Marx's ideas were formed. In the case of tech companies reporting record profits amidst massive layoffs, it's worth exploring whether certain aspects of Marxist theory could shed light on the systemic issues within our current economic system, rather than dismissing them outright based on past examples of "communism"

alphanullmeric 3y ago

[flagged]

amw 3y ago
These responses are the worst of bad-faith every time I see them. If you live in a place, with family and friends and social ties, but it has some stuff you want to change, why would the solution ever be "move away" rather than "stay and make it change", except that the former is more convenient for assholes who are fine with how things are? As far as getting "shot" in Cuba, you're more likely to get shot by a cop in the US than in Cuba for any particular reason. Stop just soaking in wild propaganda uncritically.
- alphanullmeric 3y ago
  That’s right, collectivists never want to reside in collectivist countries, they insist on converting capitalist countries so that they can leech off of wealth and businesses that wouldn’t otherwise exist under their own system. If Cuba is so great, put your money where your mouth is and live there. I have always and will continue to always have absolutely zero issue when communists steal from each other, all I ask is that others be left out of it.
- lemmiwinks 3y ago
  Talking about bad faith... you know you're replying in a thread about GitHub incidents where someone is blaming capitalism for that right?