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> We've spent the last 80 years (ostensibly) talking about how great representative government is, then we let people own a majority of voting shares so that th

> We've spent the last 80 years (ostensibly) talking about how great representative government is, then we let people own a majority of voting shares so that they can run companies like dictatorships. I think it’s basically admitting that the right dictator, if they are there based on merit, can really perform better than someone who wins by their skill at campaigning. Forget voting shares - even when a single person doesn’t have that amount of control, you have a small board elected by shareholders who is essentially electing a dictator. Personally I think most companies would do far worse if rank and file employees selected the CEO. But I haven’t thought much about it. Curious what ideas HN has on this aspect.

lenerdenator 2y ago
I don't see it much of an admission of anything, personally. The admission would have had to come as an answer to a question that was never asked. To me, it's more of a way to keep the ruling class in place. It used to be done through government, now it's done through corporations. And honestly, the corporation is a far more attractive model if you're in that racket. Rioters don't burn down corporate HQs, they burn down police stations. Public sector pay sucks. The corruption would be far too obvious... well, it would have been until relatively recently.
benxh 2y ago
To prove you right, you can read up on the incredible giga-brained countrywide experiments by Kardelj in Socialist Yugoslavia [0]. The result being a country where no-one wanted to work, and everyone had a great standard of living (while the IMF didn't call in its loans). And then the entire country collapsed all at once under the accumulated mismanagement. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_self-management#Yugoslavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_self-management#Yug...
- bdndndndbve 2y ago
  It's wild to me that despite tremendous resources and 100+ years of time capitalism still kills millions of people a year with starvation and preventable diseases. But every right winger has a pet wikipedia page about a failed communist state with no critical examination of why they failed beyond "communism bad". To clarify my stance I'm an anarchist and that page has a lot of good examples of successful worker owned collectives.
  - zemvpferreira 2y ago
    To me it's equally as wild that you say such a thing when no system in human history did as much as capitalism to alleviate hunger and disease. In fact all other systems combined still can't touch the progress we've made to eradicate famine and disease while "under capitalism".
  - satvikpendem 2y ago
    There are good critically examined rebuttals if you actually look for them beyond Wikipedia which is not designed for that purpose. I read a book recently called Socialism: the failed idea that never dies, and while it has a clickbait title, the arguments are pretty cogent as to why people throughout history want to enact socialism based systems and why they eventually fail.
  - chii 2y ago
    > capitalism still kills millions of people a year with starvation and preventable diseases as if somehow, it's the responsibility of those capitalists to ensure those starving people have food and diseases cured - for nothing in return.
    - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
      Why else do we even bother making a society?
wat10000 2y ago
The advantages of democracy are a peaceful transition of power and non-violent outlets for political action. That is to say, you don’t have to worry about a succession war when the king dies, and if people don’t like what the government is doing they tend to advocate and vote rather than try to overthrow it. These advantages don’t really apply to companies. Your life isn’t tied to a company the way it is to your government, so if you don’t like how they chose the leader or what they’re doing, you can leave.
- Slackwise 2y ago
  > Your life isn’t tied to a company Health insurance isn't tied to a company? Your ability to survive and feed your family isn't tied to your company? Lack of opportunities in the job market? Lack of equal salary/benefits at alternative companies? Non-competes, H1-B visas.... > so if you don’t like how they chose the leader or what they’re doing, you can leave. Just one small thing Ben: leave to work for who? Who isn't hiring CEOs and running businesses the same way as everyone else?
  - wat10000 2y ago
    Please don’t quote half a sentence and then argue with it when the second half is an important qualifier.
  - t-writescode 2y ago
    Many of these are uniquely American problems, and the many of the people and especially the highest in power in the United States have chosen and continue to choose to bind all of that to the company you work for (or don't).
    - satvikpendem 2y ago
      Yes, it's ironic that a democracy has exactly created the situation they lament about, the lack of universal healthcare. Unfortunately there is no political will to do it, while ironically an autocrat could cut through the red tape and get it done, as it had been enacted in several Asian countries in the last half century.
glitchc 2y ago
You truly do get the best and the worst with dictators, as history has shown.
furyofantares 2y ago
> I think it’s basically admitting that the right dictator, if they are there based on merit, can really perform better than someone who wins by their skill at campaigning. Sure. But also there are big differences between companies and countries/government. Companies compete in a market. There isn't much of a marketplace for country/government. This is a check on individual power, and forces the company to perform somewhat in alignment with what we want as a society. Concentration of power (monopoly) is still an issue in a market and so we regulate the market. The "dictator" of a company answers to both the market and to regulators, making it less dangerous as a concentration of power than an actual dictator. Related, it is totally okay for companies to fail, and they regularly do. We are a lot less okay with governments failing. Companies can also serve a niche. Governments need to serve their entire population. Governments are tasked with all sorts of collective action problems for diverse groups with varying opinions; companies get to pick their market. It's unclear that CEOs tell us much about a dictator trying to serve a population with a range of opinions.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  > The "dictator" of a company answers to both the market and to regulators, making it less dangerous as a concentration of power than an actual dictator. Well, kind of. On occasion they participate in regulatory capture making them really only accountable as they care to be given the circumstances. If you have a market cornered on AI-powered, autonomous, robotic leg-equipped chainsaws, and the regulatory environment is weak because you've lobbied for the right rules and the right enforcers of those rules, you could very possibly just have a bad quarter if those chainsaws' AI sees people as trees and starts chasing them around. Maybe not even that. Meta would be a good real-world example. It's just less interesting to imagine.

lenerdenator 2y ago

I don't see it much of an admission of anything, personally. The admission would have had to come as an answer to a question that was never asked. To me, it's more of a way to keep the ruling class in place. It used to be done through government, now it's done through corporations. And honestly, the corporation is a far more attractive model if you're in that racket. Rioters don't burn down corporate HQs, they burn down police stations. Public sector pay sucks. The corruption would be far too obvious... well, it would have been until relatively recently.

benxh 2y ago

To prove you right, you can read up on the incredible giga-brained countrywide experiments by Kardelj in Socialist Yugoslavia [0]. The result being a country where no-one wanted to work, and everyone had a great standard of living (while the IMF didn't call in its loans). And then the entire country collapsed all at once under the accumulated mismanagement. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_self-management#Yugoslavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers%27_self-management#Yug...

bdndndndbve 2y ago
It's wild to me that despite tremendous resources and 100+ years of time capitalism still kills millions of people a year with starvation and preventable diseases. But every right winger has a pet wikipedia page about a failed communist state with no critical examination of why they failed beyond "communism bad". To clarify my stance I'm an anarchist and that page has a lot of good examples of successful worker owned collectives.
- zemvpferreira 2y ago
  To me it's equally as wild that you say such a thing when no system in human history did as much as capitalism to alleviate hunger and disease. In fact all other systems combined still can't touch the progress we've made to eradicate famine and disease while "under capitalism".
- satvikpendem 2y ago
  There are good critically examined rebuttals if you actually look for them beyond Wikipedia which is not designed for that purpose. I read a book recently called Socialism: the failed idea that never dies, and while it has a clickbait title, the arguments are pretty cogent as to why people throughout history want to enact socialism based systems and why they eventually fail.
- chii 2y ago
  > capitalism still kills millions of people a year with starvation and preventable diseases as if somehow, it's the responsibility of those capitalists to ensure those starving people have food and diseases cured - for nothing in return.
  - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
    Why else do we even bother making a society?

wat10000 2y ago

The advantages of democracy are a peaceful transition of power and non-violent outlets for political action. That is to say, you don’t have to worry about a succession war when the king dies, and if people don’t like what the government is doing they tend to advocate and vote rather than try to overthrow it. These advantages don’t really apply to companies. Your life isn’t tied to a company the way it is to your government, so if you don’t like how they chose the leader or what they’re doing, you can leave.

Slackwise 2y ago
> Your life isn’t tied to a company Health insurance isn't tied to a company? Your ability to survive and feed your family isn't tied to your company? Lack of opportunities in the job market? Lack of equal salary/benefits at alternative companies? Non-competes, H1-B visas.... > so if you don’t like how they chose the leader or what they’re doing, you can leave. Just one small thing Ben: leave to work for who? Who isn't hiring CEOs and running businesses the same way as everyone else?
- wat10000 2y ago
  Please don’t quote half a sentence and then argue with it when the second half is an important qualifier.
- t-writescode 2y ago
  Many of these are uniquely American problems, and the many of the people and especially the highest in power in the United States have chosen and continue to choose to bind all of that to the company you work for (or don't).
  - satvikpendem 2y ago
    Yes, it's ironic that a democracy has exactly created the situation they lament about, the lack of universal healthcare. Unfortunately there is no political will to do it, while ironically an autocrat could cut through the red tape and get it done, as it had been enacted in several Asian countries in the last half century.

glitchc 2y ago

You truly do get the best and the worst with dictators, as history has shown.

furyofantares 2y ago

> I think it’s basically admitting that the right dictator, if they are there based on merit, can really perform better than someone who wins by their skill at campaigning. Sure. But also there are big differences between companies and countries/government. Companies compete in a market. There isn't much of a marketplace for country/government. This is a check on individual power, and forces the company to perform somewhat in alignment with what we want as a society. Concentration of power (monopoly) is still an issue in a market and so we regulate the market. The "dictator" of a company answers to both the market and to regulators, making it less dangerous as a concentration of power than an actual dictator. Related, it is totally okay for companies to fail, and they regularly do. We are a lot less okay with governments failing. Companies can also serve a niche. Governments need to serve their entire population. Governments are tasked with all sorts of collective action problems for diverse groups with varying opinions; companies get to pick their market. It's unclear that CEOs tell us much about a dictator trying to serve a population with a range of opinions.

lenerdenator 2y ago
> The "dictator" of a company answers to both the market and to regulators, making it less dangerous as a concentration of power than an actual dictator. Well, kind of. On occasion they participate in regulatory capture making them really only accountable as they care to be given the circumstances. If you have a market cornered on AI-powered, autonomous, robotic leg-equipped chainsaws, and the regulatory environment is weak because you've lobbied for the right rules and the right enforcers of those rules, you could very possibly just have a bad quarter if those chainsaws' AI sees people as trees and starts chasing them around. Maybe not even that. Meta would be a good real-world example. It's just less interesting to imagine.