The power a government has over you, and the power your employer has over you, are totally different.
The government is legally authorized to separate you from your possessions, your freedom, and even your life in extremis. Your boss can’t do any of that and if they try the government should stop them.
Some people believe democracy is what prevents the government from punishing you capriciously, or allowing corporations to just do whatever they want to you. So they are willing to die to defend it.
I would say traditional liberal ideals are closer to what they’d want to defend than democracy itself, and I don’t 100% agree in either case, but I can see the point of view.
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If you think your boss can just murder you I’m not sure what to tell you.
Take out a gun and shoot you on the factory floor, probably not. But deliberately and systematically violate safety regulations with impunity, expose workers to materials known to cause health issues and cover it up for decades, or just threaten you with loss of the income you need to survive? Employers do that all over the country, on a daily basis.
This is true. On the other hand, it is the government’s job to uncover and persecute this. Obviously it could do a better job of it, but OSHA and the EPA actually do police employers for exactly these sorts of violations.
Yeah if departments like OSHA and the EPA didn’t enforce safety laws and shit there would be a lot more industrial death videos on LiveLeak than there is now
not feasible when those same bosses lobby to keep those institutions toothless
I mean there’s a history of employers actually killing employees for unionizing. It’s not a secret.
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Exactly.
My boss is slowly killing me. He claims 8 hours of my life every day, except weekends, and who knows how many I have left.
I don’t think most people would consider this slowly killing you, except in the most metaphorical sense.
I will break far before I’m allowed to retire
The government is legally authorized to separate you from your possessions, your freedom, and even your life in extremis. Your boss can’t do any of that and if they try the government should stop them.
there was just a work email put out where I work about how employees shouldn’t be going to the bathroom super often and if they are in the bathroom they should only be doing bathroom things.
I can’t report them for that but it is fucking extreme and dehumanizing. To be policed in the bathroom. Because company time is more important than bodily functions. Or whatever other reason someone might be in the bathroom.
I get this sucks but you can quit your job and walk away from your employer, theoretically.
If the government decides to separate you from your possessions, your freedom, or your life, you can’t walk away from it and find a new government.
Your boss and your government are just totally different.
I get this sucks but you can quit your job and walk away from your employer, theoretically.
Yeah and be homeless.
And I don’t participate in government shit unless I have to like taxes cause they’ll come for me if I don’t pay for them kind of thing.
I mean that’s the difference right there, right? If you quit your job, you’re homeless. If you don’t pay taxes, you’re arrested.
Homelessness is almost always illegal either directly or indirectly through loitering laws, hostile architecture, bans against begging etc… Also, they almost always have zero protection from criminal behaviour directed at them (from either other citizens or the police themselves). Thinking there is legal room for being homeless is a pretty ignorant take no matter where you are from.
If you don’t pay taxes, you’re arrested
what? Depends on the numbers I think.
As a person with family living under an actual dictatorship, I’d like to point out some differences.
You can leave a job. You’re generally not killed for poor performance at a job.
I’ll stop there. I think that’s enough to shatter this very poor comparison.
You can leave a job
This is true for most people, but not all. Of course not being able to do so would constitute a form of slavery, but that is just the reality for a lot of people and I think if we are honest about the world we should admit that. Do agree softly on not downplaying political dictatorships though.
Oh people can absolutely leave jobs. It’s eating they can’t stop doing. I mean they can stop that too, I guess.
If we’re going to invoke literal slavery then I don’t think self immolation is off the table to mention either.
With regards to the literal definition of slavery I would argue it is not only restricted to chattel slavery, since that would deny most cases of forced and unfree labour. That someone can control a person, effectively owning them, without a mandate from any government or law is precisely the point. It shows the need for a more democratic approach to work and makes evident a discrepancy within self proclaimed free and democratic societies. That is what I think is the point being made by OP, not to belittle those who live under oppressive dictatorships (which is horrible and often an order of magnitude worse), but to remind those that don’t that for big parts of their lives they are not truly free themselves either.
I understand what’s being said, I just don’t find it valid or useful. People’s choices being limited is not to be equated with slavery. Someone having influence over someone is not to be equated with slavery. Living in a dictatorship is not to be equated with slavery. Slavery is slavery and working at a job is neither slavery nor living in a dictatorship.
Further, democracy is not some absolute freedom void of all controlling influence from others. Choices are limited under democracy too. I think the word you’re looking for is anarchy.
It is more than fair to disagree, after all there is somewhat an hyperbole hidden behind wordings like “a form of slavery”. However, I do think the sentiment is an important one: that freedom and democracy are usually exempt from our work lives, even if we are living in democratic countries, and that it does not need to be as such.
I have more chance of rising to a position of influence at my job than in our democracy.
I can leave or join these “dictatorships” easily.
My dictator takes my questions in public weekly and make a good faith effort to answer them. My democratic leader spams me texts asking for money.
My dictatorship works very hard to make sure that everyone is treated with respect regardless of their gender, race, sexual orientation, etc. and they fire people for sexual harassment. My “democracy” is full of gerrymandering and many other forms of institutional racism. Sexual predators walk the halls of power.
My dictatorship reviews everyone’s pay annually to ensure that we do t have pay inequities along those lines. They also lift any wages that are below living wage. My dictatorship pays my healthcare where my “democracy” steadfastly refuses to take care of fundamental basics.
Anyway…. The idea that a corporation is nothing but nonstop rain down of executive decisions is also wrong. Small teams and groups are absolutely leaders as well. They know their area best and propose things to do in that area. They are accountable to the executives, who need to balance all needs and keep people from building little empires off in the corner. But the executives never tell us what to do in our area. We tell them what we’re going to do and what more they should fund. We don’t have dictator power, but the point is neither so they.
So really, just no. I know this “work is a dictatorship” meme is appealing to a teenager working in retail but it’s a childish metaphor. I do happen to have an extraordinarily good job and I have risen to a mid level of authority there so I don’t feel like a powerless drone. That’s not true for everyone. But neither is the teenage angst.
You could also say families are dictatorships since parents make the important decisions and can’t be overridden by kids. But you’d be stupid to look at it that way and ignore the nonstop care and consideration and support that the parents shower on their kids, while they blunder about selfishly and oblivious.
Dictatorship! To arms! Just… laughable!
I am sorry, but your take seems to be highly influenced by your own privileges and willful ignorance. You talk about your job opportunities and benefits within your organization, ignoring that I wrote
This is true for most people, but not all.
meaning you are obviously in the fortunate group, and your anecdotal stories are consequently irrelevant to the points being made about the less fortunate one.
The idea that only edgy teenagers who hate hard and honest work can get behind this sentiment is plain reductionist and false. Furthermore, if I understand you correctly from
My “democracy” is full of gerrymandering and many other forms of institutional racism. Sexual predators walk the halls of power.
I would guess you are an American, and if so I hope you are aware that your institutions are deeply flawed and in a lot of cases really undemocratic, which makes the particular comparisons you make to your job even less apt.
You also get a little into the issue of the often strong hierarchical structures of family and other form of tribes, which is actually of some relevance in the question of freedom, but totally besides the point with respect to democracy in the workplace. I am not telling you that your job sucks, I am just stating that there are jobs that suck and that they are mostly filled with underprivileged people, many of whom are there precisely due to lack of options. That is really one of the main issues that socialism tries to answer: equal opportunity for all. Because, although you may not like it, your success and others lack of it is not purely meritocratic and just.
There are socioeconomic factors that far exceed the impact of skills and socialism, workplace democracy and the likes is more just, more moral and gives greater opportunity for all than a capitalist society such as the US. Thinking otherwise is laughable and you being a reactionary content with status quo is unsurprising given your self-proclaimed privilege.
Unless you’re a literal slave (which is a different problem) you’re free to leave those jobs, just you might have to move (leaving family and friends) or you might never make as much money/your lifestyle suffers. That’s vastly different from “if you leave your job we may literally kill you or throw you in a prison cell where you won’t see daylight for days, weeks, months, or years.”
Don’t get me wrong, those people trapped in their jobs by circumstance are not in envious situations (and in many contexts their issues should be taken seriously), but they’re still way better off than many in true dictatorships.
You can argue that both don’t provide “real choices” but one really doesn’t provide choices.
See my other comment with regards to the issue of “literal slave”.
I think we should also take into account that the problem of unfree labour conditions does not exist within a vacuum. There is after all, even in free democratic countries, the threat of violence (from the state) that in general upholds the systems of oppression from businesses and others. Most people born, if not fortunate with inheritance, have initially no property on which they can sustain themselves. If they want to have some they have the option to steal or work, the former most won’t do due to the threat of violence (read ultimately usage of physical force, not to be confused with police violence) from the state.
When also the businesses have tools to shape and influence politics, one may to some degree extend their form of oppression to not only include direct economical exploitation of workers, but also as the designers of the oppressive conditions that allows them and the rest of us to be in the conditions that allows for this to happen in the first place.
That is not to say that I want us to confuse direct dictatorships with capitalism, but that if we want to have a truly free and democratic society we need to look at all aspects of society and not pretend that the huge part of all our lives that comprises of work need to be under democratic control. Also, the imperialistic tendencies of capitalism on the global stage is also a huge reason for political instability and empowers dictatorships around the world.
Not sure I’d die for democracy… it’s a popularity contest where 80 year old millionaires compete to see who looks best in a suit.
Freedom, sure. But that’s not the same thing.
You’re describing a representational democracy. What do you think about direct democracy?
That’s elections, democracy is a system of government by consent
But I agree with the current state of US and UK politics, 2 party systems are only better because a 1 party system is even worse
You think working for a corporation is the same as living under a dictatorship?
Yeah, this thought is someone trying to compare apples to oranges.
Then there’s the throw away comment of how you barely know anyone there, that’s a personal thing. I work for a small company now but I used to work for a hospital with over 2,000 employees, I didn’t know most of them but I knew the 100 or so people I interacted with pretty well and did things outside of work with many of them on more than one occasion.
As I walk through the front door of my air-conditioned office building and say hello to the receptionist I can’t help but feel this is just what it was like living under Marcos or Pinochet.
/s
Plenty of people live comfortable lives under dictatorship, you can compare that office worker to a citizen in Qatar and they’d probably live similar lives materially.
You could also compare the sweat shop worker for the company that office workers company contracts their manufacturing out to, to the migrant pseudo-slave workers in Qatar.
the migrant
pseudo-slaveslave workers in Qatar.Think you had a typo there^
To the level that the corporation has control over your life, yeah. What do you think banana republics are? The more the company can control your life, the more its undemocratic nature becomes apparent. Working for a small company in a competitive market might not look like a company town, but it has the same fundamental structure as one. The main difference is that the small company has to offer a good deal to their employees compared to competitors. If the company is the only hirer in town, then they’ll suddenly not have as much motivation to treat you well. If they control the housing, means of travel, and cops as well, you’re basically enslaved.
Exactly. It’s soul-crushing, but generally not body-crushing.
The CEO can take away your livelihood at a whim, destroying your future career, and everyone has to tug the forelock.
Dictatorships are not bad in and of themselves. A benign dictatorship could be the most effective form of governing, there’s just no mechanism to stop them when they stop being benign.
And on the flip side a CEO can improve and expand many people’s careers and therefore wealth.
A dictatorship like Mao Zedong, Mussolini, Hitler, etc can flow all the wealth and power to themselves, oppressing the people under them.
The point it: You can’t talk about best case scenario of one and not the other. Usually, as it’s human nature, both are going to sequester wealth and power for themselves over the people under them, but a bad dictatorship is leagues worse than a bad company/CEO.
Yeah, there’s good CEOs and bad ones. But the hierarchical power structure is the same.
CEOs are like kings of their empire.
HR is like the court jester
I have a problem with the willingly in this thought.
The issue is that people are pretty unwilling to be homeless or starve if there’s an alternative (no matter how terrible).
Working is the worst way to prevent yourself from starvation and homelessness except for all of the others.
But we don’t need to accept a dictatorship to work. We should be working towards democratizing the workplace, forming unions, and creating worker owned businesses.
Yes, agreed 100%. Should. Til then though, still gotta eat and also not be homeless.
Yep. We have to deal with it for now, but we shouldn’t accept it as the way I has to be. People should be going to their work and speaking with their coworkers about unions and other options. We’re all in this together against the owners. They try to turn us against each other.
The issue is that people are pretty unwilling to be homeless or starve if there’s an alternative (no matter how terrible).
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you but I’ve been homeless before and I don’t think it’s an “issue” that I don’t want to go back to that.
It’s not an issue, that’s just an effect of the sarcastic phrasing. There’s kind of an embedded notion within the original thought that people actually do this by choice. I think most work in dictatorial companies because there’s really no other choice except destitution.
Thanks, that’s what I figured since my experience has been have a job or be homeless and it really is my ass onto the street as soon as there is only small unemployment checks.
Working is better than being homeless for most people. Because you can, doesnt mean everyone can.
I agree but that doesn’t really clear up what I was trying to understand?
The overlap of people willing to let themselves be beat down and exploited at work, and the people that would actually fight and die for democracy is slim to none.
Resource extraction companies are notoriously bad employers. I’d bet there’s more of an overlap in those sort of jobs.
Lots of people are not willing to die for democracy, some even fight against it out of ignorance or powerlust.
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That’s not what dictatorship means
Workplaces are structured without democracy by default, and adding democracy can be helpful to workplace problems.
It’s a job, not a country you’re living in.
And? I shouldn’t get a say? Without a say workers deal with being underpaid, and unsafe conditions. Sometimes the federal government helps fix this. But better yet form a strike, use the collective action to get a fairer workplace.
You do get a say in safety, there are very harsh laws if companies get reported not following safety measures. I think everyone is asking for more pay lol, but that has nothing to do with democracy. You only should have a say for so much, there are many things that only those with certain education should have a say. Because again, it’s not a country.
there are many things that only those with certain education should have a say.
The rich are not smarter than us!
asking for more pay lol, but that has nothing to do with democracy
Getting more pay often requires democratic actions. Striking, unionizing. Unions democratize a workplace by providing leverage behind workers concerns.
there are very harsh laws if companies get reported not following safety measures.
You must not be American. From an American perspective, employers are basically lawless.
The eventual theoretical climax being siezing the means of production. Then there is no longer an owner or board of shareholders with structural heirarchical control over what is made, who makes it, and how much they are paid.
You must not be American. From an American perspective, employers are basically lawless.
I can tell that you have never dealt with an OSHA inspection. Like all things government, most of the rules make sense, some of them don’t, and some things should be covered but aren’t. It still breaks my brain that propane gas tank forklifts used indoors are allowed but an audible pneumatic hose leak supposedly isn’t.
I have seen Cleatus scream about how they can’t run their line because they hear a hose leak and use the forklift to drive to the break room. Sigh.
Education does not mean rich. There’s still a workplace hierarchy in socialism, and even communism. Of course America is brought up for no reason lol. You don’t understand what you’re talking about, and that’s not even true.
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Just because A and B have overlap doesn’t mean A = B. My boss can’t throw me in a jail cell or have me shot.
Someone tells you what to do, and you have to obey or else you lose your housing, healthcare, and other basic necessities.
This is so wrong. You are not entitled to basic necessities. You have to provide them for yourself, that is the natural order. This is what most of humanity did for milenia via subsistence farming and it sucked.
Sooner or later people decided that working in a factory sucked a little less than working in the field. Then more recently, people decided working in an office sucked a little less than working in the factory.
Employment is not slavery. You can quit anytime.
I think they just want to roleplay some ideology that doesn’t actually exist or possibly function. This is another reminder that comment scores have nothing to do with how sane or correct the comment is lol.
Yes, because that’s not what happens lol. You don’t immediately lose those things unless you sit around and do nothing. That’s true of literally everything, even communism.
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pay bills past their due.
I hate that all my bills are like forced automation so I can’t plan out when I can pay them, I’m forced to pay them all at the beginning/end of the month - there’s no options to change the date any more and if you call up and ask, they get all weepy and apologize that they can’t offer a different date to pay.
So I’m just forced to let them all go through and then play catch up cause of how I get paid not lining up with the end/start of every month.
Thankfully my job will reimburse me for one of my bills but of course they take fucking forever to process the reimbursement.
Have you tried getting them move to a strange dat, like the 14th? Might work.
Nah, they won’t do it anymore.
You went off into a completely separate topic. Also union fights for workers, but it does not imply a democracy. It just means being able to fight back against exploitation. There will still be a CEO in charge and you’ll have no say.
Sorry.
Directorship*
Functionally, they are the same.
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I would starve without a job. (without welfare, in some countries, this is not enough)
There is an order of magnitude here. In a way, I’m being hyperbolic. But I do want to highlight the similarity between the two.
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What job (aka enslavement apparently)do you have irl
Factory worker.
Definitely not a rollform operator if that is the case. Machine builder?
So how would a factory line work without leadership lol
Voting for a leader democratically does not mean that there is no leader.
That makes zero sense in a workplace context
Really? What’s wrong with someone having a say in who their boss is?
I have my ideas.
What’s your job?
Search for a new job since your current one is treating you terribly
You are incorrect. I absolutely run my businesses as a dictatorship because I’m the owner. We don’t “vote” on what to do, if you don’t like my ideas you are FIRED. Same goes for my tenants, if you don’t like my rules then get out of my property!!
I dictatorship would mean they’d die if they didn’t do what you liked lol. It’s in a government context, not a contractual obligation. A tennet can find another place to live, and a worker can find another company.
In what world does a dictatorship require everyone else to die if they don’t agree? They have control over the institution, but they don’t have total control over every individual.
You do not know what you are talking about. If you want to run your business as a democracy fine but you won’t be successful. I will continue running mine with an iron fist as a dictatorship.
I will continue running mine with an iron fist as a dictatorship
Why do you talk like you’re in a kung fu movie?
It’s literally the definition, you are just objectively wrong
You are wrong, and stop telling me how to run my business
god forbid someone steal a packet of soy sauce.
Stealing anything from a place of business is unforgivable
It’s… not weird at all. Democracy is a form of governance that permeates all our lives and controls the state that has a monopoly of violence that can be used against us and take away our rights. It’s not something we can opt-out of so it’s important that everyone has a say in it.
Small groups forming to do things like commerce or non-profits or whatever are completely voluntary and can’t take our rights away. The fact is, these authoritarian-like structures are efficient and effective. Even employee-owned corporations tend to organize this way by electing the officers.
Would love to see more companies experiment with democratic organizations though.
Arguably technology has changed this paradigm a lot. More people now just means more thinkers, who work best not under stress
No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country.
-George Patton
We have a choice not to work?
Choosing death by starvation is not a choice. Work or die, slave.
Sartre would disagree, but then Sartre was a professional philosopher.
You think a company should pay you even if you decide not to work? As much as I wish the universe rained down food, housing, and smart phone but the reality is that it cares not of you get a meal at the end of the day.
I have no idea what point you are trying to make.
There are better systems that require you not to die when you dont work.
Really? Like other people take out your garbage and bringing you your food and build your house.
The universe cares less if you starve but we do live in a time when we have to do very little work to survive quite well.
Companies are already paying people who decide to not work - their owners.
Ya ok.
sure, just sign up to like 10 credit cards, max them out getting good reliable camping equipment, and take a large loan out for one of those survival vans and flea the country
sure, just sign up to like 10 credit cards, max them out getting good reliable camping equipment, and take a large loan out for one of those survival vans and flea the country
This must be the same thought process of the people I see living in camping vans and tents down the street from me.
On which border is it common to cross from a democracy to a dictatorship for work?
I think the idea is that most workplaces are dictatorships
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Careful you might start thinking about democratizing the workplace. If you start doing that you might wind up one of us filthy syndicalists
Don’t threaten me with a good time!
Frankly, I’m a coward. There’s very little I’d be willing to die for and democracy certainly isn’t one of those things.
I’m sure plenty of Ukrainians thought the same pre invasion. Seen a fair few IT technicians flying fpv drones on the frontline
Plus, just working in a munitions factory makes you a target, and Russia has been indiscriminate in their targeting the civilian population
I doubt I would suddenly get brave if the U.S. was invaded. I’ve never even picked up a gun.
I served in the military and qualified as an expert marksman having never handled a firearm prior, and I wouldn’t honestly pick up a gun to kill anyone either. I’m also a coward. I found a role that would ensure I was as safe as possible at all times, cuz I’m a pacifist, but wanted college paid for. I’d have had to explicitly request to be put in danger, which I did not do.
The good news is you don’t have to be willing to shoot/kill anyone to offer tangible support if shit hits the fan :)
(I actively discourage people from joining the military now, though… I grew up and learned what was really going on, and I absolutely don’t support it)
I feel like most ukrainians aren’t fighting for democracy. They’re kleptocracy is marginally better than the one in Russia, but not worth dying over. Their fighting either for nationalism and hatred of Russian imperialism that’s oppressed them for centuries, or personal honor and fear of being called a coward by their wider social group.
In general nationalism and personal honor are the main reasons people will voluntarily sign up, outside of personal gain and mercenaries. In the west that nationalism gets tied up with ideas of democracy, but if a dictatorship took over the u.s. I doubt there’d be much of a difference in volunteers for the next war.
survey research from the MOBILISE Project reveals a staggering 35 percentage-point rise in Ukrainians’ support for democracy over just three years. Ukrainians moved toward greater support for democracy between 2019 and 2022 precisely because ordinary citizens were able to observe democracy in action and working even in the face of major compounding crises
https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/why-ukrainians-are-rallying-around-democracy/
