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.
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’re describing a representational democracy. What do you think about direct democracy?
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.
Your boss can’t do any of that and if they try the government should stop them.
They should, but they don’t. Over here in real life, the government works for the corporation. When the boss murders, he’s called an “innovator” and a “job creator”.
If you think your boss can just murder you I’m not sure what to tell you.
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
I mean there’s a history of employers actually killing employees for unionizing. It’s not a secret.
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
If you think he can’t, you must not live in the U.S.
Exactly.
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.
I’m not prepared to die for democracy.
I’d rather live my life.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.
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.
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
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^
Exactly. It’s soul-crushing, but generally not body-crushing.
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/
Democracy, the God that failed.
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.
We have a choice not to work?
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.
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.
Companies are already paying people who decide to not work - their owners.
There are better systems that require you not to die when you dont work.
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!
The dominant cultural ideology blinds us to the obvious contradictions.
You can go to work for yourself, you can’t fork your own country.
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I don’t have a choice. If I wanna do the kind of work I enjoy and pays enough to feed my family, I have to submit to corporate dictatorship.
Every single civilization with every single type of governance in human history requires most people to work. That will continue to be the case for a long time into the future.
Is the current system perfect? No. However it does allow for a greater degree of latitude than basically everything that came before it. It also has safeguards to ensure there’s some sort of safety net if you fall on hard times.
You also mentioned democracy. Assuming you live in America, you can vote in a way that introduces reform to the system.
Starting a violent revolution is a last resort sort of thing.
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
