[nxsynonym]

Yeah, I don't understand the need to compare the structure of a business to the structure of a countries government in the first place.

Employment relationships are contractual, and completely voluntary. People need income to live, sure, but they are not forced to work for any one person or company to receive that income.

The working conditions mentioned in the article are insane, but you "vote" by choosing not to work for that company.

I also take issue with "Like Louis XIV’s government, the typical American workplace is kept private from those it governs." What world is the author living in where normal governments disclose 100% of the information they hold or receive?

[AngryData]

Im not sure it is contractual when death is the alternative. It isn't like they can just walk to an empty piece of land and build a cabin and farm on it to live. Or wander the wilds foraging and hunting. Work, or the capital to purchase other people's work, is a requirement to live here. That is why I support stronger minimum wages and eliminating work 'benefits' in favor of paying that money directly to employees. If they want to buy into a company insurance plan, so be it, but it should be entirely optional and payed into out of their bank account, not drawn out before the employee even knows what it is worth. Companies are using benefits to hide employee's actual wages from them so it is harder to even value your own income and compare it to others or other companies.

[Jabanga]

Why can't it be contractual when death is the alternative? What if I agree to provide X in exchange for someone's kidney? That can't be contractual? Unless there is imminent threat of death, I can see a contract that is entered into by one of the parties in order to avoid death as meeting every condition of consent.

[namlem]

Eh I don't know if I would describe all employment contracts as completely voluntary. There are plenty of workers without the ability to change jobs easily. If you're broke, have kids, and have few skills, it's very hard to change careers.

[nxsynonym]

Difficult to change yes, but you are not obligated or physically forced to stay with any one country.

If it were a true dictatorship, as the article claims, you would have no say in where you apply, what you accept, when you decide to leave, etc.

[crdoconnor]

>completely voluntary. People need income to live, sure, but they are not forced to work for any one person

Would chattel slavery be voluntary too if the slaves had a degree of choice over which master used them?

[nxsynonym]

No, and it's not even close to the same thing. Your argument is just as ridiculous as the original article.

People were literally considered pieces of property under chattel slavery. "Salary slavery" is nowhere near as horrific or demeaning as real slavery, and it's frankly an offensive comparison to make.

If you want to never work a job in your life, pan handle on the streets, live off your relatives, or become a recluse, you are completely free to do so. Nobody is holding a gun (or a whip) over you and demanding you work.

[fallingfrog]

Here again though, I disagree with the assumption that those should be our only two choices. Why is democracy in government common sense but workplace democracy is just crazy talk?

[nxsynonym]

I don't think I am following.

What would democracy, at its purest form, in a work place look like?

Would employees have voters rights over every single decision that would be made? That seems inefficient.

I don't think applying democracy to a workplace is crazy, I just don't understand why it's necessary.

[dragonwriter]

> What would democracy, at its purest form, in a work place look like?

Exactly like corporate governance, except that instead of stockholders with voting rights weighted by size and class of their stockholdings, the people voting on the basic rules which govern the degree and manner in which routine authority is delegated to elected directors, officers, etc., are the employees each having an equal vote.

> Would employees have voters rights over every single decision that would be made?

On a fundamental level, yes but they'd probably in practice delegate much routine authority to elected representatives who would serve like a board of directors and who would in turn likely be given, and exercise, the right to delegate some of that authority to particular individual employees (directly to officers, who then delegate to subordinate managers, etc.)

[Jabanga]

Do you mean every company should be a worker owned coop? If that's your suggestion, that's already possible. Why not continue giving people the option of working in a traditional hierarchical enterprise, and working in a coop? Why make the latter mandatory?

[jhbadger]

Citizens don't have rights over every single decision in a democracy either. They elect representatives. Worker democracy could work similarly. As for why it is "necessary", presumably it would guide decisions so that the needs of the workers were taken into account, which very often doesn't happen.

[Jabanga]

Worker-owned coops exist. No one is stopping people from forming them. By all means, help develop these organisations. But the government shouldn't be stepping in and prohibiting other voluntary organisational structures.

[crdoconnor]

I never said it was the same thing and I didn't make an argument.

If you think "true freedom" is the ability to choose between minimum wage servitude and a (substantially criminalized) panhandling lifestyle that doesn't say much for your conception of freedom.

[nxsynonym]

If you're not making an argument then why even mention it?

True freedom is living in a society that provides the necessities for every individual, or living in a completely lawless non-society.

What is it that you are getting at, exactly? Or are you just posting to being argumentative (without making an argument).

[crdoconnor]

To determine if you really thought that not being able to choose your master was the distinguishing feature of slavery as you previously claimed.

Apparently you didn't really think that.

My point was that there's no stark dividing line between freedom and slavery and that wage slavery does indeed share many of the same features as chattel slavery.

[Jabanga]

Being dependent on someone to survive is not antithetical to freedom. What distinguishes a free society from an unfree one is that in the former, no one violates your right to your person or property, through theft, fraud, violence and threats of violence, as long as you do not violate other people's equal right to the same.

Laws prohibiting private enterprise, or mandating that individuals pay a tax on their private income, limit a person's freedom, as they involve a threat to their person, in a situation where they have not violated any other party's rights.

Freedom does not mean economic security. It does not mean empowerment. These are independent attributes.