
Corporations are refrigerators - piescream
http://www.lorrinmaughan.com/coaching-blog/corporations-are-refrigerators
======
Karellen
I am reminded of Charles Stross' blog post "Snowden leaks: the real take-
home"[0]:

"A huge and unmentionable side-effect of the neoliberal backlash of the 1970s
was the deregulation of labour markets and the _deliberate destruction_ of the
job for life culture, partly as a lever for dislodging unionism

[...]

Gen Y will stare at you blankly if you talk about loyalty to their employer;
the old feudal arrangement ("we'll give you a job for life and look after you
as long as you look out for the Organization") is something their grandparents
maybe ranted about, but it's about as real as the divine right of kings.
_Employers are alien hive-mind colony intelligences who will fuck you over for
the bottom line on the quarterly balance sheet._ "

(Emphasis mine)

He links to an updated version he did for Foreign Policy, but I prefer the
tighter wording of those segments in the original.

Those are the words I keep in mind when thinking about my relationships with
employers.

[0] [http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-
static/2013/08/snowden-...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-
static/2013/08/snowden-leaks-the-real-take-ho.html)

~~~
ef4
I cannot relate at all to the people who actually lament the bursting of that
old model.

"Feudal" is an apt description for it, and I guess some people find the
certainty of always being a serf comforting. But it was _never_ a great deal
for employees. Security has a cost, and an employer who says they can take
care of your forever is either lying or forced to dramatically underpay you in
the present to account for future risks and costs.

And it's a great way to get people to go along with evil. Because who's going
to stand up to their "employer for life?" Which is the point of Stross's
essay.

Giant collectives like governments and corporations cannot feel loyalty to
you. Only individual people can do that. And you can't know which person will
be holding the power ten years from now, never mind forty.

~~~
eropple
_> But it was never a great deal for employees. Security has a cost, and an
employer who says they can take care of your forever is either lying or forced
to dramatically underpay you in the present to account for future risks and
costs._

Not a great deal for you. Or for me. But for most people? Probably a better
deal than they'd have gotten otherwise.

------
calibraxis
Yes, refrigerators full of bodies.

This person preaches just what we'd expect from an HR/selfhelp person: accept
it individually. More sensible people don't just organize in "cult-like"
corporate communes to further enrich wealthy elites; they organize to build a
better society, which requires dismantling these "soulless" gangs which treat
humanity as "just collateral damage."

(Unfortunately, most who fancy themselves hackers really have no imagination
for such things, regardless of rhetoric about "disruption" or "creative
destruction".)

~~~
davepage
Yet, to "build a better society" is a just euphemism for "build a better
government." Empirically, governments organize themselves just as
corporations: cult-like, soulless gangs which exist to enrich the wealthy
elites and treat humanity as just "collateral damage." In fact, government
invented the term of art.

The relative advantage of corporations, however, is one can choose to quit. Or
choose to not buy their product. No one "has to have" an ipad or other such
nonsense. No such option exists with regards to government. Voting has
negligible effect and emmigration can only offer a least-worst improvement.

~~~
breakyerself
No not really. I didn't read anything in his statement that indicated he
wanted to nationalize all the things. Maybe he just wants a better arrangment.
The corporation isn't something that arises from the natural order of the
universe. It's an arangement designed by the government. I would like it if
they phased out that arrangement in favor of cooperatives. Just like a
corporation you would be free to quit, but you'd be less likely to want to and
less likely to be treated like overhead.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _The corporation isn 't something that arises from the natural order of the
> universe. It's an arangement designed by the government._

I sort of disagree. The effects of governments are secondary, akin to trimming
a hedge. Corporations look exactly like what happens when you have people
getting more and more powerful and people who they rule also rule another
people. I don't think it's a coincidence that corporations look a lot like
feudal societies.

~~~
thepurplemonk
Corporations are defined by a state's laws. A corporate charter is granted by
the government. The reason corporations look like feudal societies is that the
first ones were formed by feudal lords to harness the power of the merchant
class that operated outside the feudal system, essentially granting
monopolies. I recommend the first couple of chapters of Life, Inc by Douglass
Rushkoff for a good overview of corporate history

------
breakyerself
I honestly don't know why we need corporations at all. All they do is make a
small number of rich people richer. I'd be happy to see the corporation phazed
out in favor of cooperatives.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Strange to find you downvoted.

I just finished reading a brief history of the cooperative movement in the UK.
I was amused by the various parallels to Free Software: the explicitly utopian
premise, the entrenched interests fighting with FUD, the originators being
laughed at as kooks and nerds, the startling success of the model that rapidly
made it "normal" in many industries.

Much like (social) darwinism, too much has been made of competition compared
with cooperation in business, in both cases against all evidence (families,
herds, the fact that we are ourselves built from cooperating organisms, or on
the business side that you have far more suppliers, customers and employees
than competitors), because it suited some people with power to justify their
actions.

~~~
mercer
> I just finished reading a brief history of the cooperative movement in the
> UK.

I'd love to read this. Can you point me in the right direction?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
It was an educational graphic novel produced the by CO-OP group in the UK:

[http://www.co-operative.coop/our-ethics/our-plan/co-
operativ...](http://www.co-operative.coop/our-ethics/our-plan/co-operative-
support/graphic-novel/)

You can read the whole thing online in a (slightly) animated Flash version.

~~~
mercer
Thanks! I thought I'd have to go find a book in one of those book-buildings.
Much appreciated!

------
golemotron
> Do remember the function of a corporation. It's to make money for its
> stakeholders. If it's a publically traded entity, its job is to increase
> shareholder returns at all costs. This goes to the point above. It's not
> personal, it's business. Humanity is, sadly, often just collateral damage.

Important reading on this:

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Corporation-Pathological-
Pursuit-P...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Corporation-Pathological-Pursuit-
Profit/dp/0743247469)

[http://www.amazon.com/Who-Really-Matters-Privilege-
Success-e...](http://www.amazon.com/Who-Really-Matters-Privilege-Success-
ebook/dp/B000FBJCQM)

~~~
dkural
Overall this engine has brought great prosperity. A company makes a lot of
money when an external group of people find its services valuable so they keep
giving this company money. A "job" is a way for you to be productive for other
humans. This is primary, everything else secondary. Take joy in this fact of
being useful. Being paid is a sufficient condition - for everything else there
is family, friends, hobbies, pubs etc. An unprofitable company may have "happy
employees" ignoring this fact but ultimately, society at large decided to
allocate demand to other companies whose services and products society found
more valuable. So, I don't know why an unproductive division consisting of
people feel entitled to resources from everybody else? The end result of this
is lay-offs. A company that doesn't trim down when demand goes down is
jeopardizing everybody else's job. You end up like France & Italy, with
bloated unproductive companies, or even worse, Greece, eventually bankrupting
the whole country. This is far more pathological. On the other hand, breaking
the law is breaking the law. Some companies - more accurately, people in them
break the law, and should be held responsible.

I understand that layoffs are traumatic and put people in hardship. The
correct way to solve this problem is a social safety net, free and universal
healthcare & education, and access to new opportunities via specialized
training. The wrong way to solve it is force companies to retain people.

In other words, we can all help unemployed people by paying more taxes to
transfer resources to them to get them back on their feet. But people of
course don't like that idea.

I vote for fluid labor markets for an efficient economy + strong social safety
net.

------
thro2
> Whenever he learned of my latest all night work effort, or when I refused to
> take vacation because of a work thing, my Dad always used to counsel me to
> go fill a bucket with water and stick my hand in it. Then he'd ask how much
> of a hole was left when I took my hand out. Smart man, my Dad - he clearly
> learned his lesson after that layoff :-)

Can someone explain this?

~~~
davepage
The water represents corporate resources and the hand represents the employee.
When the employee is removed, other resources back fill to compensate. No need
to delude oneself into thinking one is indispensable. The world moves forward
whether one is at work or on vacation -- the only question is: what is the
benefit and for whom?

------
NKCSS
A great article, and one worth sharing with colleagues who make their work
their entire life.

------
suprgeek
I am usually comfortable engaging with and learning from people who hold
completely different world views (that is usually the point of learning after
all).

This one is a bit hard to take anything from: (ad hominem) "I'm a Certified
Holistic Life Coach, Public Speaker, Facilitator, Reiki Master and Animal
Communicator. I help people and animals redefine themselves so they can map
and move into their true potential,..."

~~~
gergles
While some of these things may be less admirable than others (especially to my
more science-oriented side), I find it helpful to read the ideas first,
process them, then determine if the person's credentials and experience are
relevant (in either direction). Being a life coach (even a holistic one),
likely has put the author in the position to have seen this happen several
times, and her advice here makes a lot of sense as a result.

She's not discussing how to channel your energies or talk to animals in this
post, so I'd encourage you to look past the credentials and debate the ideas.

