
Americans think they live in a democracy. But workplaces are small tyrannies - sozin
https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/7/17/15973478/bosses-dictators-workplace-rights-free-markets-unions
======
fallingfrog
Agree. The central idea behind capitalism is a hard logical division between
employment and ownership, so it's almost tautological to say that workplaces
are small tyrannies- but it's good to see someone say it. I mean, I think the
real issue with our democracy might be that we've never experienced it on a
personal level, so we don't really understand how government by the people is
even supposed to work. Our day to day experience is authoritarianism, so
that's what we project on a national level.

~~~
justadeveloper2
I have the same thoughts every July 4th. I ask myself 'what exactly am I
celebrating here?' Our rights and freedoms seem heavily curtailed and most
people have to work and are wage slaves in service of their debts.

I am debt-free, but have not yet managed to extract myself from this system.
Health insurance is a big reason why.

Also, there are few part-time jobs that pay anything and although I have been
attempting a career downshift, I can't find decent paying work. It's either I
kill my body as a software developer and make decent money but work way too
much, or I go be a $10/hr schmuck checkout clerk, I guess. I need that in
between thing...but it's not there...on purpose.

~~~
blacksmith_tb
I agree overall, but I would say that in terms of your work killing your body,
software dev is clearly much less destructive than, say, working in
construction. But likely anything you do nonstop for hours on end is going to
exact a toll. I am interested in what you think the purpose of the our system
is - social control? Simple snatch-and-grab by the 1% ?

~~~
coldtea
Perpetuating itself and treating well those in power that treat it well.

Like any remotely complex systems, it's all about replicating and thriving
itself.

------
aaronhoffman
The article mentions that the industrial revolution has made it too difficult
for small business to compete with large companies.

To solve that problem, let's eliminate all taxes for everyone making less than
$100k. No income tax, no payroll tax, no property tax, no sales tax, no...

~~~
bigzen
I personally am drawn to this idea. $100k seems arbitrary though. I would like
to see it adjusted for the COL of an average American family. Would you happen
to have any reading material or studies related to this tax scheme?

~~~
aaronhoffman
You're absolutely right, I pulled $100k out of the air for it's nice-
roundedness...

I don't have any reading material on it unfortunately, no. I'm mostly
libertarian, so [https://mises.org/](https://mises.org/) maybe?

------
djmips
Yep, and then people said we need a businessman running America and surprise
they got someone who wants to run it like a dictatorship.

~~~
justadeveloper2
I don't see it that way at all. Trump is not responsible for what has taken
place here, as fun as it is to blame him. I see him as someone who is trying
to undo a lot of the problems and fix them but he has no support from either
the Democrats or the Republicans because both sides are vested in continuing
the slave plantation that we have here in service of the ultra .01%. In Trump,
we have a guy who is part of the system who has rebelled from it because he no
longer could live with what he saw it doing and what he knwos it to be. He
deserves a little bit of sympathy and the American people deserve credit for
finally waking up to what is going on. It's going to take more than one guy to
fix this, though. I don't hold out a lot of hope. It is what it is now--we're
headed for third world style living, and let's be honest--a large number of
Americans are already living in third world squalor. It's not "heading" it's
here.

~~~
kesselvon
Trump isn't interested in actually fixing things, and I don't know what
evidence has led you believe he is.

~~~
octopoc
When politicians keep their campaign promises, that is democracy working
properly.

President Trump is keeping his campaign promises to reform lobbying[1],
cracking down on illegal immigration[2], cracking down on ISIS[3], and he's
making America no longer be the world's police officer[4].

[1] [http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-sets-5-year-
lifeti...](http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-sets-5-year-lifetime-
lobbying-ban-officials-n713631)

[2] [http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/economy/sd-
fi-b...](http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/economy/sd-fi-border-
wal-20170404-story.html)

[3] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/15/us-mother-
of-a...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/15/us-mother-of-all-bombs-
moab-afghanistan-donald-trump-death-toll)

[4] [http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/donald-trump-
congress-...](http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/donald-trump-congress-
speech-nato-235543)

------
namlem
I like the worker council idea. Though perhaps a more elegant solution would
be to eliminate all corporate tax deductions and set the rate to a flat 20%
while taxing co-ops at 5%. Over time, this would Incentivize the formation of
co-ops over corporations and reduce the negative effects of having an economy
controlled by large corporations.

------
forgottenacc57
Edward DeBono calls democracy a "dictatorship of the majority", i.e. we vote
in a new dictator every 4 years.

~~~
sharemywin
Except the courts override a lot. And he doesn't make any actual laws(although
regulations are trouble enough half the time).

------
calafrax
It is interesting that no one with money believes that democracy is a credible
way to run a business and yet people still believe it is a credible way to run
a government.

Fun fact: the US Constitution has exactly ZERO uses of the word "democracy" in
it.

~~~
kerkeslager
There are numerous examples of cooperatives, businesses that are run
democratically, which are successful. Sure, no one amasses huge piles of money
that way, just like nobody in a (effective) democracy amasses huge amounts of
power. But that's kind of the point. Saying nobody with money thinks democracy
is a good way to run a business is like saying no dictators with power think
democracy is a good idea. It's not a criticism of democracy/cooperatives, it's
an obvious statement of the motivations of dictators/business leaders.

------
convivialdingo
A bit off topic, but I think it speaks to the more general issues that voters
(as employees) have little say in the laws which govern their workplaces.

The notion that America is currently a functioning Democracy is still a bit up
in the air for me. Americans in general have little factual policy knowledge,
and for the few issues that do get fairly well covered there is a strong
politicization which verges on propaganda.

More to the point - many political arguments that we see today in the national
press usually has the strong cashflow backing of a few elite pocketbooks. It
is likely impossible to run an apolitical cause for the public good.

If not for overwhelming politicization, is there another reason why so many US
voters are basically anemic to political causes (e.g. wages, education,
vacation, medical) which (in general) they could easily vote into law - but
don't?

Anyway, just my opinion.

Gilens and Page[1]:

>>>What do our findings say about democracy in America? They certainly
constitute troubling news for advocates of “populistic” democracy, who want
governments to respond primarily or exclusively to the policy preferences of
their citizens. In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does
not rule — at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy
outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or
with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong
status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large
majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.

Some rebuttles:

>>> Bashir and Branham/Soroka/Wlezien find that on these 185 bills, the rich
got their preferred outcome 53 percent of the time and the middle class got
what they wanted 47 percent of the time. The difference between the two is not
statistically significant.[2]

>>> The researchers found the rich’s win rate for economic issues where
there's disagreement is 57.1 percent, compared with 51.1 percent for social
issues. There's a difference, but not a robust one. "The win rates for the two
issue types are not statistically different from one another," Branham,
Soroka, and Wlezien conclude.[2]

[1] [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-
poli...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-
politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-
and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B/core-reader)

[2] [https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-
oligarchy-...](https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-
study)

~~~
TheCoelacanth
In a democracy, shouldn't the middle class get their preferred outcome far
more often than the rich since their are far more of them? If the rich get
their preferred outcome even just as frequently as the middle class do, they
have way more power than they would in a pure democracy.

~~~
dragonwriter
> In a democracy, shouldn't the middle class get their preferred outcome far
> more often than the rich since their are far more of them?

Even in theory in a democracy, outcomes are not democratically chosen, actions
(at some level, which may merely be choice of representative) are; therefore,
those who have more resources to devote to understanding the relationship
between actions and outcomes, and to understanding other actors preferred
outcomes to craft propaganda tying preferred actions to other actors preferred
outcomes will tend to get their preferred outcomes more often than others.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
"Democracy" is descriptive, not prescriptive. It describes an outcome, not
specific methods.

If the outcomes don't match the will of the people, it is not a true democracy
regardless of the method of governance used.

------
Jabanga
I hate to get pedantic, but with the misuse of terms for the purpose of
demagoguing against those with more capital, I feel compelled to point out
that an employment relationship is wholly contractual, and therefore not a
"tyranny", and perfectly consistent with a completely democratic society.

Maybe the author means "egalitarian" or some other concept tangentially
related to democracy. Voluntarily formed hierarchies are perfectly consistent
with a free and democratic society.

But points to the author on hitting people's emotional buttons with her
victim/outrage politics.

~~~
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.

