I find it funny when people who spend most of their waking hours under a de facto totalitarian leadership (the workspace) expect that companies extend the same rights to their userbase as the US constitution.
I wouldn't consider most workplaces I've been in totalitarian - though maybe you've lived in some pretty nice totalitarian countries I'm not aware of. But I also don't see why customers shouldn't demand what they care about from companies.
Check out Philosopher Elizabeth Anderson and her work on workplace democracy for more on how modern corporations are like dictatorships and at least certainly anti-democratic. Her New Yorker profile is very good, for an intro.
Ironically, I think one could argue that the military of any democratic nation would pass that test despite being a lot closer to totalitarian states[0] than almost all modern companies.
[0] Not a judgement call, I think that is necessary given what they do and the risks they have to be ready to face the moment they are ordered to do so
Do you have any say in employee perks/benefits? I mean a real say, not preferences which are allowed by some benevolent analyst from HR.
If the CEO goes rogue and the company is private, can rank-and-file employees oust them?
Can you vote out your manager or your manager's manager? Is there even a process in place to do that?
Do you follow orders from management? What happens if you don't?
What happens if you disobey your manager in a public setting?
Can you get fired without notice? How about laid off?
Can you get fired because you said something?
Do you have a dresscode? What would happen to your employment if you dressed like a clown in customer meetings?
Do you risk getting fired if you start talking about unionizing?
Do you get fired if you sue the company?
Can you bring a gun to work?
Does your employee handbook say something about how your run your personal life? Does your employer have rights over IP created outside of working hours? Can you get fired over a DUI outside of company hours? Can you get fired for smoking cigarettes in your free time?
I've listened to enough Richard Wolfe debates to know the talking points. Dropping a book link isn't really helpful in the context of this discussion, I'm not going to go read your favorite book before I reply to you.
Yes I'm aware that corporations set up a legal hierarchy in which management has more power than labor within the corporation. I'm not going to go through your specific questions one by one, since they're largely rhetorical, though some of them don't have the answer you hope for. Some people seem to interpret the lack of formal, democratic processes with a totalitarian dictatorship. I've personally witnessed the firing of C-suite execs in response to employee revolts.
A totalitarian system requires complete subservience. Depending on your position in the labor market, your leverage may vary. My objection isn't to the notion that the employer-employee power balance is lopsided in many cases, to the point where some sectors of the economy are exploitative, but rather that an office by it's nature is akin to a totalitarian dictatorship. Maybe you're just using that phrase for effect, or maybe you genuinely think that working at Google and living in Egypt under President Mubarak is a good comparison. To me it comes off as a bit out of touch.
There's no point in getting defensive, that's not my favorite book and nobody expects you or anyone to actually read it, let alone before replying. It's just a reference to the ideas I mentioned, put in a more academic format.
> maybe you genuinely think that working at Google and living in Egypt under President Mubarak is a good comparison
Nice way of picking two extremes to make a point. Also, not sure what you're comparing here. Nobody is gonna kill you at Google. You can get fired though (which is more or less like some sort of corporate execution or something) and if you're at the wrong end of a recession you're gonna have a bad time.
Fine then, it seems I struck a nerve here. How about authoritarian? Is that better? And maybe Russia instead of Egypt. Would that be more palatable?
I did live under a totalitarian government myself. And to be honest, I see a lot of the behaviors I grew up with, in the current corporate culture (at least in the US). Do I live a better life? Sure, of course, there's no doubt about it. But that's solely because I submit to that culture. But I will be kicked off the gravy train at the first sign of dissent (same as under said dictatorship).
> Nice way of picking two extremes to make a point. Also, not sure what you're comparing here. Nobody is gonna kill you at Google. You can get fired though (which is more or less like some sort of corporate execution or something) and if you're at the wrong end of a recession you're gonna have a bad time.
You're the one claiming "totalitarian". But when someone brings in real totalitarian, you say "hey, that's too extreme". Um, yeah, that's the point. Your claim of "totalitarian" is a bogus over-the-top rhetorical flourish, and you have now pretty much agreed that it is.
> You're the one claiming "totalitarian". But when someone brings in real totalitarian, you say "hey, that's too extreme".
I was referring to the comparison itself to be extreme. There's a difference.
Can you define your view on what totalitarianism means? And please don't use countries as examples. I think there's a disconnect here and people are arguing semantics and language accuracy while missing the original point, which still stands.
Nope. You chose the word; you made the claim. It's your definition we're arguing about; mine is irrelevant.
So if you've got a definition where your claim makes sense, state it. Then we can argue about whether your definition is reasonable. My definition is a distraction. (I don't know whether you were trying for a distraction or not, but my definition isn't the point.)
Based on Zbigniew Brzezinski and Carl Friedrich, totalitarianism has 6 characteristics which makes it a particular extreme form of authoritarianism. The definitions relate to state level politics, so I agree it's a bit of a stretch to extrapolate it to how a modern corporation is run, but here we go:
- all-encompassing ideology
I think this pretty much rolls up to a core mission (which everyone needs to work on pushing forward. You also don't get to pick the core mission, it is a top-down approach) and what people call 'culture'. Some companies are more hardcore when it comes to enforcing and maintaining the culture and mission by hiring based on 'culture fit' and by weeding out renegades. This is also something often brought up during conflicts: 'what is our mission? what are we working towards?' and used in contexts when it's less appropriate. For example a company using stack ranking for employee performance, using the same philosophy when dealing with external vendors. I will not bring up other divisive aspects of corporate ideologies which cross boundaries into wedge politics. The ideology has a great way of self-enforcing, but having people police each other.
- a single party
Well, there are no parties per se in megacorp. Maybe factions? This doesn't really fit well here as there's no direct correspondence so I agree this would be a total stretch.
- a terroristic police
Well, not really. But the oppression is still there and you'd know if you ever crossed the line when it comes to compliance. Nobody is waking you up in the middle of the night to push you inside a black Volga car and execute you in a back alley. But someone can schedule a random meeting out of the blue to tell you that your services are no longer needed. The company will always put on a friendly face until shit hits the fan. I remember once I got an email from a department I didn't even knew existed that I'll be terminated by the end of the day if I didn't provide a photocopy of some document. This is a very successful approach as most people during regular work don't even know it exists. Also, hands up anyone who's been walked out with security after getting fired. I think it's also fair to remind everyone of how Facebook handles whistleblowers or how Amazon handles union efforts (they're even hiring Pinkertons. Pinkertons!!).
- a communications monopoly
Again, it's not like you're not free to read news. But I bet all company news discussed OFFICIALLY at work comes from one source and one source only. And with current events (say the company is going through something bad) you'll be notified about exactly what to say going forward relative to the events.
- a weapons monopoly
This doesn't really apply as weapons are off-topic when it comes to workplaces. BUT let's extrapolate it to trade tools/software/equipment. Except for when I was a contractor (and even then I had limits), I always had a list of 'approved' tools or list of stuff I was never ever supposed to use on premise (usually stuff from the competition).
- a centrally directed economy
This one is obvious. Nobody can deny that most companies use some form of central planning.
Now of course, there is a spectrum here. It's never binary and some states are taking it further to the extreme. For example dissidents can be just ousted from positions of power but still be able to live a normal life all the way to getting shot in the back of the head. That's why fascist Italy is different than Putin's Russia or North Korea under Jong-il or under Jong-un. Not all aspects of totalitarianism are enforced using violence. Some are enforced by social norms or by people explicitly drinking the kool-aid to have a better life. Believe it or not, some people actually want totalitarianism. This is why I'm saying that some comparisons may be more extreme.
I know and understand that 'totalitarianism' sends people directly into the violent oppression mindset. But oppression is not always violent and most of the times it doesn't even feel like oppression.
Is there something I'm missing? I think we don't have to go over authoritarianism as I see people agree on that and most had a problem with 'totalitarianism' as a term.
From your own definition it seems like you admit it doesn't really fit.
- all-encompassing ideology
Maybe a lot of startups fit this bill, but most jobs people just come, do their work, and go home. They couldn't give two shits about the ideology. Startups are different cause you need people to work really hard / sacrifice and mission helps with that.
- a single party
you agree this doesn't work
- a terroristic police
sounds like you agree this is a stretch. HR can be annoying but it isn't really terroristic.
- a communications monopoly
this isn't even remotely accurate. there are so many backchannels and secret meetings and company gossip is everywhere. especially now that we have slack.
- a centrally directed economy
most mature organizations have teams run their own P&L. in some places (Amazon) they even compete with each other, and have a market-type internal economy.
It's just a bad analogy. There ARE companies that run like totalitarian dictatorships, but I don't think it's the norm and it's not inherent in the model. There are other, and in my opinion much better, critiques of the corporate relationship with employees I'd start with first (I could talk at length about stock based compensation).
Edit:
I think there's a bigger flaw in your argument though that misses the forest for the trees. You can break things down into their constituent characteristics (or the ones you can see) and try to argue that because they share a lot of traits, those two things are the same, which is kind of what you're doing here. The reality is there is a subjective experience of a thing that is different. If the experience of working in a job doesn't feel like a totalitarian dictatorship, it seems it'd be wrong to tell people "no you actually are living under totalitarian rule, you just don't know it". Unless you think people are so acclimatized to corporate rule like a frog in water that they don't notice (which you might).
> Well, there are no parties per se in megacorp. Maybe factions? This doesn't really fit well here as there's no direct correspondence so I agree this would be a total stretch.
Actually, I can kind of give you this one. In a country, a single party means that I can't vote for a different set of policies. I can't vote for anyone not "in" with the current powers. In a company, if I want a different set of leadership, I can... um... get a job somewhere else.
At least in this respect, a company is totalitarian, but with open borders. It's when they don't let you quit that things get really nasty...
Fair enough. My defensiveness is based on the assumption prevalent in these sorts of discussions that if you don't share a viewpoint you are just suffering from insufficient education on it.
I'm picking extremes because the OP made a blanket statement about life in workplaces. They didn't say, life as an Amazon warehouse worker is exploitative for example. The statement was extreme to begin with. There are lots of different types of workplaces in America. You didn't really strike a nerve beyond I guess that I'm not a huge fan of hyperbole / sloppy language.
I don't really think you'll get kicked off the gravy train if you dissent at all. There's a good bit of anti-capitalism, "tear down the system" type talk in tech. That said, I agree with you that corporations are not democratic organizations.
My first corporate job was as a cashier at a grocery store. Yes, if I refused to wear the uniform, or ring up customers when they stood in my line, I'd probably be written up and after 3 write ups, fired. I guess you could call that authoritarian. I don't see how it gets you much though.
