From: kurt@eskimo.celestial.com (Kurt Cockrum)
Newsgroups: pnw.general
Subject: Re: government still at large (was Re: FDA still at large)
Summary: Hasn't gone away yet? Damn! what's taking so long?
Date: 16 Aug 92 23:48:08 GMT
Organization: >>> Eskimo North (206)-FOR-EVER <<<

In article <897@nazgul.UUCP> bright@nazgul.UUCP (Walter Bright) writes:
>In article <1992Aug12.211833.14808@eskimo.celestial.com> kurt@eskimo.celestial.com (Kurt Cockrum) writes:
>/In article <896@nazgul.UUCP> bright@nazgul.UUCP (Walter Bright) writes:
>/>I wouldn't call a corporation in a free
>/>society authoritarian.
>/Authoritarian basically means "do this or else!".
>/Certainly, from the employee's standpoint, the company looks pretty
>/authoritarian.
>/Many corporate internal organizations look just like one of the
>/old-style command economies of the EastBloc!
>/Indeed, the distinction is less and less meaningful as time goes on.
>/Look at Boeing, Weyerhaeuser, UW, etc.
>
>I have worked for Boeing for 3 years. When I disagreed with the way I was
>treated, I quit. Boeing never arrested me, beat me, confiscated my property,
>imprisoned me, etc, all things that authoritarian governments are notorious
>for.

Well, what stopped `em? [ :) :) :) ].  Fear of litigation, that's all.
They'd do all of the above if it were possible, and if they can't, they can
invent new and innovative methods of employee (read, 8-hour-a-day citizen
donating additional pro-bono time in limbo for the cause, called commuting)
control, such as drug tests, Xerox PARC's employee-tracking badges, etc.
The only thing that effectively constrains "little companies" is bigger ones
(multi-nationals and/or countries, which are peers these days, and control
similar resources), the way big bullies constrain littler bullies that
disagree with them.  A company "thinking like a country" (I used to work for
one many years ago, I know) thinks nothing of using intimidation and/or
threats to guide the conduct of their employees, even trying to extend their
control to people's conduct and/or/on their own, unpaid time.

Being informed that refusing to purchase US Savings Bonds could harm one's
advancement within the company, and, indeed, could influence placement on
the company's RIF totem-pole certainly qualifies as control of the kind I
call "authoritarian" [The situation was in the mid-`60's, when LBJ was, as I
recall, trying to finance the Great Society program, and Elmer Engstrom, the
CEO of RCA (I worked for RCA Service Co), told LBJ that the employees of
RCA loved their country and would patriotically rally to the cause by
purchasing savings bonds.  Of course, Elmer never directly made that
committment (being politically astute and wily), of course, but after his
devoutly expressed sentiments, duly noted by the sycophantic press,
filtered down thru the chain of command, said sentiments were magically
transformed into intimidation, and so were experienced by lots of people].

>     The only threat Boeing could possibly use is to stop paying me money.
>And they did stop paying me when I quit (!).

How could you regard this as anything but an adverse action?
The gist of what I said about authoritarians was that their basic mode
of operation was to present choices to those under their control, of the form
	Do things *this* way, and the consequences to you will be beneficial
	(or at least, not adverse).  Otherwise, the outcome will be less favorable.
The essential thing here is *control* and *constraint* of choices.  It's the
essential activity of the manager.  The employee/citizen can add more links
to the chain, to extend the possible scope of action, and some even get to
be link designers, and ultimately a small group of people determine the
over-all properties of the chain; the possible kinds of chain inhabit an
enormous Platonic "chain space", but all share the defining property of
interlocking links, and no-one is allowed to make a chain not-a-chain, by
severing the links.  Authoritarians love this, and libertarians hate it.

>                                             All Boeing employees are free
>to *leave the company* if they don't like it.

You seem almost grateful that you were allowed to do this, as if this were
something they didn't really *have* to do, but, out of the goodness of their
hearts, permitted.

>                                              The citizens of the east-bloc
>countries were forcibly prevented from leaving. If they did manage to escape,
>their families got persecuted. Can you honestly compare this to Boeing?

I will admit that when set up next to the Khmer Rouge, in the "lineup of
oppressors", Boeing looks like Mother Teresa, a paragon of utter benevolence,
I'm sure.  That seems like an honest (and hopefully accurate) comparison.
Do you suggest that Boeing and ex-EastBloc countries are incomparable,
essentially different orders of being?  Hmph.  What one does with bullets,
the other does with a click of a mouse and a flurry of IP packets.

The biggest difference is in personal placement of the corporate totem:
in the case of the EastBloc countries, it was a cap device; at Boeing it's
placed just below the hanky pocket, on one's blazer :) :) .

Really, Walter, the differences you cite are ones of degree only.
-- 
kurt@grogatch.celestial.com (Kurt Cockrum)
e-mail me at kurt@eskimo.celestial.com for a copy of Bob Black's essay,
"The Abolition of Work"