From: bright@nazgul.UUCP (Walter Bright)
Newsgroups: pnw.general
Subject: Re: government still at large (was Re: FDA still at large)
Date: 17 Aug 92 17:48:56 GMT
Reply-To: bright@nazgul.UUCP (Walter Bright)
Organization: Zortech, Seattle

In article <1992Aug16.234808.13295@eskimo.celestial.com> kurt@eskimo.celestial.com (Kurt Cockrum) writes:
/In article <897@nazgul.UUCP> bright@nazgul.UUCP (Walter Bright) writes:
/>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.

Exactly. The Constitution and the force of law. We at last agree on something!

/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.

The key phrase here is "used to work". I infer from this that you quit because
you didn't like it. Great! Ask a political prisoner sometime how easy it
was to quit when they didn't like it...

/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

I got that kind of pressure when I worked at Boeing (except this time it
was contributions to United Way). I got a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle
pressure to contribute (like being called into my supervisor's office to
explain why I didn't give). Naturally, the reason I didn't give was because
I object to being intimidated into it. Anyway, as you are all aware, I quit
long ago.

/>     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?

Have you ever paid someone to mow your lawn? Did you not agree on a price?
Did both of you live up to your side of the bargain? Was any force involved?
When you agree to work for a corporation, you basically agree to exchange
labor at their direction for money. You also have the right to terminate the
agreement, usually with 2 weeks notice.

/>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.

I'm grateful to live in a country where my right to leave is guaranteed by
the Constitution and by law. I am not dependent on the enlightened benevolence
of any corporation.

/>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?
/What one does with bullets,
/the other does with a click of a mouse and a flurry of IP packets.

I have an aversion to bullets entering my body.

/Really, Walter, the differences you cite are ones of degree only.

OK, I admit they are differences of degree. Sort of like the difference
between ice and steam is a difference only of degree :-)


As an aside, there are a lot of idiots who want slaves to work for them. And
I mean idiots. Slavery used to be common practice worldwide, but it gradually
died out as the world became more industrialized. It really didn't die out
because of moral outrage (that was the surface reason). It died out because
slavery is inefficient compared to work by freemen. With slavery, you extract
work by coercion and threats of physical punishment. If I was a slave, I would
work as little as possible, I would sabotage what I could get away with, and
I would entertain constant thoughts of sticking a knife in my master. If I was
a master, I would be constantly trying to protect myself from my slaves trying
to kill me. This situation is certainly not conducive to efficient production.
Although I have disliked some of the bosses I have worked for, and I have
employed people, I have never entertained thoughts of abuse of either my
bosses or employees. I knew if I didn't treat my employees right, they would
leave, and there was nothing I could do to prevent it. I depended on their
goodwill and voluntary willingness to work, and I tried to set up attractive
working conditions for them.
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