Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Truean]

http://www.eater.com/2015/4/30/8523761/pregnant-popeyes-employee-fired-robbery-lawsuit-5-million

You know what? Good. I'm sick of people's lives having NO value whatsoever to companies, to the point where having a literal gun to your head doesn't even mean anything. Jesus, she's supposed to get shot and probably die over something they should carry insurance over anyhow?

She's pregnant, and has kids and is just trying to support her family. Company doesn't care about being at gunpoint and refusal to do what the armed robber says possibly causing death or severe injury and creating corpses and orphans, because that's nearly $400....

http://www.eater.com/2015/4/22/8467177/popeyes-employee-pregnant-robbed-gunpoint-fired-texas

I am so sick of company profits and bottom lines having literally no limits even to the point of an innocent person losing their life over less than a week's wages being considered reasonable.... I'm sorry, but hitting companies like this where it hurts, in the wallet, is the only thing they will ever understand. We can talk about humanity and ethics and the value of human life, and coercion at literal gunpoint, but they don't care about any of that. The only thing that will move the people saying they don't care if an armed robber has a gun in your face (not their face, yours) is a massive monetary damages award.

[Frumple]

Well, that's certainly more than the 2k the company offered. Think I hope they settle, though -- I'm not sure if the case could actually get through a court. Texas is one of those at-will states, and abhorrent as th'company's actions were m'fairly sure it doesn't constitute discrimination against a protected class

On the other hand, it going to court could cost popeye's a fairly significant penny, both in court costs and public opinion, so I'd tentatively wager a settlement of some sort isn't entirely unlikely. Who knows how much less it'll be, though...

Best of luck to her either way. As you say, T, most of the time companies only really sit up and pay attention when you kick them in the wallet.

[Sheb]

Well, especially since it was apparently a franchise and not the company itself, so it's not clear what the company is liable for.

[SalmonGod]

Pretty much everything stems from the fact that all of the world's resources are controlled by people who don't personally need or understand them as anything more than, at most, numbers on a spreadsheet, and who leverage those resources against other's needs to gain further control of more resources in a big imaginary number game.  No more big imaginary number game - no more incentive or means by which to engage in this bullshit.

Of course, no more ability to transport goods or services from one location to another, or provide disaster relief, or manage soup kitchens. What you are describing here is literally the entire processes of accounting, banking, applied statistics, and pretty much every aspect of mercantilism. Somebody has to do things like count different demands and manage transportation and service networks, and the fact of the matter is that those numbers are so large in most cases that it's impossible to have a single person actually grasp their scale as anything other than numbers.

Without that "big imaginary number game" you are literally describing libertarian socialism; which humanity has shown that, despite working pretty well on a tiny scale, does not scale up nicely. At all. People are:
1) Too selfish
and
2) Unable to easily grasp numbers that large
to be able to make such a system to work well.

Libertarian socialist is the most accurate political label for me.  If by humanity you mean that history has shown this doesn't scale, then my response is that any examples more than 20 years old are not relevant to modern day.  Plus, it also depends on what you want most out of society.  Some people want material comfort more than freedom and peace of mind.  I'm not one of those people.

Anyway, to explain my point: 
The function of society is a matter of organization.
Organization has two essential components.  And I obviously mean organization between people, not organization like the files on your desk.

1.  Uniting goals
2.  Sharing information

Both of these things are limited primarily by our ability to communicate, and our ability to communicate today is completely incomparable to our ability to communicate more than 20 years ago.  We have the potential now to organize in ways that have never been possible before in history. 

Just because we have historically tackled the problems you mention by a certain methodology doesn't mean that is the only possible methodology, given a different set of circumstances to work with. 

What mercantilism/capitalism did for us historically is:
1. Unite our goals according to a shared motivation, which was accumulation of material wealth.  Organizations form with a united goal to providing specific goods/services, according to the motivation of receiving material reward for doing so, and instructional feedback per #2.
2. Circumvent the need for direct information sharing between people by abstracting social feedback into economics, which could be analyzed for instructions to guide individual behavior.

But today... we don't need these shitty work-arounds.  People can communicate with each other on any scale, numeric or geographical, and that communication can be converted into easily digestible data at will.  We could literally make a website that just collects data on what communities and individuals want/need, and automatically put those entities in connection with others that have the capability to provide those things.  Bam.  Functioning society.  The only problems are rooted in cultural inertia, not logistics.

[Angle]

I'm not convinced it'll be so easy, but I do think there is significant potential for improvement.

[SalmonGod]

I'm not convinced it'll be so easy, but I do think there is significant potential for improvement.

Of course, I'm simplifying for the sake of discussion.  My point is there's no reason for us to be so rooted in existing paradigm.

[Helgoland]

SG, picking a fight argument with you is usually rather productive, so I'll give it a shot:

my response is that any examples more than 20 years old are not relevant to modern day.

This is not categorically true. Sure, there may be/are past failings that may be circumvented by modern technology, but you'd have to do an in-depth analysis to find out whether that's true of each and every one of them. Do not underestimate the power and capabilities of 20th century bureaucracies!

Plus, it also depends on what you want most out of society.  Some people want material comfort more than freedom and peace of mind.  I'm not one of those people.

Sadly what you or him or I want out of society hardly matters. What matters is what most people want - and material comfort is pretty high on that list. If your ideology (I don't use that word with a negative connotation, by the way) does not account for that, it will never pick up. The Soviets had to learn that lesson, the aristocratic industrialists had to learn that lesson. There's no way to impose a societal order for any significant amount of time if it is not accepted by a broad majority.

The function of society is a matter of organization.
Organization has two essential components. [...]
1.  Uniting goals
2.  Sharing information

Both of these things are limited primarily by our ability to communicate,

You forgot a third component: Structuring and prioritizing said information. A huge infodump is worthless: Wikipedia without links would be a perfect example. Sure, one could try to get the collective to do the structuring, but then you'll run into the problem that the 'uniting goals' usually aren't that well-defined when it comes to the details. Look at the Wikipedia edit wars if you want proof. Thus we get a fourth component which you also overlook: Leadership, which is the interpretation and adaption of said uniting goals, turning abstract goals into concrete commands and orders - or guidelines and practices, if you want a less militaristic rhetoric.

and our ability to communicate today is completely incomparable to our ability to communicate more than 20 years ago.

Again, don't underestimate 20th century bureaucracies. This smells like hybris. (IIRC there were similar utopian ideas floating around during the revolutions of 1789 and 1917 - it's hardly a new phenomenon. The rule of thumb remains: We probably aren't that special.)

We have the potential now to organize in ways that have never been possible before in history.

What ways? Quit using abstract terms and get into the details! Unless you provide plausible examples, this is a mere assertion.

But today... we don't need these shitty work-arounds.  People can communicate with each other on any scale, numeric or geographical, and that communication can be converted into easily digestible data at will.

How does the ability to communicate faster make those 'shitty workarounds' obsolete? The mere existence of the internet doesn't provide anyone with an incentive to do something. All I see is that is has made these 'shitty workarounds' better, that is even more efficient.
(I also don't know why you call those workarounds 'shitty' - they appear to have worked out pretty well, haven't they? At least in Europe - that America is such a shithole in some places is hardly the fault of capitalism, but rather of the English because they drove all those religious nuts out of the country and to the colonies.)

We could literally make a website that just collects data on what communities and individuals want/need, and automatically put those entities in connection with others that have the capability to provide those things.  Bam.  Functioning society.  The only problems are rooted in cultural inertia, not logistics.

Well, you'd still need someone to input the data into the website, and to collect it in the first place - that's the first problem. Then you'd need some way to motivate those with the capability to provide the things that are needed to actually do the providing - the website itself doesn't do that, that's the second problem. And finally, there's the fact that your hypothetical website does precisely the same thing as, for example, the Soviet bureaucracy - why should it work any better than that? Again, don't underestimate 20th century bureaucracies. That's the third problem.

[SalmonGod]

I do very much want to respond to you, but I must restrain myself for now, or I know I will get carried away into something far too time-consuming.  I have some important things to do tonight that I need to leave time for, and it's already 9:30 pm here.

[Angle]

Hmm. This is interesting. I think the problems are more complicated than that, though - You're essentially trying to solve for all of civilization. That's no small feat. I think we might be better off if we start by defining what our goals for this discussion are. What exactly are we discussing? For that matter, do you want to create a new thread for it?

[Reelya]

There have been no states in history that have tried a local version of socialism scaled-up, so examples such as the Soviet Union don't really say anything about how it would work.

The core principle of Marx's idea of communism, was unironically enough "communes". And these were basically supposed to be democratic bodies which answer directly to their members. If you have a worker's commune in which the workers have the power, this clearly implies you have voting and possibly electing managers and leaders. The idea of a central "party" who impose control and strip workers of any say is thus the opposite of this idea, not a "scaled up" version.

"Scaling that up" you'd have regional councils to which each commune would elect representatives. i.e. a scaled-up truly "Marxist" socialism would basically be a democratic state. The main difference is that modern states have two parallel heirarchies - economic and political, whereas in Marxism, the local communes own the means of production, so there is only one heirarchy. Another way to state this is the term "industrial democracy".

Every so-called "communist" nation either exterminated or never bothered with creating communes or decentralizing decision making. So, basically they did things the opposite to what Marx called for. It was like that pretty much from Day 1 of the Russian Revolution, so no-one has really tried these ideas. The closest was the anarchist CNT in Spain during the Spanish civil war. They organised factories along Anarcho-Syndicalist policies (which resemble many features of Marxist grass-roots communism), and were very effective. They didn't collapse due to their economic policies, they were wiped out by fascists in tanks, backstabbed by the Soviets and refused aid by the capitalists. One thing centralized statists (Soviets, Fascists and Capitalists)  all agreed on was that true rule by workers was not a thing they were happy with. Basically all the centralized statist powers have actively conspired to prevent grass-roots leftism from ever getting a start.

[Helgoland]

Do note that SG's proposed website is a centralist instrument par excellence. How would scaling up a local solution even work without introducing centralist elements?

[Antsan]

There have been no states in history that have tried a local version of socialism scaled-up, so examples such as the Soviet Union don't really say anything about how it would work.

The core principle of Marx's idea of communism, was unironically enough "communes". And these were basically supposed to be democratic bodies which answer directly to their members. If you have a worker's commune in which the workers have the power, this clearly implies you have voting and possibly electing managers and leaders. The idea of a central "party" who impose control and strip workers of any say is thus the opposite of this idea, not a "scaled up" version.

"Scaling that up" you'd have regional councils to which each commune would elect representatives. i.e. a scaled-up truly "Marxist" socialism would basically be a democratic state. The main difference is that modern states have two parallel heirarchies - economic and political, whereas in Marxism, the local communes own the means of production, so there is only one heirarchy. Another way to state this is the term "industrial democracy".

Every so-called "communist" nation either exterminated or never bothered with creating communes or decentralizing decision making. So, basically they did things the opposite to what Marx called for. It was like that pretty much from Day 1 of the Russian Revolution, so no-one has really tried these ideas. The closest was the anarchist CNT in Spain during the Spanish civil war. They organised factories along Anarcho-Syndicalist policies (which resemble many features of Marxist grass-roots communism), and were very effective. They didn't collapse due to their economic policies, they were wiped out by fascists in tanks, backstabbed by the Soviets and refused aid by the capitalists. One thing centralized statists (Soviets, Fascists and Capitalists)  all agreed on was that true rule by workers was not a thing they were happy with. Basically all the centralized statist powers have actively conspired to prevent grass-roots leftism from ever getting a start.

You're correct about Communism here, but don't confuse it with Socialism.

[SirQuiamus]

*clip*

What you call "libertarian socialism" is certainly a worthy ideal, but I would rather get rid of the whole libertarian part. But that's not the crucial issue here: What bothers me is that I'm forced to use the term ideal, because that's what every non-capitalist ideology has been reduced to in public discourse. Every leftist proposal, be it libertarian or authoritarian, is instantly shot down by the chanting clergy of Capital, who see absolutely nothing wrong with the unholy alliance of Market Forces and Realpolitik. Only the current system is feasible, everything else is categorically unfeasible.

The ones within the hegemonic bubble can no longer comprehend external criticism, and the same pattern keeps repeating itself in their responses to attempts to burst their bubble:

"Immaterial commodities are worthless! Let's abolish fetishism and establish a real-value economy!"

"But Money is the real thing in our society! People and ordinary things are transient and illusory, but Money is objective and eternal – it is who you are, and what others are to you. Money is your real self, embrace it!"

There's no question that capitalism reaches much deeper than the superficial organization of society: We are obscenely turned on by the commodity-form, and it feels awfully natural to replace all real societal relationships with mediated, imaginary ones.

...but that's all on the ideological level; there are also practical obstacles that are created by globalization, and reinforced by our hedonism. Let's say, for example, that an organic microbrewery in northern Indiana is producing the best damn beer in the entire universe, and I want to have a glass of that, no matter what. Without money and market economy, no-one is going to export that stuff halfway across the globe just so that I could drink it – I'd have to directly contact the brewer and try to strike up some kind of a deal, but what could I offer in exchange for his products, and their transportation? It's not possible to send material goods over the internet, and in any case, it really is kind of unfeasible to build a personal relationship with each and every person on the global production chain – if that chain exists on the enormous, present scale.

As people keep saying over and over again, the feasible solution is the commune – not a planet-wide, digital marketplace of immaterial goods and services, but a closely knit physical community with enough resources and production capacity to manufacture everything its members could (reasonably) need. An organized, democratic state formed by such self-sufficient units would be an ideal society, in my opinion.         



   

 

[SirQuiamus]

Ah money. Worth everything until it's no longer used, at which point it's not worth what it's made of.

Money is never worth what it's made of: It's always something more, and not even hyperinflation can obliterate its other-worldly magic.

[SirQuiamus]

Ah money. Worth everything until it's no longer used, at which point it's not worth what it's made of.

Money is never worth what it's made of: It's always something more, and not even hyperinflation can obliterate its other-worldly magic.

Not sure WHAT you're getting at here. Unless you mean it's worth more than what it's made of, in which case it's both not true (IIRC a 2 pence coin is worth something like 5 pence), and that's not what the phrase means.

If we suddenly swapped over to using sea shells as currency, all the money we had on us would suddenly become worth the metal or linen/cotton they're made of.

I was mostly just being facetious, not actually getting at anything.

...but really, the subjective material value of a tuppence coin has nothing to do with its objective monetary value: Only the number upon that piece of metal has any importance in our capitalist system, and that number does not even need the support of a physical medium like metal or paper – or sea shells, for that matter.