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colonel_beeeees t1_jcb6w5f wrote

Reply to comment by Ahab_Ali in A tech boss appointed by Italy's prime minister resigned after quoting a speech from fascist dictator Mussolini in an internal email by 777fer

I like how Americans think that they live in a democracy when they have no democratic control over their authoritarian workplaces, where they spend most of their days

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ShakaWTWF t1_jcbegf7 wrote

Nah, I got a pretty good Union and my company is pretty generous anyway (free health insurance, unlimited sick days, optional Friday “work from home”days, performance based bonuses, etc.)

I know this isn’t necessarily the case for everyone tho.

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colonel_beeeees t1_jcben02 wrote

Yup! Wish I was in a unionized workforce

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ShakaWTWF t1_jcbgcuf wrote

It’s nice when you have a good Union. I’ve worked places with shitty Unions too, which was almost as bad as not having one.

That said, working for a good company helps too.

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Toxicz t1_jccvidv wrote

Insane to imagien that you need a Union to have a healthy work environment (as a European).

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engineeringstoned t1_jceeow1 wrote

You might want to look at the difference unions made - and continue to make - in Europe.

The 5 day work week did not happen by accident.

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FirmEstablishment941 t1_jccwdw3 wrote

It’s not essential… some times the proximity of one is enough… unfortunately Canada is following USAs lead on that front in many ways… at least we’re more closely aligned to the eu with respect to parental leave.

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ddraeg t1_jcfntdt wrote

How do you imagine your work environemnt turned out that way?

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arbutus1440 t1_jcbd9m8 wrote

That's such a weird way of putting it.

I think more Americans realize how post-democracy we are than you think.

And our "authoritarian workplaces" are a shitty example. How about the fact that our government just took away abortion rights that almost everybody wants, that climate change is ignored despite the majority wanting it addressed, or the fact that large companies get to dump waste, steal wages, predate on lenders, and rig prices with impunity?

FFS everybody stop making fascism about PERSONAL FAILINGS of such and such a population. The rise and fall of authoritarianism is a force of history, and we have to fight it for what it is, not what makes it easy for us to pigeonhole and redirect so we don't feel any personal responsibility to act.

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E_Snap t1_jcckyyi wrote

It is about personal failings of the population though. If we were able to stop rabidly chasing our own goals at the expense of everyone else, the political elite couldn’t divide and conquer us. Here’s a video explaining how this happens. By manipulating the order in which policies are voted on and always making sure that each successive policy alienates a different out group, politicians play our selfish interests against each other to get us to vote our way out of a stable compromise and into a legal policy that no demographic wants.

This is to say: when politicians start pandering to a rotating cast of a slight majority of the population and telling each group left that they already had their turn and to wait, that’s tantamount to gerrymandering. “Progressive” politics (in name only, obviously) repeatedly fall prey to this. They’ll strategically let each demographic successively drag the window of what is appropriate far into their own court. This wild back-and-forth-and-to-the-side swinging eventually walks the window into a portion of “legal policy space” where the obvious and easily passable compromise between all demographics is something that would be considered shocking and outlandish to most of the general population.

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arbutus1440 t1_jccwhkx wrote

I really don't get why people keep framing it this way. Scientifically, and from an evolutionary perspective, it's utter nonsense.

>chasing our own goals at the expense of everyone else

...is what our species has done throughout its entire existence.

>politicians play our selfish interests against each other

...as they always have, throughout our entire history.

People keep talking about these things as if somehow people could ever do anything different. They can't.

"Human nature" is a phantom opponent. We are who we are. We're not evolved to do things like separate truth from fiction when the truth threatens our well-being. It's just evolutionary fact. People do what they're wired to do, and expecting people to all behave like model citizens when that's literally never happened in the history of our species is just a recipe for frustration and futility.

Focus your ire on the systems. The hippies were right, and they've always been right: It's capitalism. It's the plutocracy. It's the corruption. All of these are reversible—human nature isn't. Stop getting mad at people and start getting mad at systems. It's not emotionally satisfying but it's what's gotta happen if we're gonna survive.

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E_Snap t1_jccz4ul wrote

Lol no, it’s democracy that’s the problem. Corruption, plutocracy, tribalism, and capitalistic tendencies arise out of even small differences between demographics when they are given the “right” to vote based upon their prejudices, and you’ve already decided that we can’t expect voters to make informed decisions.

People like to slant-quote Churchill and say “Yeah whatever, democracy sucks but it sucks least out of everything we’ve tried,” as if we did a 100% no-reload completion of the game of History and we don’t need to try new things anymore (or give old underutilized ideas another shot). I’m here to say fuck that— we are still evolving our society. Anyone who says that the current status quo is the best we can do is trying to sell you a bridge. All democracy does is placate the masses for trying when the politicians inevitably choose to go their own way anyway.

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9Hero t1_jcbd5jb wrote

What does this post have to do with Americans?

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CoolPractice t1_jcckout wrote

Democracy is a political structure, labor is a socioeconomic structure. Yes we absolutely live in a democracy but the socioeconomic structure for labor is capitalism. Capitalism doesn’t give a shit about who controls the workplace as long as it’s the one with the most money.

Swing and a miss. But nice try shitting on people at the bottom rung for no reason I guess.

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select_L0L t1_jcbsei1 wrote

The fuck kind of argument is that? “Democratic control over a workplace” is quite possibly the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a while, especially while trying to say that a country isn’t a democracy because of that

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cheese131999 t1_jcbzg2o wrote

Someone’s never heard of a co-op.

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select_L0L t1_jcc005s wrote

I think you missed the part in the comment I responded to where the person claimed the US wasn’t a democracy because we don’t have democratic control over our workplace. You quite literally missed the whole point they were making, and yet you still defended it

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cheese131999 t1_jcc1mpu wrote

I mean, you said democratic control over the workplace is the dumbest thing you’ve heard in a while, which I think is the dumbest thing that IVE heard in a while. Unions are democratic control over a workplace. If you really meant that calling the US an undemocratic nation by virtue of all of us not all being in unions or co-ops is stupid, you have an actual point there. I still disagree with it, as an American, but at least it’s not extolling your ignorance as a virtue.

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select_L0L t1_jccg47g wrote

Unions are most definitely not a democratic control over the workplace. Hell, one of the biggest battles for unions is getting the company to listen to them

But yeah, my point was about the US not being a democracy because of that. At least we can agree on that, which was what the original comment was trying to say

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cheese131999 t1_jcchxq2 wrote

Ill freely admit I straight up didn't see your second half of the comment, to the point where I thought you edited it until I saw that wasn't the case. My bad, does no one any good to argue against a strawman.

In any case, our unions aren't near as good or as effective as the unions in Europe, and the difficulty they have in trying to get companies to listen to them is indicative of the problems we have. Our democracy is subverted by the cold truth that companies buy out our politicians, which means that unions are disempowered by both federal and state lawmakers.

Our government works to ensure that the work place can only function as a dictatorship, and they push the narrative that unions are weak and ineffectual and just take your money through dues. The government made things this way.

I mean for Christ's sake, Biden busted the most important strike in this country in probably the last three decades, and we're already seeing the horrific consequences.

This country is democratic, more so than a lot of places, but it is wildly less democratic in our day to day lives than a lot of our allies in Europe. It's not hard to see why they think we live in an authoritarian hellhole, because by comparison to what they've got, we freaking do.

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OwnFeedback3239 t1_jccjym4 wrote

yeah fucking wild, jesus christ. economic literacy is not very common

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freediverx01 t1_jcesbnw wrote

We have no control over our government either.

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Javaman2001 t1_jcf83rk wrote

We don’t live in a democracy. We live in Constitional Democratic Republic which is quite different than a democracy.

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colonel_beeeees t1_jcfcnnj wrote

I wish WWII vets could zombie out of their graves and slap all you ninnies so willing to give up your say in your govt

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Javaman2001 t1_jch0vxi wrote

You think I made en error? In The USA you don’t get to vote on any laws, your representative does. And even if all his constituents want him to vote one way he can disagree and vote the other way. The only thing you can do is vote him out office at the next election. Democracy often results in tyranny of the majority over the minorities and often the majority is wrong.

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AceWanker3 t1_jcbinln wrote

> they have no democratic control over their authoritarian workplaces

I can leave at any time I want, I can choose where I work

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Plebs-_-Placebo t1_jcbjd04 wrote

I once worked with a boss who said about the job, this is a dictatorship not a democracy, and he wasn't really joking.

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AceWanker3 t1_jcbmat7 wrote

Yeah, and you can leave. Obviously a company isn't a democracy, if you think it should be you are delusional

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colonel_beeeees t1_jcc5kw5 wrote

Leaving an uncontrollable situation isn't exerting control over a situation

The vast majority of American workers have no real democratic say in their working schedule, environment, or compensation. They spend the majority of their waking life under authoritarian rules

The already mentioned exceptions would be union or co-op workplaces, where workers actually have control/negotiating power

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CoolPractice t1_jccotrg wrote

Having agency is the definition of exerting control. No one is holding you hostage at work. If you hate the rules and the situation, leave. Start your own business like millions of Americans do. Find a better job, like millions of Americans do. Study for certs/diplomas if you have to, like millions of Americans do.

It’s incredibly naive to think unions or co-ops don’t have presidents and boards at the top making the important moves. Deciding which votes are made, for what. The IATSE strike threat was a perfect example of this: the workers were in a great dealmaking position when the union leaders drafted a deal that failed to address core issues. It’s always top down, in every situation. The only real solution is to be the decision maker.

Or to simply accept that life doesn’t allow you have 100% of the power 100% of the time.

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AceWanker3 t1_jccgemz wrote

It's not authoritarian if it's part of a voluntary exchange. It's like playing monopoly and then complaining that you can't pick where you land, if you hate the rules don't play.

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colonel_beeeees t1_jccvq95 wrote

When the alternative to what someone's offering is homeless and starvation, the exchange is no longer voluntary. Hence the term wage slavery

What do you do if no employer in your town is paying a wage that covers the bills? Use your power to leave... to where?

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AceWanker3 t1_jccxij7 wrote

another town, start a business. If you are angry that you do in fact need to provide the stuff in life you want (food/shelter) then you're problem is with the state of nature

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colonel_beeeees t1_jcd49n2 wrote

How do you move you and your family to the high paying town with high rents if you haven't been able to find a job that lets you save?

You're also ignoring the again large amount it requires to start a business, when you haven't been able to save. All it takes is a subpar credit score to keep someone from getting a loan

The actual long-term solution is to work to unionize your workplace, or move to co-op/public ownership. Why run from a problem when you can fix it?

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sosomething t1_jcdyqms wrote

Well here's the awesome thing about geography- there's lots of it.

You don't have to live in a place with a high cost of living.

In most of those places; coastal cities, Chicago, NY; the increase in your wages isn't commensurate with the increased cost of living compared to an emerging city or town. Someone making $80k in Cincinnati lives a lot better than the same person making $120k in Chicago. And that's only if your skills are the type that aren't marketable in towns without a tech sector. Although with emergent decentralized workforces and remote work, even that is becoming less of a factor.

I could do my job from anywhere with a halfway decent ISP, which means I could do it for any company that wanted to hire me and then live more or less wherever I wanted. Why, then, would I choose to pay $2000/mo for a shitty apartment in a major city when I could live like a king somewhere else?

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