Are you just using "fascist dictatorships" as a generic label for things you don't like? The things you've listed might be bad, but they're neither dictatorial nor fascist. It's even questionable whether some of the things are even bad. Don't we all try to minimize our tax burden? Is there anyone out there who refuse tax credits because that means "paying less taxes"?
That has been the pattern for the last 10 years.
> The things you've listed might be bad, but they're neither dictatorial nor fascist.
Uhh I'm pretty sure that CEOs/executives act very similar to dictators. Large companies certainly don't act like democracies. Companies often employ many forms of totalitarian control used by fascist dictatorships. There's often mass surveillance (mouse trackers, email auditing, etc), suppression of speech, suppression of opposition, fear of termination, cult of personality.
The tax stuff is irrelevant imo though
Where does employment/voluntary association end and "fascist dictator" begin? If you're being paid for your time, it's only fair that whoever's paying you can monitor your work and decide what you're doing. I agree that some businesses go beyond this and try to regulate what you do outside of work, but it's a stretch to make a broad claim like "businesses are tiny little fascist dictatorships". That makes as much sense as "governments are tiny little fascist dictatorships", just because some of them are authoritarian.
> The report somehow fails to mention the bit where the Silicon Valley VC and executive crowd worked their backsides off to elect Trump and several of them sat in the front row at his inauguration. Then they were actually surprised when the leopard ate their faces too.
They vibe with Trump because they have the same training, and they've done very little actual democratic governance. Very little thinking about the common good. You can argue most companies are actually more like benign dictatorships, but that's irrelevant.
To be fair I'm often a fan of markets, but not when the companies are monopolies larger than most nation states, actively increasing inequality and fighting counters like regulation/unions, not to mention affecting elections like fb/musk. In that case it's not voluntary. Wikipedia has an entire section on market failures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure
All I am saying is that there certainly are similarities between the way fascist governments and large corporations, not that they are the same thing.
Based on your response, it sounds like you agree that companies often act in an authoritarian manner, its just that you think it is justified in some way.
To be clear, I am not making a value statement here, I am just pointing out similarities between two systems. I don't claim to have better systems for managing corporations. Tbh, I wouldnt want the majority of my coworkers calling the shots and if I was CEO, I would work to consolidate power
I disagree. It is authoritarian to assume ownership over someone's body. It doesn't matter how much you've paid. You cannot compel someone to labor.
Strong unions are another alternative to totalitarian control of companies. Not ideal, but there are plenty of examples throughout history.
I'm not claiming these alternatives are better or worse, I'm just pointing out that other systems are possible and already exist.
Fwiw, whenever my team has done democratic planning it has always led to bad outcomes
The puzzle should be considered exciting. If I've learned one thing in life it is that it is easy to do better than a thousand people convinced it can't be done. Illusions of grandeur are useful.
As the article points out, there is a lack of a long term plan. If there is such a thing (however idiotic) you can promise specific taxes and regulations for things that get in the way and specific tax breaks and subsidies for projects complimenting it. It has to be clear and specific so that one can bank on it. NIMBY is fine, you get a reasonable bill for it.
One member one vote doesn't seem very imaginative.
Compared to a dictator a focused team effort will have better results but a set of people who don't care or have an overly limited grasp of the topic won't do well. This probably doesn't matter to much if things are going well.
I fool around with the concept of department specific voting certificates with each component of the department written into its own "law" that one can vote yes/no and remove on. Each cert adding weight to the vote. People writing the rules are elected by the same mechanic. To activate a rule or board member it needs 55% "yes" to deactivate it needs 55% "no" and to remove it needs 65%.
One can participate in all departments and each certificate comes with a small pay raise.
For a long time Silicon Valley tried to avoid politics, or at least that was the vibe of everyone. But even in the 1980s, when Japan was rising and threatening to outcompete the US semiconductor industry, Captains of Industry that had been former strident libertarians went hat in hand to Uncle Sam to tilt the field to favor their survival.
"avoid politics" was true for some stripes of participants and completely not true for others.. It is true IMHO that consumer gear generated a lot of success and was largely apolitical.
The Nazis very happily and intentionally worked together with corporations and the corporations were happy to exploit the free slave labor and lack of competition.
Wall Street is built on looting the pensions of retirees.
The American economy has always been “already absurdly rich person takes 9 of the widgets worker produced and leaves workers 1 to share.”
In the money printer era this allowed big salaries for some compared to the norm but the rich still took their 9 too.
We wrapped mafia like thug behavior of the pre and post war world into empty semantics.
The only option for unlocking a massive amount of liquidity for the public to stabilize their individual situations is taxing the rich.
A rich man, a blue-collar worker, and an immigrant are sitting around a table. In the center of the table is a plate of a dozen cookies. The rich man takes 11 of them, then leans in and whispers to the blue-collar worker "hey, I think that guy wants your cookie."
All our best thinkers, the propaganda goes. Their best idea for the economy is submit the status quo.
Their biology lives the experience every day that as a knowledge worker with little real world skill at providing for themselves, it’s actually they who are the most easily manipulated and kowtowed.