Your boss is a dictator over your life, personal capitalism

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I know that there is a libertarian argument that capitalism is the natural sister of democracy. That the free market is true economic liberty of personal responsibility, free will and voluntary choice. And you have an uncle named John Galt who used to have to lick toilets clean but then invented a autolicker and became a trillionaire. For the moment lets just leave that theoretical argument to the side.

What is the reality? In the USA all workers are at-will. Which means you can be fired for any reason whatsoever save race or sex. For rooting for another sports team, for complaining about an abusive employee, for doing your job too good, for listening to your manager, for asking for a raise or a pay decrease. For any reason whatsoever. So your boss has basically godlike omnipotent power over your life. Since there is limited welfare, its not impossible to starve from poverty so it literally is life and death. Without getting into a theoretical debate about capitalism, on a personal level its hard for me to just accept that some of the worst people in the world, the alpha male wolves should have such arbitrary power over my life. When you think that the lion's share of your time revolves around work, and your job pays your bills for the offhours. Since we're all such individualists, whats the solution for the individual. I guess theres the claim that anyone can be an entrepreneur. But for a young guy right out of college, what are the options really? Boss or death. I don't know if I can endure hierarchy and authority. Perhaps a public sector job would be better since then at least there is a system of checks and balances between unions and management, so its more like a constitutional monarchy. And in an indirect sense you are working for yourself since you elect the government you work for. Technically you can elect your boss out of office but its a rather tortuous process and not reality. Most you can really do is write your congressman complaining.

So I guess for me the question is both personal and philosophical. They feed off each other. I can sort of predict the responses. Its the boss' property so he can do whatever the hell he likes. And I should just toughen up and take my punches. Democracy has been such a big deal in my life politically and philosophically that I forgot to examine democracy in my personal life. I think this was a big mistake in college, because I took a pretty antagonistic view towards college life, when in reality there is more democracy there through hall councils, SA, and clubs than in the real world. Now college is over, and there is very little democracy in the real world. It seems individualism is valued over democracy. We are all lone atoms. There is value to that. But on the other hand you deal with your neighbors as atoms, not as a democratic body. Few people even know their local government. I'm very political and have no idea. And the small town Dem and Rep parties are surprisingly closed off, you would think they would WANT more members. So I started off with a sort of Jeffersonian democratic vision of the yeoman farmer breaking up the landed estates and farming his own land ruling his own nation like the Atheninan democrat or the New England Town meetings. With the values of a old New England town. But as I searched for daily life democracy I became more radical.

So I don't know what the solution is metaphysically or personally. Can this world be made livable? Can I put up with a job? To get a job is the ultimate affirmation of life. Its saying to the universe I'm satisfied with the decades that have come before, and I'm willing to work, fight and struggle to preserve whatever I already have. I'm not sure if I'm ready to take that leap of faith and affirm my past life for the future.

liberal bourgeois democracy is founded on capitalism, in fact can't exist without it (and it needs to have developed to a certain level, which is why it exists in western europe and north america, but will ultimately collapse in Iraq and Afghanistan). There are other forms of democracy, based on different forms of economy (such as the Jeffersonian/agrarian one you speak of), but to achieve these means changing the economy.

I think your first two paragraphs hit the kernel of the issue, you have that freedom guaranteed by the free market, but in order to survive you must become a wage-slave. It is both a paradox and absolutely infuriating.

If one finds his boss or his job unappealing he should quit forthwith. Slavery is not legal in the U.S.. Unless one is serving a prison term, he cannot be forced to work at any particular job.

If you don't like it, then quit.

ruveyn

pretty sure enamdar has covered why he can't just walk out

"Since there is limited welfare, its not impossible to starve from poverty so it literally is life and death. "

I believe we've run up agaisnt the limits of freedom in the free world here....

Well, basically untrue. He can reduce your income for a period of time at some personal cost to the workings of his system, but he only can do a set amount of damage, and the damage you take can be less based upon the number of beneficial social relationships you have, such as friends and organizations. Not only that, but if you think that your boss is crazy enough to do something like this, being careful in applying for a new job would not be a bad idea, as that way you can remove yourself from his presence if you get accepted.


Most systems have individuals who can and do exercise some level of arbitrary power. If everything is tightly bound in rules, then there is lacking flexibility and a red tape based cost because of that. It is not as if past systems didn't have issues of arbitrary power, instead it seems as if such issues were worse.


Well, that's probably because you lack a big idea of any sort and any way to start it off. I mean, people have started their big ideas after dropping out of college, much less graduating it. It is just that most people aren't entrepreneurs and such a move right off the bat can be incredibly risky.


The employer can still mess with you. For instance, I've heard that post offices have started moving people's jobs far away from the original location, partially as a means of getting rid of people. This avoids some of the problems of firing. In any case, I already brought forward the point of flexibility, and government employers are notably inflexible in their ability to deal with problems.


No you don't. You may fill out a ballot, but it has almost no influence on who actually gets into power. The only sense in which you work for yourself is that you can extract some benefit from your labor, but the extent to this might not be significant enough to be different from most jobs.


No. People were made to be miserable, because miserable beings will always look on the horizon for changes that can keep their DNA spreading. In addition, we were made riddled with absurdities, with more added on as time goes on, so absurdity seems unavoidable and absurdity is a bit far away from livability. I recognize that some may try to believe that people are rational at heart, but we are just a more advanced version of monkeys, and it is not as if people speak of the perfectibility of monkey-hood, so human perfection seems similarly bad.

Good thing that a person can change religions and get a new god, or climb Mt. Olympus and become a god them self.

If anything is true, it is that most people are better off now, as opposed to the olde days of tribes or feudalism, where they literally owned yerass.

When I see an important topic like this raised, an important point made, I have to start by congratulating anyone who sees things this way... it's a real emperor has no clothes situation... capitalism = freedom is the worst nonsense. It's anti-freedom for the vast majority of people.

Someone like Rand I think really saw most people as being a superfluous mass that are no different than draught animals. It's the only explanation. She said there must be no government regulation or control over business because businesses' plans can be ruined by government caprice. What about the individuals who are at the mercy of their bosses' caprice? They don't count, it's a simple as that. That means most of us don't count.

She spoke of individuality, of the evils of a collectivist system. Her capitalism is not unlike what existed in Dickensian times... surely those people working the sewing machines of the industrial revolution could not exactly express their individuality. They were cogs in a machine. She claimed to see inventors as very important. What about Nikola Tesla who died in poverty? Surely it's not FDR's New Deal that was responsible, it's that he had trouble with the financiers who are her real heroes and whose virtue is simply having their hands on the levers of power... not because they have contributed anything remotely useful to human advancement and achievement.

A beggar is his own man (or woman). A beggar works for no one but himself.

ruveyn

The Truth is that the US is far and away from being a free-market capitalist system. It is a socialist, corporatist system.

Socialist for some... we know who - Rand's supermen, that's who, not the "looters"...

Corporations are, by the way, creatures of government. No government, no corporations. I somehow doubt that Rand favoured the idea that governments should not recognise the existence of corporations, that this is not in their line, or even the idea that corporations should not be considered to be legal persons.

Take libertarian individualism to its logical conclusion - no clubs, no corporations, no unions, no cooperatives, no coalitions, no committees, no parties, nothing... just individuals. Who would advocate that out there?

Ultimately we are all enslaved by our body functions. Who controls those controls us.

I guess that the Randian view is that corporations could technically emerge naturally without governments.

"Corporations

A corporation is a union of human beings in a voluntary, cooperative endeavor. It exemplifies the principle of free association, which is an expression of the right to freedom. Any attributes which corporations have are attributes (or rights) which the individuals have—including the right to combine in a certain way, offer products under certain terms, and deal with others according to certain rules, for instance, limited liability.

An individual can say to a storekeeper, “I would like to have credit, but I put you on notice that if I can’t pay, you can’t attach my home—take it or leave it.” The storekeeper is free to accept those terms, or not. A corporation is a cooperative productive endeavor which gives a similar warning explicitly. It has no mystical attributes, no attributes that don’t go back to the rights of individuals, including their right of free association." - Leonard Peikoff

http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/corporations.html

I think that other libertarians have taken this stand.


I don't know what libertarian advocates eliminating all of those things. In fact, academic philosopher Robert Nozick is noted for claiming that by promoting individual freedom, we can promote the most beneficial relations of individuals to each other through essentially a market of organizational ideas. The major point to libertarian individualism is the non-existence of forced relations of any sort.

The mafia therefore is also kosher according to Rand as it qualifies as a corporation also.

A mafia is also a person therefore.

A trade union is also the result of cooperative association. Clearly trade unions should be persons also.

If a corporation is a person, can it be convicted of murder? Can it go to the electric chair?

It's not possible for everyone to have the maximum freedom. More freedom for some means less freedom for others. Rand's system provides the most freedom for a tiny elite, whilst the rest are little more than slaves. Thus, this system fails miserably in promoting freedom.

Perhaps the Rand philosophy is most outstanding in discriminating between humans. Her assumption is that there is the bulk of humans which are below contempt for their aspirations and life styles and are not worthy of consideration as humans. Then there are her elites who she presumes deserve a richer fuller life because of the personal characteristics she approves of. Instead of preferring blue eyes, white skin, and blond hair she has other qualifications.

But, is current society much different? There may be other qualifications than Rand's extant but still particular physical and mental characteristics have a very large say in a decent life.

so.....your saying the way to find freedom in the free market is to go and die in the gutter? Or is it that this freedom comes from taking the product of other peoples work, you just need to find an effective means of doing this?

hmmm, interesting.



sometimes they make you an offer you can't refuse...

Last edited by TitusLucretiusCarus on 24 Jul 2009, 12:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

Rand's advocates claim that her ideology is a formula for maximum freedom. This is false. I did say earlier that clearly, according to it, most people aren't fully human and do not count. A critic did say of "Atlas Shrugged" that every page seemed to say "To a gas chamber, go".

Yes, our society has the same characteristics - freedom is valued for some and not for others. Rand's version is one of the worst possible models and we are unfortunately headed in the direction of her dystopia of anti-freedom. Yet, hers is supposed to be a model of freedom... adopted by people who call themselves libertarians, even...

Unfortunately, we are headed away from freedom. Yet, those pushing this claim the opposite.