the worst is when punk anarchists use song lyrics as a source. I don't really care about anything that Bakunin wrote, and I really really don't care about anything Crass wrote.
otherwise, you get a great deal of props from me for being a libertarian that accepts that private corporations can be just as abusive and curtailing to private liberties as the government.
I hope thread-drift isn't a capital offense here. :mrgreen:
It seems that this is a bit less of a problem when the economy is booming, employment is near the theoretical minimum, and companies are desperate to hire and retain good workers. More of a problem now that its a buyer's market in labor.
Still, the fact that when you backtrack the lines of cash flow and control, you so often come to a small number of corporate giants like AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Reserve, and so on, you can get in a situation where almost ALL companies engage in practices oppressive to their employees, at the behest of their (uber-giant-corporate/conglomorate/associated) insurers and lenders. At that point, the argument of "well, just find a more reasonable employer and change jobs" becomes meaningless. "Start a business of your own" is another neat soundbite answer, but doing so requires capital or loans or both; not easily accomplished for many people.
If I own a biz, and my insurer (who is ultimately beholden to AIG and some large banks, and their rules) tells me he won't ensure me unless I institute certain policies (like ICS 9001, ubiquitous surveillance cameras, forbidding employees to carry weapons even if their jobs involve relevant hazards, etc), I'm likely to cave if
all potential insurers have the same requirements.
Harry Guerilla said:
I personally don't think any super corp can last any length of time because of the bloated inefficiency. Government is the only thing that usually keeps these behemoths alive.
The more I learn about corporate structure and finance, the more I think you have a point there. I'm not at all sure that giant corporations are the natural end-product of capitalism, absent gov't meddling in the "free" market. When the gov't manipulates the market, imposes unrealistic regulation that only corporate giants can afford to comply with, and engages in "bailouts" of giants like AIG, Fannie and Freddie and GM because "they're too big to fail" (ha!), then you end up with our current situation, where Mom and Pop stores are all but squeezed out of existence.
Mom and Pop stores, and small corporations, tend to be more humane to their employees because the distance between "CEO" and Joe BoxLifter is far less removed. This makes it harder for the boss to see Joe as a number instead of a human being with human needs and dignity, imo. Seems self-evident: when the guy who makes policy at the company has his office 100' from where Joe works and sees him every day, Joe is a person. When the policy-maker is a corporate bigshot who works on the 100th floor of a steel tower, and almost never sees the guys and gals who do the actual work of the company, its easier to view them as plug-and-play spare parts.
my two bits, anyway.
G.