Erm, I don’t know where the author’s from but workplaces in North America outside of the software industry have always been authoritarian like that. Especially given that levels of unionization peaked at 1/3 of the workforce ever and are now way down in the US and Canadian private sector. The software industry experienced an exception to the tendency due to chronic labour shortage for nearly 2 decades that created expectations uncommon in other workplaces. Now it’s regressing to the mean. What we’re now experiencing has been the reality of most our comrades.
The author is Italian teaching in Canada. While it’s true that in the USA democratic structures in the workplace are less common than elsewhere, I think the author is presenting the phenomenon in a rethorical fashion to motivate workers to fight the new forms of Authorian control in the workplace.
Yeah, what I said in no way invalidates their thesis, which is well done. Rather I’m highlighting the problem is much bigger and entrenched than what it appears to be in our industry. Arguably change in our indistry could be more impactful for the whole working class since we can stop the whole economy now that critical parts of it run in the cloud. So if the message is targeted at us, it’s probably good targeting.
They shared a perspective i hadn’t considered: all the AI involvement in the workplace, the constant surveillance, the rigid hierarchies–it all serves as ways to acquaint people with authoritarianism.
I mean, it isn’t illegal to treat workers with suspicion and malice – and frankly, they can always leave! (Same could be said for citizens, on second thought…)
If all the businesses decide they want to run that way (or if all the businesses get absorbed by 2-3 mega-corporations and they decide to treat workers that way), it’s within their rights to. Hell, we’ve been discovering for quite some time that businesses may even operate illegally until found out, and even then it’s often not enough to stop them – it simply becomes an operating expense.
Isn’t it interesting that the richest people in the world are allied with each other politically? At least here in this shithole we call the USA, we now get to witness enthusiastic levels of corruption, and every major corp with their shitty, billionaire leader is there getting their slice of pie.
The authoritarianism begins in the workplace (and schools!) where people become conditioned to the hierarchy, then ultimately get dominated by the authoritarian government that they themselves somehow voted for.
Really, this has been a thing for centuries.
There’s a reason why Christianity was so popular with monarchs in the middle ages, and it’s because Christian cosmology is arranged just like a monarchy.
The reformation tried to carve chunks of that monarchism out of the liturgy, but the whole “Jesus, king of kings” thing stuck around, and had been moved more and more towards the forefront again with the evangelical movement — which is undoubtedly why the new American fascism has come cloaked in all the trappings of evangelical Christianity.
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I think it’s important to keep remembering and sharing that it wasn’t always like this. We don’t need the younger generations seeing this as normal or acceptable.
It makes a lot of sense that we live in oligarchies when you realise that the entire economic system — every business — is an oligarchy; competing with other oligarchies. Businesses where the majority owner/shareholder is 1 person are basically dictatorships. Family owned businesses are dynasties. We’re really a stones throw from the feudalism and monarchs of old.
It’s kind of mentally ill to believe that the entire economic system could be structured this way, but the political system could be democracy; the exact opposite…
We are. But we have rallied again in the past and had gains. They have been chipping at the gains. It can be won back.
We all know there is another way. We have to not go oh well this is it now. It wasn’t and it does not have to be.
Oh I’m not advocating for hopelessness. Radical change is required. That will only happen if we reframe the curated, manufactured narratives and assert reality. The revolution will not be televised because it takes place in peoples minds.
I would like to know how we got to this point. One article I read made the point that counter culture was always a product of conservatism. I don’t know if I agree with that. I felt like tech in the 70s-90s was more utopian. Tech will democratize the world, it will level the playing field, it will bring an age of information to everyone, etc. These words aren’t much different from the life changing™ slogans used about each software update now so it feels more convoluted. I’d like to know because personally I want to know if it was just me who felt utopian about this stuff back then and its always been this downward spiral, or did something change at some point?