tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post5402830615958146914..comments2024-03-21T03:55:51.565-07:00Comments on Omniorthogonal: Hooray, hooray, it՚s the first of Maymtravenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02356162954308418556noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-19231434439946825362015-05-18T14:52:04.828-07:002015-05-18T14:52:04.828-07:00You wrote: "In fact the capitalists of Silico...You wrote: "In fact the capitalists of Silicon Valley are experts at generating this feeling (or a simulacrum of it) among their employees, with team-building exercises, shared meals, and other efforts to create communal feelings. Capitalism excels in giving people what they want, and apparently people very much want something that feels like socialism."<br /><br />What you are describing is not socialism, but rather a type of benevolent paternalism on the part of business owners and managers - perhaps we could call it the management style of old Fezziwig, as opposed to that of Ebenezer Scrooge. <br /><br />If you want to know what socialism feels like perhaps you ought to ask someone who fled from the old Soviet Union, or one of its satellite countries such as Hungary, Czechoslovakia, or Poland. I've known several such people. Every one of them was glad to be here in capitalist America.<br /><br />The pretense of egalitarianism implicit in addressing one's superior and being addressed by him as "comrade" serves only to accentuate how threadbare is the velvet glove that surrounds the iron fist. No matter how an economic activity be organized, in any concerted effort there will necessarily be a few who are appointed to lead, and the rest of necessity must follow. <br /><br />Being an apparatchik of the state does not make a boss any the less a boss than does his being the owner of the "means of production." In practice, backed by the power of an omnipotent and omnipresent state, such a functionary is likely, if anything, to be more arbitrary and demanding than one who is merely one buyer out of many in a market for skilled labor.<br /><br />Sallust long ago observed that few men desire liberty; most wish only for a just master. Private enterprise has done a better job of providing both than has socialism.Crawfurdmuirnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15644559.post-18142619309750947072015-05-09T12:21:24.646-07:002015-05-09T12:21:24.646-07:00I never knew disdain for Silicon Valley until I lo...I never knew disdain for Silicon Valley until I lost my SV job last year. I'm coming up on year of unemployment and now having to consider driving for Postmates. (Uber would be unbearable, shuttling around people who are like me two years ago.) It's not the most noble motivation - I don't like you because you won't have me - but at least it's honest.<br /><br />Like you I'm not sure what to do about it all, other than to occasionally join in the chorus of bashing the rich Game of Thrones fans driving up rents.Dainhttp://dryhyphenolympics.comnoreply@blogger.com