Debate: With great power comes great responsability

[Walsingham]

I've worked in a call centre, and it wasn't a sweatshop, but one of our managers came from another one, and it was VERY clear it was a sweatshop. Workers were terrified, worked WITHOUT breaks, and barely understood what they were doing. I don't actually understand how they made money, because it seemed that no-one in their right mind would have been ABLE to buy anything from them.

 

Having said that, no-one's arms came off after getting caught in a phone headset.

 

 

Going back to the initial question I put it to a chap I mett today over lunch and his response was to point out:

 

If you fail to post a sufficiently healthy profit, people dump your stocks and then EVERYONE loses their jobs. So well done, Kaft, instead of 1500 redundancies you've got a nabjillion.

[Hurlshort]

I'd imagine call centers in third world countries run a larger risk of being sweatshops than those in Canada. Purely speculation though.

[Hiro Protagonist]

Definitely no 'sweatshiop'. Have you ever worked in a REAL sweatshop? Or seen one in practice? I doubt it.

 

Yes, I've seen sweatshops first hand in China. I doubt you have.

Edited November 12, 2009 by Hiro Protagonist

[alanschu]

So you would say that those conditions mimic a call center location?

[Volourn]

"Yes, I've seen sweatshops first hand in China. I doubt you have. "

 

Then you, of all people, should know better. Sweatshops don't give you stuff like call centers do.

[alanschu]

Maybe he's never seen a call center?

[Hurlshort]

"Yes, I've seen sweatshops first hand in China. I doubt you have. "

 

Then you, of all people, should know better. Sweatshops don't give you stuff like call centers do.

 

Volourn, did you work in a call center in a third world country?

[Volourn]

If you haven't figured it out yet, the problem isn't call centers. The problem is the country and its culture. Call centers are not sweatshops. But, nice try.

[Hurlshort]

Can a call center be a sweat shop?

[alanschu]

Sure, but really any job utilizing unskilled labour could become a sweatshop.

[Walsingham]

You speak of corporations in defensive terms, justifying their vice and greed with itself. Yes, in order to make money they have to be a ****. That's not a justification, you merry bunch of capitalist apologists. Allow me to explain the flaws with modern capitalism.

 

A single corporation in a sea of corporations is going to have to apply its resources inefficiently, on things like industrial espionage and reverse-engineering. It will also focus on extremely short-term investments (at least, a modern corporation will). This leads to an economy which is incapable of properly propelling itself into the future. So what is necessary is a single supercorporation which owns everything and thinks in the long term. But this corporation would logically focus on its own advantages, which is why I propose that we make the corporation democratically accountable via a council democracy. Then, since it has already eclipsed the government, we hand over the military and police forces to the general populace, who form revolutionary militias and People's Guards.

 

There, I said it.

 

Show me a single example of a military unit run on pure democratic lines out performing an authoritarian unit. The only example I know which comes close is the bunches of nutloops rocking around Africa in the sixties. They ran by a sstem they called 'chinese parliaments', but that wasn't democratic decision making. They just pooled perceptions and ideas. Military action requires concentration of force, determination, and timeliness. You cannot do any of those things when you have every single unit running things according to popular democracy.

 

As usual you stick dogmatically to your fantastical nonsense. I'd honestly have more respect for someone who had a political philosophy based on Klingon society.

[lord of flies]

Show me a single example of a military unit run on pure democratic lines out performing an authoritarian unit. The only example I know which comes close is the bunches of nutloops rocking around Africa in the sixties. They ran by a sstem they called 'chinese parliaments', but that wasn't democratic decision making. They just pooled perceptions and ideas. Military action requires concentration of force, determination, and timeliness. You cannot do any of those things when you have every single unit running things according to popular democracy.

 

As usual you stick dogmatically to your fantastical nonsense. I'd honestly have more respect for someone who had a political philosophy based on Klingon society.

lol

 

How do you think the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War picked the leader of their military units? How do you think the early Bolshevik-aligned soldiers organized themselves? Officer removal via vote has historically played a pretty major role amongst ultraleftist western revolutionaries.

[Tigranes]

So a mob lynch is democratic?

[lord of flies]

So a mob lynch is democratic?

In a certain way, yes.

[Walsingham]

Show me a single example of a military unit run on pure democratic lines out performing an authoritarian unit. The only example I know which comes close is the bunches of nutloops rocking around Africa in the sixties. They ran by a sstem they called 'chinese parliaments', but that wasn't democratic decision making. They just pooled perceptions and ideas. Military action requires concentration of force, determination, and timeliness. You cannot do any of those things when you have every single unit running things according to popular democracy.

 

As usual you stick dogmatically to your fantastical nonsense. I'd honestly have more respect for someone who had a political philosophy based on Klingon society.

lol

 

How do you think the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War picked the leader of their military units? How do you think the early Bolshevik-aligned soldiers organized themselves? Officer removal via vote has historically played a pretty major role amongst ultraleftist western revolutionaries.

 

Those would presumably be the anarchist militias which proved totally incapable of a single offensive operation?

[213374U]

A single corporation in a sea of corporations is going to have to apply its resources inefficiently, on things like industrial espionage and reverse-engineering. It will also focus on extremely short-term investments (at least, a modern corporation will). This leads to an economy which is incapable of properly propelling itself into the future. So what is necessary is a single supercorporation which owns everything and thinks in the long term. But this corporation would logically focus on its own advantages, which is why I propose that we make the corporation democratically accountable via a council democracy. Then, since it has already eclipsed the government, we hand over the military and police forces to the general populace, who form revolutionary militias and People's Guards.

And lack of competition is a progress killer. Just how "efficient" you want things to be, anyway?

 

 

How do you think the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War picked the leader of their military units? How do you think the early Bolshevik-aligned soldiers organized themselves? Officer removal via vote has historically played a pretty major role amongst ultraleftist western revolutionaries.

Anarchists in Spain lost the war, and the popular Soviet militias were soon merged into traditional command structures so the revolution could stand a chance against the staggering odds it faced.

 

Democracy in warfare is a placeholder at best, a catastrophe at worst.

[Gorgon]

Show me a single example of a military unit run on pure democratic lines out performing an authoritarian unit. The only example I know which comes close is the bunches of nutloops rocking around Africa in the sixties. They ran by a sstem they called 'chinese parliaments', but that wasn't democratic decision making. They just pooled perceptions and ideas. Military action requires concentration of force, determination, and timeliness. You cannot do any of those things when you have every single unit running things according to popular democracy.

 

As usual you stick dogmatically to your fantastical nonsense. I'd honestly have more respect for someone who had a political philosophy based on Klingon society.

lol

 

How do you think the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War picked the leader of their military units? How do you think the early Bolshevik-aligned soldiers organized themselves? Officer removal via vote has historically played a pretty major role amongst ultraleftist western revolutionaries.

 

Those would presumably be the anarchist militias which proved totally incapable of a single offensive operation?

I think Che Guevara was on an expedition in Africa before he got killed in South America, didn't amount to anything though.

 

The argument is a little thin if we are just talking about militaries and discipline. Without question the most able forces are based around it. As a redcoat in the Brittish army circa 18th ct. you could expect to be whipped or shot for disobeying orders.

 

Wasn't pretty, but it also meant no one wanted to be the first to break formation and retreat, which is why they out performed the American revolutionaries again and again.

 

 

The democratic process is too slow to be effective in battle, maybe in future it will be possible through some kind of neural hive mind network. In fact such decision making could be superior to a traditional command hierarchy.

[lord of flies]

Those would presumably be the anarchist militias which proved totally incapable of a single offensive operation?

Somehow I can live with a purely defensive military. Maybe it's because I'm not an imperialist?

The democratic process is too slow to be effective in battle, maybe in future it will be possible through some kind of neural hive mind network. In fact such decision making could be superior to a traditional command hierarchy.

Nobody is talking about literally voting on what to do in the middle of the battle.

[Gorgon]

But we are talking about voting on whether or not officers get to whip disobedient subordinates. In any case with independently thinking men and women the prospect of voting, or to be more exact, disagreement in the middle of battle becomes real. People need to be able to shut up and do what they are told. Or at least that's the prevailing idea.

[213374U]

Those would presumably be the anarchist militias which proved totally incapable of a single offensive operation?

Somehow I can live with a purely defensive military. Maybe it's because I'm not an imperialist?

A counteroffensive is still an offensive.

[alanschu]

Exhibit A, those pesky Soviets circa 1943-1945

[Gorgon]

Who were initially so inept they almost allowed Germany to do the impossible, because their command structure had been devastated by Stalin's purges.

[Walsingham]

Those would presumably be the anarchist militias which proved totally incapable of a single offensive operation?

Somehow I can live with a purely defensive military. Maybe it's because I'm not an imperialist?

 

 

Any military organisation which is operationally passive and defensive inevitably and inexorably loses. Defensive behaviour is tactically stronger, but has to be strong at any point it needs to defend, so a good attacker masses local superiority and defeats each position in turn. Only an equally aggressive attempt to threaten the attacker's vital areas and possessions can upset this.

 

'Democratic' units, even when composed of ideologically fired up intellectuals, are often unwilling or incapable of operational attacks. They are ALWAYS incapable of working in concert with each other, violating the principle of concentration of force, and leading to pointless sacrifices and eventually losing.

 

However, feel free to ignore this since I consider your objectives insane, and wouldn't want you to do anything other than make pointless sacrifices and lose.

[lord of flies]

Who were initially so inept they almost allowed Germany to do the impossible, because their command structure had been devastated by Stalin\'s purges.

Actually, the problem which faced the Soviet Union was its lack of a real officer corps. Officers who went to fight in, for example, Finland, did a poor job of it, were cowards, that sort of thing. Because the Soviet Union had spent over a decade peacefully and with little in the way of plans for military offensives, their officer corps naturally degraded. The purges, at worst, removed some theoretical contributions of men like Tukhachevsky on mobile warfare; but that is a relatively minor concern.

 

To the rest; I suppose you might be right, though I\'d be quick to reform the military if the revolutionary militias were failing.

Edited November 13, 2009 by Fionavar

[Wrath of Dagon]

It's so great they never have layoffs in a communist country. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091113/ap_on_..._famine_diaries

As starvation and cannibalism spread across Ukraine, Soviet authorities exported more than a million tons of grain to the West, using the money to build factories and arm its military.