Electronic Arts Exploiting Workers?
Dean
It appears that software developers and engineers at Electronic Arts (EA) may soon be unionizing.
Good for them.
It astounds me how often so-called "libertarians" and "conservatives" automatically and instinctively side with corporations on these matters. It's as if no one has ever pointed out to them that under Common Law there is no such thing as a "corporation" at all, and that corporations--every single one of them, without exception--exist entirely as creations of the State, and at the will of the voters. Once created by the state, corporations have an astonishing array of legal protections and privileges that no individual or small family business is ever allowed to hold.
Indeed, this is why most so-called "libertarians" and "capitalists" are shallow in my view. Yes, capitalism may be a good thing. But why should it be dominated by entirely paper-based homonculi called "corporations," who are entirely inhuman and not directly answerable to anyone except majority stockholders once or twice a quarter?
Although it is entirely possible for trade unions to get out of hand and to do real damage with unrealistic expectations, the truth is that we are better off with workers who have the option of collective bargaining if they are truly, deeply mortified by working conditions.
Looks to me from the story that EA has been abusing its workers, and needs reform. Let's hope that the workers either unionize, or that the threat of unionization brings greater common sense and thoughtfulness to the management at EA.
A small family business could easily incorporate if it wished to. In my state (PA) it costs $125 to incorporate (used to be $100 about a year ago), and there are a number of advantages to it for small family businesses, or individuals running a business.
That being said, the main problem with labor unions is that they're bad for society. Their main goal (when stripped of the language they state it in) is to drive prices as high as possible for consumers, profits as low as possible for owners, and to keep their workers paying as high a union due as possible while neither having incentives to work harder nor the ability to be fired.
Of course there are abuses on the corporate side of things as well, and there should be some way of fixing them. I can't imagine that labor unions are the answer, though.
Especially since the thing about labor unions is that they take away freedom from the employees. If 50% + 1 of my co-workers decide to unionize, I'm suddenly in a situation where hard work gets me little, plus I have to pay money to some ass who'll send thugs around to break the legs of dissenters (in extreme cases).
My God, if a place I worked at unionized, I'd get the hell out as fast as I possibly could. Frankly, the very notion of forcing people into a union and forcing them to pay taxes to their new union masters is far more unethical than any but the most extreme abuses corporations in modern times (i.e. the last 20 years) do.
I'm no liberatarian (there are plenty of places in life where government regulation provides a net improvement of life, corporations being one of them, actually), but I have a hard time seeing how labor unions aren't just a small step removed from organized crime, and that's when they don't start destroying property and injuring people to get their way.
When you incorporate, you immediately gain all sorts of special protections and perks from the state. You can write off far more items on your taxes than you could if you were merely a sole proprietorship or partnsership. More importantly, when it comes to tort law, you have AMAZING protectdions that no individual or partnership would ever be granted. Indeed, under all but the most extreme circumstances, your corporation could be sued into bankruptcy for dishonest and illegitimate business practices--but you, and any other owners, could walk off scott-free, not just evading jail time but also possibly keeping any illegitimately earned profits of the homonculous-corporation you created.
This is a huge and ongoing argument I have with countless "conservatives" and "libertarians." Indeed, I believe this is an ENORMOUS blind spot on the right, one that I think many Democrats could easily exploit if only they were smart eneough not just to recognize it but exploit it properly.
Here's my basic point: CORPORATIONS ARE NOT HUMAN BEINGS, BUT THE STATE GRANTS THEM EXTRAORDINARY RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES ANYWAY. There was a time not so long ago when just to create a corporation required a special act of your state legislature. They were considered such odd and dangerous beasts it was considered necessary to require special approval from the legislature just to allow them to exist at all.
And again, these "corporations" do not exist in any sense other than as paper entities tolerated and protected by the state.
Thus if I have a business and I screw up, you can sue me and potentially take away part or all of my personal wealth. But if I form a corporation and hold most of it, all you can do is sue the corporation that I own. I could screw you the individual citizen over mercilessly and you could not sue me--only my corporation. And if my corporation has sufficient resources to fight you off, great. If not, then it closes down--but I the stockholder suffer no penalty excep the possible reduction of my stock price.
'
This is very much where a great deal of "conservative" and "libertarian" thought breaks down. It is in the fact that corporations are not human beings, but are in fact entirely creations of the state. They are empowered to do more than most individuals, and insulated by state power form many rules of everyday businessmen. Is this really the way things should be?
I don't get why you keep going on about corporations not existing in any real sense. Of course they don't, but plenty of things don't. Your family isn't a person, yet you have extraordinary legal powers over your son because you're his legal guardian. You get to share property and other things with your wife again because of a special legal arrangement. There's no human being called "Dean and Rosemary Esmay", yet you can jointly own property as if there was.
The reason for all of these things is not natural law, but convenience: they work. Corporations encourage business, business encourages economic activity, and economic activity encourages material happiness. This has been written accross human history as plain as day.
The entire reason that corporations exist as they do now is because they've proven that they work so well. State legislatures got tired of specially incorporating them so they passed general legislation to do it (I'm familiar with this history as well), because they wanted the benefits of them (specifically, greater wealth for all, both monetary and non-monetary wealth).
Also, you overstate the protections and dangers of corporations. While they do protect the investors from themselves being sued, that does not cover gross negligence or criminal behavior. That's the entire purpose of courts' power to "pierce the corporate veil". (Whether it's used as often as it should be is a different matter.)
As to the dangers of them, everyone knows the risks of dealing with corporations; everyone knows how far they can be sued. (Moreover, shell corporations which exist to absord liability without owning anything are not well regarded by the courts, and don't confer any magical immunity from liability.)
Here's the fundamental question about corporations: do you really think that life would be better with a wildly weaker economy and no corporations?
And remember: real wealth is about buying power, not income. When Wal-mart moves into your area, you become wealthier because your buying power has gone up. Life would be different without corporations, but the only really important question is this: do you really think that it would be better?
It's not because you and Rosemary really are one person.
Are you against marriage because as a legal entity the two of you together is as much a legal fiction as a corporation?
Furthermore, union membership should be completely voluntary, and thuggish behavior by either company security or union forces should be dealt with in a draconian fashion.
As a libertarian, I have no problem with unions, as even in the libertarian utopia there would be no rules against unions.
Unions are especially necessary in industries where there are only a few employers. The argument that unions prevent employers from freely hiring is weak when employees in a given line of work have only 2 or 3 possible employers, who are sometimes even colluding on the price of labor in their industry. The So Cal grocery business is one such.
The video games business is not quite there yet, but it's close, and regularly abuses the notions of "independent" contractors and intellectual property. Some really nasty yellow-dog clauses and assumption of all intellectual output in those employment contracts. Considering how closely the industry mimics the old Hollywood studio system, I'd be very surprised if the path they follow isn't similar.
Government affords certain protections to corporation primarily to shield the owners, not the corporations themselves. Certainly, some of the protections spill over to the corporation, but that is not the purpose.
Without the ability to separate personal assets from the assets and interests of company, few people would start a business venture. When I owned my publishing company, I was sued four times in two years. My company won all of the cases thanks to excellent pro bono attorneys. Had I not incorporated, I would have had no choice but to settle the first suit and fold.
Perhaps in a world free of lawsuit abuse, corporations could be done away with. We do not live in that world, though.
Second, the ability to raise capital is paramount to the success of a company. While individuals operating as an S-corporation can sell stock, investors have been reluctant to risk capital in such operations, aside from small loan programs. Personal loans for business purposes are based on the credit worthiness of the individual, not the viability of the business plan.
Originally, corporations were formed to perform activities considered too risky for individuals or governments to undertake. Look at the colonization of North America.
Again, there may be rational moral arguments against corporations, but they are as pointless as moral arguments against thinking bad thoughts. Without the security of a stock or bond and the protection of arms-length ownership, few intelligent people would invest in individuals who have what might be a good idea. Before the concept of the corporation, the world was agrarian and lacke even large farming interests. Corporations are the cornerstone of modern wealth accumulation, and no reasonable substitute has been offered.
The jobs are going to India no matter what. You can either roll over on your back and allow it to happen, or you can fight.
I am the founder of the ITPAA (see the ad? - I bought that with dues money) and I hear from people living in fear.
I was one of those people, thought I could be quiet and survive the recession. Guess what? My job went to India anyway.
Will unionizing save the jobs? Maybe - maybe not. But doing nothing sure won't save them.
Scott Kirwin
Founder,
ITPAA, inc
BTW the ITPAA is a non-union solution based on the AMA, AARP, etc. And if you think I'm pro-Kerry, you might be surprised to learn the ITPAA awarded Kerry a Weasel of the Week award.
Some of these institutions may be good, and some may be bad. Some may be both. Some may be improvable. It might be more productive to focus on such questions, rather than the metaphysical challenge, or lack thereof, any such thing may have.
But if we must focus on the metaphysics, tell me this: in what way are unions real that corporations are not?
Possible? Almost guaranteed. I live in the Rust Belt and most of our friends have been on strike at least once in the last 10 years and 9 times out of 10, they have struck companies that were in tough shape that went ahead and folded when they were struck. I remember my brother-in-law sobbing on our sofa because his union had voted to strike and he KNEW it would break the company. He had four teenage girls. He was out of work six months after they got "the tremendous wage and benefits package."
Finally, considering your (joyous) situation, there is one union you are going to have trouble with for sure: the NEA.
I can't complain about the train hitting me when I've been sitting on the track watching it head towards me.
Besides, the company I work for has already started seeing the price for outsourced work - namely poor quality (due to the communication barrier) and long turn around time on defects.
You fight outsourcing by either lowering your asking price for labor or by refusing to purchase items made in other countries.
I'm glad your company is finding that out. Others are still learning.
As for skills, you think that software engineers and coders DON'T learn stuff? In the IT profession we are constantly learning new languages and methodologies - if not to survive just for fun because we are naturally curious. I've most recently learned how to conduct formal JAD sessions. Of course, the person I'm working with also has - and she's here on an H-1b.
The jobs that are being outsourced are not low level jobs; they're up and down the food chain. The only jobs that I've seen that are safe are upper management. Everything else is on the table.
While you are chasing your tail, consider that while salaries in IT have been declining, those in the trades - plumbing esp. - are up.
Richard Powers wrote an excellent novel about LLCs in 1997, called "Gain." The Clare Soap Company actually becomes a compelling character, for a fiction within a fiction within a fiction.
JdB
The corporation can write off all sorts of things but the corporate owner cannot. In a sense, you are double-taxed. The ONLY reason to incorporate, which is the reason we always do, is because it protects you, as an individual, from all sorts of legal shenanigans played by the oh-supposed-to-be-so-nice and oppressed employees.
If the Congress would boot out more Democrats...err... fix the tort law so that one individual cannot ruin a family business, taking everything the family has worked hard to accomplish, perhaps we can then talk about corporate reform. But, and it is a HUGE BUT, until business owners are protected from out of control lawyers and dishonorable people who sue for sport, or think that a splinter entitles them to workers comp of 20 years of an individual's savings, fuck NO!
Look at WHY corporations are so necessary, not diss the only way that businesses can survive with the tort laws the way they are.
This sort of thing becoems obvious when one considers non-compete clauses, mandatory arbitration, and similar contract clauses that are designed to minimize cost for the employer by assigning as many burdens as possible to the employee.
In this relationship, the prospective employer, which often has greater assets than the prospective employee, also has greater bargaining power. The average employee, faced with a contract that includes mandatory arbitration of labor disputes, a commitment to work overtime, a clause that prohibits working at a competitor within five years of termination of employment, a nondisclosure agreement, and any other clause that the prospective employer can draft, is likely to be unable to negotiate for his own best interests because his asset -- the ability to work -- can easily be obtained from a large labor pool. Meanwhile, the employer side of the relationship features precious few employers that pay a livable wage.
A union, on the other hand, helps to remedy this lack of bargaining power by allowing the employees at a company to aggregate their economic interests in one unit; the employees gain greater economic power by pooling their resources; they have the ability to damage the employers' ability to attract new hires by publicizing its less-than-optimal labor practices, and, most importantly, those employees have the ability to inhibit the employer's ability to turn a profit by removing their asset -- their work -- from the company.
So, yes, I fully support labor unions, at least in concept. They tend to remedy the inequality that is inherent in the average employer-employee transaction.
--|PW|--
This is probably a good CotC entry, for starters. It questions major legal components and customs of the modern economy and large scale capitalism. That's an excellent topic.
One of the things written on why things got so weird and backward in the Arab/Islamic world is the very lack of modern business practices like corporations after Europeans and others started using them. Individuals and families lacked the leverage to become as efficient, and the wealth and economic power couldn't spread as well to everyday people who can own an interest via stock. I do not remember where I read that. It may have even been a comprehensive book review from which I absorbed some points.
Unions seek to control companies they don't own through pseudo-socialism. It's all about control. It's not enough to appreciate the opportunity to sell your labor to one company or another (oooh, choice) and move along if things aren't to your liking.
I don't need to repeat the distinctions between closely held and widely owned corporations, or the limits of the corporate veil. Granted, the separation of liability primarily unto a legal rather than human entity exists, but if it didn't, or if corporate entities didn't exist as we know them, the world would look a whole lot different, more likely worse than better, and the law and/or case precedents would have to be different.
Too late at night for me to be lengthy or coherent. However, this did inspire me to point out to Deb how "what we talk about in the blogosphere" will change. In the leadup to the election between Bush and Not Bush, there was more of an either-or, people supporting one or the other for whatever reasons as numerous in flavor as the supporters. Now the flavors come out, the - ahem - nuance in opinions on this.
A lot of people have made good points here, and I'm not up to responding to all of them, but, I'll make my basic point again:
Corporations are not, in my view, bad things. But we who support capitalism (as I do) should acknowledge that the "corporation" is not--repeat, IS NOT--an example of a natural extension of free market ideals. It is specifically, and undeniably, a GOVERNMENT CREATION. Furthermore, corporations are allowed to grow to astonishing levels of power and influence, despite the fact that they are NOT individuals. Henry Ford was not a corporation. Thomas Edison was not a corporation. Howard Hughes was not a corporation. Frank Lloyd Wright was not a corporation. Coco Chanel was not a corporation. Even if you're an Ayn Rand-style objectivist who fervently believes in capitalism and free markets, you must admit that a corporation is NOT, repeat, IS NOT, a spontaneous free-market phenomenon. Common law historically did not even recognize such a beast.
If you believe in unfettered, non-government-regulated capitalism, you cannot view the corporation as a natural extension of all that. The corporation is the exact opposite of all that in fact: it is ENTIRELY a creation of the state, of government action. Indeed, I as an individual business owner am often helpless before the power of corporations, who have powers and protections from the state that I cannot hope to match unless I incorporate myself--and if I do incorporate myself, then suddenly I have created a state-created entity to do my bidding that I can sell off and give and share to others.
In other words--and let me be very explicit to you lassez-faire types--CORPORATIONS ARE EXPRESSLY AND UNDENIABLY A STATIST, COLLECTIVIST, SOCIALIST CREATION. IN A TRUE "FREE MARKET," THESE BEASTS WOULD NOT EXIST AT ALL.
I work for a very large corporation (I won't tell you which one because I'd just rather not, but it's Fortune 500). Every day I see how this fictional paper entity flexes extraordinarily muscular power. It does things that NO individual---no Henry Ford, no Coco Chanel, no Mary Kay, no Thomas Edison--could EVER do. It controls the lives and fates of literally hundreds of thousands of people, and it is NOT an Ayn Randian hero, it is a FICTIONAL PAPER ENTITY. It is in a very real sense a phantasm created entirely from imagination. Those who own this paper-based phantasm have extraordinary control over the lives of an enormous number of people--and I have seen firsthand how merely the THREAT of collective bargaining by its tens of thousands of workers can cause it to become more reasonable in its dealings with them.
People who believe in capitalism (such as myself) need to stop romanticizing corporations as some sort of brave individualist enterprize. That's fucking bullshit. A corporation is ENTIRELY and UNDENIABLY a socialist, statist concept. We should acknowledge this.
2) Both large employers and unions have employed egregious tactics, including lots of violence on both sides, in order to break the other's will. It was union violence at Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank that radicalized a young Ronald Reagan, who of course was a liberal Democrat in his youth and became something . . . a little different.
3) Forcing people to contribute to a union, and then spending that money on political causes they do not individually support is reprehensible.
4) The teacher's unions *have* done tremendous harm to both
a) America's children, and
b) the actual talented, good teachers, who should be getting paid much more for the work they do--and would, if "merit" were part of the equation (the teacher's unions don't want merit pay--they want pay to be based only on tenure and seniority).
5) A lot of grocery workers are overpaid, and my sympathies lay more with Ralph's than with those who weren't willing to pay a few dollars for health insurance, like the rest of us do. And there are plenty of non-chain grocery stores in Southern California (and small, non-union chains, like Trader Joe's).
6) In a free society, absent violence (which must be taken out of the equation), choice should--and must--work both ways. The companies should have the right to unionize (but should be mindful of the danger that they will drive their employers out of business), and the companies should have the right to hire non-union labor. And the individual employee must have the right not to belong to a union when he/she doesn't like the use to which his/her dues are put.
200 years ago, there was no such thing as a corporation at all. 150 years ago, in most states, it required a special act of the legislature to create even one corporation. Literally there would be debate on the legislature floor as to whether or not one specific corporation should be allowed to exist within the state, and it usually required the Governor's signature to allow it to happen if the legislature (after much debate) voted to create the corporation.
Marriages are natural entities that human beings have formed for as long as known history. Corporations are specifically (and undeniably) a statist, socialist creation. To pretend that these socialism-based paper entities have the same moral authority as a marriage is ridiculous. A man claiming a woman and having other men recognize the basic rights that adhere to her because she accepts that has its roots deep in the human race, and was always recognized Sharia, by Torah, by Common law, by the Magna Carta, and by every society in human history.
The corporation? Entirely an intellectual creation of collectivist, socialist action, an entirely and undeniably artificial intellectual concept. Not the same thing at all.
I know it probably freaks out a number of my business-owning, anti-socialist friends (hi Connie!), but the truth is that if you own any part of a corproation, that makes you a part of an unnatural, collectivist, socialist, statist enterprise. :-)
But if we must focus on the metaphysics, tell me this: in what way are unions real that corporations are not?
In no way that I can think of.
My point is that those of us who believe in free markets should simply acknowledge that there's not a darned thing wrong with the concept of collective bargaining. If it is true--and it undeniably is true--that unions can become overpowerful and destructive, so it is also true that corporations can do so. Indeed, corporations are ultimately far more powerful, far more statist, and far more socialist than unions are. After all, unions are (mostly) spontaneous collections of individuals who share a certain trade. They would almost certainly exist even if the state did not recognize their existence. Corporations, however, can ONLY exist through statist, socialist action.
I don't think a system of law which doesn't recognize corporations is any more or less statist than one which does.
A system of law is always necessary, and it is almost always the state which enforces it. This does not make the law statist.
"Corporations, however, can ONLY exist through statist, socialist action"
Why? Throughout the ages, laws have grappled with and recognized the concept of something being owned by more than one person (who waters the lawn of our apartment building?). Corporations are just one variation of that theme.
And while it's true that corporations are collectivist, this does not make them statist. Statism is collectivist, but collectivism is not necessarily statist.
Unions and corporations are both fine unless they have a monopoly. Government worker unions are particularly problematic because the government doesn't have competitors, so it won't go out of business if the workers demand too much. For the same reason, the government isn't very good at running things.
Ok, if a marriage naturally exists, take a picture of it for me. Also, measure its weight, and give me its volume (water displacement method is fine).
Marriage no more exists than any other intellectual construct, such as the corporation. No less, either.
But it's ridiculous to say that because people invented the legal fiction of the marriage 5000 years before they invented the legal fiction of the corporation. Is America more real and natural than Germany because its has an uninterrupted government 200 years (or so) older than Germany's?
England's government is 1000 years old. Does that mean that the English have a natural government which actually exists in a way that the US's government doesn't?
The age of the custom of marriage is a good argument that it's a good idea. It's not a good argument that it has some existence apart from custom and law.
And, oh, it'll only take a couple years to implement.
--|PW|--
wow. I have to say that seems like a very broad and badly formed comment. Exactly what makes them socialist? Makes me wander if you truly understand what is socialist.
you seem to be conflating social or communal with socialist. The existence of a corporation, in and of itself, is neither capitalist or socialist.
who owns that corporation is what determines if it is socialist.
seems like a reflixive anti-business response.
unions good, but businesses are bad?
Unions are not socialist also? under your viewpoint?
your assumption also seems to assume that the only way workers can not be abused is by unions stepping in. I have been in a position where I was forced to pay union dues, and it is not a small amount.
"Corporations are specifically (and undeniably) a statist, socialist creation."
This is a ludicrous assertion that makes no sense whatever. I believe it stems from a complete misunderstanding of the term "corporatist."
Dean discusses impending unionization in an unlikely place, and the relative merits of unions and, especially, corporations as a valid business structure for true capitalism. Comments from readers and Dean expand on the topic spiritedly and at length.
People can join a union or not, as they please.
Multiple competing unions can exist at a given workplace, alongside nonunion workers, at the discretion of the guy paying the bills and buying the services. Unions can and do regularly compete for jobs against each other and against nonunion workers at various jobsites.
No one gets to throw rocks, block entrances, slash tires, or threaten anyone's family, and it's generally considered bad form to cause a ruckus and wave silly signs in front of the jobsite.
The union might take over payroll and benefits for its workers, while they're at it, and offer to relieve management of that burden.
I'm in the IT business, and I belong to such a union. Of course, we call it a "consulting firm".
I love the Law of Uninteded Consequences :-)
Preview is my friend.
The big problem arises when this fictional person is treated as an entity under criminal law. The solution is to have criminal law not recognize corporations as actors - only individuals. "Megacorp" didn't kill 10 people, specific individuals killed 10 people through their actions. "Enron" didn't defraud, at least solely - "Ken Lay" or "Jeff Skilling" did. "Enron" is tortable by its victims, but the actors - human beings - should be criminally liable. (Same with dumping laws - we should be going after truck drivers, their managers, and policy makers at companies, not merely fining companies.)
A similar situation exists with unions. There is nothing inherently wrong with unions - when "union" means "a coalition of tradesmen banded together to negotiate as a cartel with those who would employ them". The problem arises when the law protects unions by, for example, restricting employers from taking union membership into account in hiring decisions. (US Labor Code, Ch. 158(a)(3)) Or requiring employers to negotiate with unions (US Labor Code, Ch. 159 and 158(a)(5)) or creates monopoly powers for unions. (Ch. 158(b)(7)(a)) A company and a union should be allowed to contract, and to employ employees under that contract. The law should neither require that employers or employees be union, or require that employers not contract with the union that all employees be union or not. (State codes go in various directions on this - "right to work" means an employer can't contract with a union as exclusive provider of labor - yet another unwarranted restraint on employer rights. This is no better than a law that explicitly requires union membership - Bar and Medical association laws spring instantly to mind.) The law shouldn't ban strikes, lockouts, nor ban employers from firing striking workers and/or their union and hiring replacements, nor ban or restrict hiring temporary workers for the term of the labor action, or unions from placing strikers in temporary jobs during a strike. These should all be handled by contract. A company-union relationship should be no different from any company - supplier relationship. (Libertarian theory doesn't ban cartels, either. It just expects them to collapse as a natural consequence of market forces. Same with powerful unions.)
A libertarian's view of "corporations" and a green's view of "corporations" can start to converge in some odd ways.
People marry. It's not something any society or government ever created.
Gay marriage is a state creation (in some places and as commonly proposed today).
This does not make it statist. Statism is when the state controls something, not when it just recognizes it.
Do you really think the gay marriage issue is anti-libertarian because it involves making new laws?
Historically, even in societies where same-sex pair-bonding was not uncommon, marriage was always seen as something distinctively different.
If we as a society decide to create an institution known as gay marriage--and I'm in favor of doing so, by the way--it will have been primarily through state action.
There's nothing inherently wrong with state action. We should just know the difference. My beef with some lassez-faire capitalists is that they don't want to just admit that a corporation is a state-created entity, one that can only exist because voters allow it to exist. It is not inherently a "right" and there's nothing particularly lassez-faire about it.
I happen to feel that the larger a corporation is, the more government oversight it should receive, and the more rules it should be required to follow when dealing with its customers and its employees. In arguing this, many "free marketeers" say I'm anti-business or socialist. That's crap. Corporations themselves are a socialist concept. They always have been. They are state-created and state-regulated entities that allow a form of collectivism that simply wouldn't be possible in a true free market.
Does that make corporations bad? Certainly not. But libertarians and conservatives need to get real here. Corporations are as much an interference with the free market as any welfare scheme.
A marriage is not created for a temporal economic purpose, but is a spiritual union between a man and a woman, a man and a man, a woman and a woman. It is a vow to love and to be faithful to one's chosen spouse until death or for eternity (depending on your theology). Sometimes, it is necessary to divorce or to annul the marriage, but that then is tragic.
Marriage is, ideally, for life. Your family (your relationship to your mother, father, brothers, sisters, children, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) is similar (and generally proceeds from a marriage), you are born into it and will die in it, and the same with your country or nationality (patriotism is an extention of family loyalty), and with your religion, your relationship to your Deity or Deities (which is for eternity). Same with friendships also, which are ideally for life. All of these "Gemeinschaftliche" entities or relationships are permanent ends (values) in themselves, and all of them existed long before states, as we know them today, existed.
Corporations, labor unions, governments (states), and similar "Gessellschaftliche" entities, are, by contrast, are created as means to particular, clearly-defined, temporal ends.
Ayn Rand did not like corporations very much, even less in some ways than she liked labor unions. She admired the individual entrepreneur of the so-called "Robber Barron" era of free enterprise of the 19th century.
Read "The Fountainhead". Howard Roark, architect, was not a corporation nor was he a member of any union or guild (he pointedly refused to join the Architects' Guild). Gail Wynand ran a newpaper chain and invested in real estate, but he was not a corporation. Roger Enright, the tycoon who financed many of Roark's buildings, was not a corporation. Dominique was anything but a corporation or a member of anything -- she couldn't even agree with herself! The Individual Ego....
Read "Atlas Shrugged". Note that the incompetents and mediocrities hide under such anonymous names as "Associate Steel", "Amalgamated Switch &Signal", etc.. The heroic entrepreneurs, by contrast, egotistically slap their own names on everything they own: Taggart Transcontinental, D'Anconia Copper, Rearden Steel (Metal, Ore, etc.), Wyatt Oil, etc.. I love that old _style_ of capitalism.
I've heard tell that we may be seeing a return of the individual entrepreneur and a move away from the conformist "Organization Man" we heard so much about back in my day. Michael Barone, in his interesting book "Hard America, Soft America", writes of a shift away from "The Big Three" of my youth (Big Business, Big Labor, Big Government). I hope so. I love the days when I was a boy, but history did not begin in 1955 (or so I read).
I haven't thought too much about these issues of corporations, labor unions, etc., since that cataclysm of 9/11/2001. Ever since then, I've given far more thought to terrorists (who can kill me), to governments (which can put me in jail), and to religions (which can damn my soul, or pronounce me damned and then send somebody after me to lock me up, convert me, or kill me). The most powerful force in human history is not economics but religion.
Leftists have always been frustrated by the conservatism of the American worker. The New Left of the 1960s and early 1970s shifted from glorification of "the toiling proletariat" to contempt for the "Archie Bunker" "hard hat". They instead began to glorify black separatists, hippies, Yippies, the "Third World", etc., and to see the American worker, even as much as the American capitalist, as an "exploiter" of "the wretched of the earth".
Their contempt was returned by the "hard hats", who admired Spiro Agnew's denunciations of "an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals", "nattering nabobs of negativism", etc.. This populism of the Right, this contempt for "limousine liberals", "parlor pinks", "effete elites", etc., is much with us in the much-discussed "Red State"-"Blue State" dichotomy of today.
Interesting about it all.... Spectrums, spectrums, spectrums, spectrums....
Some marriages are business arrangements, even today.
spectra, spectra, spectra, spectra
:)
"{SMA:]"A marriage is not created for a temporal economic purpose, but is a spiritual union"
Some marriages are business arrangements, even today."
I agree with you that prostitution should be legalized.
Sure, let people form a private club (called a union) and it is up to each individual business owner or corporation to decide if they want to recognize it or not. Each person can decide if they want to be in the union not "we will all be union or we won't.
A business owner (private or public) should not be forced to deal with a union if they don't want to. Granted, the employees may strike (or quit), but that's their business. The employer will just hire other people.
If a crime occurred at EA then the proper avenue to pursue is the criminal courts. All that unionizing is likely to do is drive the company offshore--which I would strongly recommend they do if the mobster unions do their usual crap.
Why is it that people get the idea that they are entitled to a job at a particular company? If they don't like the working conditions, environment, or pay, QUIT. This is America of the 21st century, not Steinbeck's 1930s.
I don't see how any one can think that unions are a good idea (a collective of individuals where no one person is responsible for the strong arm tactics of the representatives) but think that corporations are bad. They are the same thing--voluntary groups. Where they become involuntary, that's where there is a problem.
Furthermore, a trade union is no less of an artificial or unanswerablel entity than a corporation. Indeed, in any true free market system, unions should be acknowledged as perfectly reasonable things. A group of people, banded together forms a corporation. Another group of people, banded together, forms a union. They come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Forcing people to join unions? This depends. If by that you mean the state should force people, no. But if the union arranges a contract so that the company will only employ members of that union, that is a completely fair, completely free-market, completely acceptable under lassez-faire capitalism arrangement.
As for strongarm tactics of unions: I've seen this and its deplorable. I've seen it by corporations too, messing with people's private lives, breaking promises to them, driving out legitimate competition, etc. I've seen it firsthand. I've also seen firsthand how utterly ridiculous working conditions have been fixed merely by the threat of workers organizing together for collective bargaining.
I am not reflexively pro-union. Many professions do not need them. However, whenever a corporation has reached a point of power and market control that no individual or family business could ever possibly compete with, I see nothing whatever wrong with balancing the ENTIRELY STATE SUPPORTED power of the corporation with state support for unionization and other forms of regulation.
However, a unionized company will tend to result in an environment in which employees are treated in a highly uniform manner, with incomes and promotions carried out according to highly-detailed rules. I think this has been harmful in K-12 education, and it would be equally harmful in programming.
In public K-12 education, there is no market test. In the software field there is. Companies with unionized programmers would tend to be at a competitive disadvantage, due to the factors mentioned above, unless the union is a very unusual one in terms of its approach.
And I must say: I work for a very large corporation with NO union, and guess what? People are treated in a highly uniform manner, with incomes and promotions carried out according to highly-detailed rules. With no union presence at all.
One of the things that "free marketeers" keep missing is the fact that massive corporations are not particularly flexible or even human.
Both are strongly independent, self reliant, and jealous of their rights. The citizens of New Hampshire see government as the greatest danger to their individual freedoms and vote accordingly. Vermonters on the other hand, consider intrusion by large corporations to be the greater danger to a free way of life. They vote in line with this perception. The same impulse produces seemingly opposite political responses in the two adjacent places.
Individual liberty always seems to grind at the point of contact between the exercise of one's own freedom and its encroachment upon the freedom of others. An individual person learns the manners and courtesies that lubricate the juncture, if only to prevent a fist in the mouth. A small business working at a personal level must do the same to stay in business. Organizations with a lot of members, such as governments, corporations(and unions), do not behave in such a fashion. As the New Englanders collectively perceived, either is as likely to be a threat to an individuals freedom.
In the US, our government and large corporations share more similarities than differences. They are both remote, their concerns are with large-scale processes, and they are only responsive to relatively large-scale problems. If the laws of our country had protected the rights of working people in the same degree as the rights of property owners, unions would never have developed at all and the American work ethic would still be intact.
I strongly recommend referencing the POCLAD site as a source of a great deal of background material on the relationship between corporations, government, and individual liberty. There are some biases that you may have to ignore, but there is a lot of solid historical research there.
Corporations, as a legal construct, are “neutral” politically and economically. They are not “socialist” (despite being constructed via statutory formula), nor are they anti-social. Likewise, the formula governing corporate formation and conduct is neutral to the political schema under which it exists; it matters not that a nation be a democracy, republic, constitutional monarchy, socialist body, or one of the myriad of despotic forms of government. So long as the rules exist, and are not monkeyed around with by the powers-that-be, or the officers and directors don’t express their personal political beliefs using the corporate entity, it matters little to the corporate form exactly what the political climate is.
Economically, the same set of rules can be used under a free enterprise system, lassez-faire systems, fascist, socialist, regulatory, or whatnot. How the corporation performs its goals – that is, making money for its owners, is influenced by the political and economic climate, but simply for a corporation to exist? Those variables have a de minimis effect on existence – with the greatest exceptions being if the political or economic policies would drive a particular corporation out of existence, or removing the ability to incorporate at all.
If not corporations, what do we have? “In the beginning” there were two forms of business “entities” – the sole proprietorship and the partnership. Sole proprietorship is the simplest form – it actually is a lack of a form. A guy announces “I’m in business doing X” and poof he’s a sole proprietor. Anything his “business” earns is his, anything it loses comes out of his pocket, and hopefully he can afford it. Banks might loan money, but there’s nothing protecting it – there is no division of “this is mine, personally” and “this is the businesses” – it’s all the same stuff. If someone loans this guy money, and he gets drunk and runs someone over, that money is gone once the guy is sued – there’s no protection of “business assets” in personal matters for sole proprietors.
So what’s a guy to do if he wants to go into business, but needs money? That’s where the next form steps in. He gets his buddy, who has tons of cash, but no business sense, to give him the money, and they become partners. Unfortunately, nearly every risk a sole proprietor has is carried by all the partners in a general partnership (limited partnerships came later). Partners might be protected from the “non-business” activities (read: losses, lawsuits, gambling debts, etc) of the other, but anything that is put into the partnership is 100% owned by ALL partners – this is why limited partnerships came about. With the partnership around, you could get lots of money together to do things (like aspire to Fortune 1000 status) but you have to make sure each and every partner is not a risk. And, bringing in a new partner if you need more cash is difficult. Going from 4 partners to 5 partners means each original partner takes a 5% cut in benefits (and no risk reduction – perhaps an increase) because the early forms of partnerships were a “share and share alike” proposition.
England made first use of the new structure – the corporation. Originally by charter of the government, they were still private enterprises (unless you want to label the East India Company a socialist organization?) Coincidentally – or not – the introduction of corporations occurred when industrialization occurred. Corporations spit the risk from the ownership – everyone can buy in and if the corporation tanks, you lose your initial investment. (If a partnership tanks, it doesn’t matter how many partners go bankrupt, they all have to pony up to pay those debts.) It also means the buy-in by investors is much greater than for a sole proprietor or partnership – the entire corporation isn’t generally at risk of one person’s non-business blunder (there’s always exceptions, of course). Why are all the big businesses corporations? It’s the liability. If you were to convert any Fortune 500 corporation to a partnership, you’d have to identify who would be a general partner (unlimited liability), who would be a limited partner (if any) and who would “merely” be an employee. Then, you’d have to buy out the owners – all the stockholders. And then, if you managed to get through all that, pray that none of the partners so much as belches in the wrong way. Here’s another pitfall – if a partner dies, the original rules say the entire partnership is dissolved, and you have to reform a new one Want to change corporate directors, or shareholders, no problem.
Yes, individuals drive the system – but the corporate form is one of the best ‘force magnifiers’ for an individual’s innovation. They are a tool of the individual. Deep down, unions are corporations (You won’t find it on their web page, but there’s other references to the ‘AFL-CIO, INC’ – best guess would be a Delaware Corp., though I’d certainly like to know for sure. If they’re not corporations, the officers have much more personal liability than they would otherwise have), except their “product” is employable people, rather than anything else.
Generally, the biggest difference under law between a natural person and a corporation is the continuity of the corporation – no matter what happens to the officers, directors, or owner/shareholders, or who each is, a corporation doesn’t die unless you file paperwork. To the best of my knowledge, this is the biggest legal boon to a corporation that a human being simply cannot have.
Lysander
My continued argument with many hard-line free-marketeers, many of whom claim to be highly "anti-statist" or "anti-govornment" is that they seem completely unwilling to acknowledge that corporations are a government-created, government protected concept. They did not evolve naturally out of the free market or common law traditions. They were created by state action, for purposes the state found compelling. Period.
For a very long time, they were viewed with suspicion, MOST ESPECIALLY by conservatives. This embrace of lare corporations and utter lack of skepticism toward them is very new to conservative and libertarian thought; as others have pointed out, even such extreme libertarian thinkers as Ayn Rand were deeply skeptical of corporations, and most conseratives still were at least until the 1980s.
The down side of corporations is that they are in many ways a hindrance to the sole proprietorships, partnerships, and traditional family businesses that they compete with. It's not even really true that a corporation is the only way to keep a business going past the founders' death; the Zildjian family has been making musical instruments (mostly cymbals) for almost 400 years, and are probably the best known business in the world for what they do, and they existed before there was any such thing as a corporation. (Although they are incorporated now so far as I know.)
My overall point remains exactly the same, andis mostly bolstered by what you're saying Lysander. Corporations allow a protection from liability and a concentration of resources that are simply impossible for any one individual or small partnership to manage. This has its advantages, but we cannot deny that it's got its down sides: they are able to out-compete more natural, truly free-market enterprises. The individual and family business can be literally destroyed by corporations, and they frequently are. Now, is this of benefit to society as a whole? Well you can make a strong case for that, but you should acknowledge first and foremost that you're using state power to achieve that social benefit.
And once you do that, and once you realize that trade unions are merely a form of corporation themselves (which you are correct to note that most of them are), the discussion naturally needs to shift: here you have not one but two forms of state-created, state-sheltered entities in competition.
Those of us who believe in free markets--as I certainly do--should simply acknowledge, in my view, that corporations by their very nature are inherently statist, and inherently interfere with pure free market operations. Their very existence is a matter of social policy by the state. This disturbs some free marketeers when you point this out to them but it's the absolute truth.