Well, here's the new thread. And you've read the title (I hope).

Oh I wish people wouldn't design their threads like this... Anyway, if the workers seize control of the management through force, that where the problem is. Of course, if the workers feel the management sucks, they can strike, but equally self-certain, under capitalism the owner could fire the workers and employ starving people from Africa who'd work almost for free. :demon:

Well, I'm not suggesting that they should take it by force. I'm not a revolutionary. I'm suggesting that the workers buy the industry from their owners, or just start such a industry themselves like you would start any other business.

Well why don't they? I thought you slavery-adherents said you worked for the interests of the worker, which in your opinion is to manage a business with his co-workers, yet few workers would like that kind of management... Objectivist ethics isn't my field of expertise so I'll leave the question to God (Inspector) and his apostles.

Ouch! That stung!

Okay, New Tolerance, if all you are saying is that you want workers to buy up companies, then how is that different from how it is today? How many privately owned companies are owned by people who were not originally workers? How many publicly traded companies DON'T have shares owned by workers? What specific changes or systems do you advocate?

What on earth are you trying to say?

You also said, "And when did I ever hint that I believed in the government?"

When I pointed to the thread denouncing anarchy, you said that it didn't apply to your stance. So what's up with that? Is your statement above not renouncing government as such, but rather some specific form of government? If you're trying to be less vague, it's not working...

(edited for clarity)

?

First, shares don't mean much in terms of directly shaping the company's policy.

Second, although you do get promoted through the ranks of the company, that does not mean that the decision you make as a manager necassarily reflect the wishes of the workers around you. Which is the point.

Well, I would like to see companies have at least their top levels of management elected by all those the company employs for starters.

When I made that statement in reply to Krieg, I was saying that I do not believe not believe that 'social mobility' is a problem (and I don't classify it as a 'problem') that the govenment should be doing something to solve.

I cleared that up, I hope.

Two questions:

1) How is this impossible in Capitalism? Which system do you advocate and how does that system facilitate this goal any more than Capitalism?

2) Um.... why is this a desirable goal? What is the purpose of a company? The last time I checked, it was to make money for the owner or owners. How will the owners make more money by having their workers elect management? If the workers want to work for a company whose purpose is to make THEIR life easier, they should save their money and start their own companies. Until then, the purpose of a company is to make money, not to sustain workers. You'll excuse me if I'm mistaken, but your statements seem to imply that the purpose of a company is to serve the workers. It is not.

Okay that is clear. Although, I am no nearer to understanding what you do believe in.

If you're not sure what to believe then just tell us so and keep listening and asking questions.

It's not impossible under Capitalism, when did I ever say that it was? (well it depends on how you define Capitalism, but from what I know about the Objectivist descripition what I am advocating does not necassarily contradict what you are advocating, in fact I've been called a Capitalist by a certain Objectivist I've talked to, that does not mean I call myself that however)

I am not implying that the purpose of a company should (must) be to serve those who work for it. If the owner of a certain company wishes to use his company for the sole purpose of making money then let him/her be. I am implying that I hope that there will exist some industries which works for the worker's benefit.

Here are two reason why this system is desireable: one, although some people can eventually start their own company, not everyone has the expertise to do so (in our current world that is). Those that can not, might feel alienated from the taskes they perform as they can not apply their creative powers but merely work on the projects that they are given. The election of management, will allow the workers to feel that they are in part controlling the direction the company is moving in, and thus controlling what kind of projects they have to work on, thus reducing alienation. Not everyone will feel this way of course, this system however provides an alternative for those that do.

Second, those that perform the work understands the specific problems they face (when perform the taskes) better than those who direct them from above (as a CEO can not possibly understand/know how the forces behind every single program and machines that his corporation operates). And although these workers could talk to the CEO about the problems, through that many levels of bureaucracy, the CEO may simply not hear from them or listen to their suggestions. Thus by electing a person who understands their situation better, policies can be created allowing efficiency of production to more readily achieved.

Furthre more (3rd reason I guess), if there were alot of such industries, the workers can get things such as health benefits from the company, and the government will have no more 'justification' for taxation.

We'll keep talking, and you should find out fairly soon.

Ok, I'll try to field this one....

If they feel alienated they have the right to leave and find a company/position that allows them to express there creativity.

What you're really proposing is a new management style, this is perfectly legitimate under objectivism/capitalism however the question is weather anyone would invest in the company and weather the company could survive to continue to produce, a similar (although not identical) situation is presented in Atlas Shrugged (the bum's speech), that shows why THAT form of management won't work.

I don't think you'd find a company anywhere (unless it's a government program) that advocates Inefficiency in the workplace, and no CEO that wouldn't implement any ideas that would increase efficiency in the workplace.

I think that your need for such solutions to the problem of alienation stems from a misunderstanding of either the nature, cause, or imporatnce of alienation. I suggest that you read N. Branden's article "Alienation" (I think that is the title) in Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal. It will give you great insight as to the cause and the cure of alienation.

Suffice to say, I beleive that it is a personal problem that requires inner fulfillment to solve, and that to attempt to solve it with a work environment is either underestimating the scope of alienation or overestimating the scope of work.

Seriously, I think that if alienation is at all an issue of importance to you, you owe it to yourself to read that article.

Here is an excerpt from the article I mentioned.

From "Alienation" in "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal."

First, if they can just solve the problem by finding a new job, which is something you can do today, then there should be no such thing as alienation in our current society, which is not the case. (unless you want to argue otherwise)

Second, I had believed that what I am proposing is legitimate under your system of ethnic which is what I had been trying to point out all this time. (so no arguement there) So in other words, ethnically there is nothing wrong with the worker's controlled industry.

And I would like to hear about that bum's speech talking about why this form of management wouldn't work. Since empirically there has been this style of management in Japan for years, and these industries has worked fairly well from what I heard.

You are talking about the intention of the leadership not the way it's operating (unless I missed something, if so - clearify). Ie Just because it is the intent of Supreme Soviet to increase productivity doesn't mean productivity will actually increase. (due to the why it's operating the labour force)

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Inspector, before I address the article you've posted I have a few questions about it (which actually may or may not relate to what the arguements that I might bring up about it):

1) Does N. Branden have experimental data to support his arguement that people who blame capitalism for their "alienation" all suffer from neurotically anxiousness?

2) I might ask some other questions concerning the data if you show me some.

I believe his conclusions are inductive rather than deductive. To note, he is no longer an Objectivist, but that article was written a loooong time ago and is still printed in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.

Well, if you are implying that there is no experimental evidence then why should I in anyway take what he is proposing as something more than a mere hypothese?

The article is on psycho-epistemology. What evidence could he possibly gather?

"Hey, you! You capitalism-hater! Why do you feel alienated?"

It doesn't work like that. He supports his conclusions in the full article by showing you exactly how he deduces them and from what observations. (and what inductions his deductions rest on, as it were)

Well, if you believe in the science of pyschology then there certainly is a way he could have conducted an experiment to test his theory.

He could have simply found some of the people would claim that they are "anti-capitalist" due to their "alienation" and diagnosed them to see if they are suffering neurotical anxiety. As he would have diagnosed them for some other mental disorder such as depression. (this would have to be repeated many times for accuracy of course)

There should be a procedure for clinically diagnosing a person to see if they suffer from neurotical anxiety correct? Since he started his article by saying that it is a "fact" that people who suffer from neurotical anxiety externalize their fears. If it is a "fact" (if he was speaking in a scientific sense), then this "fact" must have been observed and documented (in other words its symptom should be known). If it is observable then he should be able to observe it in his test subjects in this experiment (by checking the symptoms).

Or was N. Branden's "fact", inductively arrived at as well?

Or have I miss read his article?

Now that I have the article in front of me, I see that it has plenty of footnotes. What I showed you was but a small excerpt. They may or may not be the kind of studies that you seem to require. It's up to you to read it or not.

Well, it may take me a while to get my hands on that book, but I'll talk about it once/if I do find it.

We can keep on talking about the subject of alienation if you want, my questions about what Branden's proposing are hardly my only defense on the subject. But at the moment I see little need for this, since even if this incentive is shown to be incorrect, as I've voiced earlier, addressing alienation is not the only reason why I am proposing this model, there are plenty of others. If you have no quarrels with these, then it is not fair for me to state that there is nothing wrong with the statement "worker controlled industry"?

The objection is based entirely on the the fact that workers do not currently control industry and we are against the use of force to make it so. I would also say that it is not in the interests of the average worker to control his industry since most do not know the best way to go about that task.

Taken at completely face value, there is very little wrong with that statement. You can, however, understand that most people who say it are violent marxist revolutionaries and how that might raise a few hackles around here.

Yes, that's very understandable.

I might make a serious effort to convince them to change their ideology (they consider me to be on their side) - hmm...

Expanding on this: The whole idea of the free market is that businesses that operate with less than optimal efficiency will be driven out of business by those that run their businesses better (i.e. make more profits so that they can charge lower prices, etc). If it was indeed a better business practice to let the workers democratically elect the management, then this would create a higher profit and other businesses would have to follow suit or go out of business.

In a truly free market, you would be welcome to try this, but personally I don't think it would produce a more efficient business.

It's worth a shot, I suppose. Once you convince a Marxist that the initiation of violence is wrong, you're halfway there. Since violence is inherant in all of Marxism's essential ideas, such a person will be forced to eventually reject either Marxism or the non-initiation-of-violence principle.

If you consider yourself to be a Marxist, New Tolerance, and you also consider yourself to be against the initiation of force, I suggest you examine your ideas and how they relate to each other.

Well, a note about that, it's basically representative control, not direct control. The people who run for elections are people who are supposedly educated in these matters.

Again, I believe similar models has been tried in Japan, and they are relatively successful.

And concerning your expanding point: There are some Western companies that are adopting this model (not very many) but that fact basically shows that this model is not particular worse off than any Western model, if not slightly more efficient.

I don't consider myself a Marxist, just someone who is more aligned with the Left (not the centre-Left, I'm not a pragmatist) as there are too many religious elements associated with the comtemporary Right. (that's if the political spectum only had 1 dimesion)

Then, you are welcome and encouraged to have a look at the ideas here. It sounds like you're looking for something principled but not based on mysticism. You will find such in abundance here.

Inspector, one little question... I usually don't engage in discussions of matters such as the one in this thread, because I'm confident that what you're saying here against alienation and so on is correct, and I believe everything would be solved if markets were left alone for the "invisible hand" to shape patterns, in, for example, how to run a business. But how important would you say that the understanding of Objectivist ethics is to the 'survival' of a future capitalist country? Like this: if people have no understanding of the ethics that justify a certain way to manage a business, but justify capitalism because 'it works', they might withdraw their support of capitalism if the market would cause their jobs to disappear. D'ya know what I'm getting at?

I sure do know what you're getting at. To answer your question, it is absolutely VITAL for the general populace to have some sort of understanding of Objectivist ethics. If they don't understand that, then they won't understand what Capitalism IS, much less why it is there or even how to successfully practice it.

Look at the history of the United States of America. Politics follows ethics. Since there was never an ethical revolution, the political revolution was compromised within a generation. As soon as the last of the founders died, you start to see the rise of statism.

The same holds true for metaphysics and epistemology, as well.

Now, it is not required that the general populace has a deep philosophic understanding of these things, but it is required that they have a BASIC one, and that they intellectuals have a complete one.