The point of OP is about a time where local communities mattered more than global output. When those in power were close enough to the common folk to the point where they could face consequences of their abuse. A time where societies had much higher levels of trust.
OP is not talking about "relinquishing the responsibilities to others". Quite the opposite. It's much easier to effectively exercise your rights and responsibilities on a smaller sphere of influence and power.
You never have to lay anyone off, pay raises come regularly, no huge pressure to perform, management gets big bonuses and shareholders watch the stock rise.
See the big US automakers in their hay day.
But when competition heats up, other companies take you business and profit growth has to be fought for, anything and everything is on the table.
The companies back then were never really loyal, they just never had the need to be ruthless, but they certainly would have been.
Correction, a time when companies didn't have an easy and clear path to global output.
> When those in power were close enough to the common folk to the point where they could face consequences of their abuse.
I'm not sure that's ever been the norm anywhere in the world throughout history. I definitely don't think it was the reality in the Norman Rockwell like idea of what you think it was like.
We just view the past with rose-tinted glasses. Things were always bad, just in different ways. Those same companies that gave to the community and were the main employers in an area also set the working wage in the area with little market competition, and faced less scrutiny from the local law enforcement (who wants to be the prosecutor or police officer responsible for hurting everyone employed there in the community).
If you want actual evidence of wrongdoing, it's trivially easy to find.[1]
> OP is not talking about "relinquishing the responsibilities to others". Quite the opposite. It's much easier to effectively exercise your rights and responsibilities on a smaller sphere of influence and power.
I wasn't really making a countering the OP, as much as expanding on a point they noted. Those situations that were good or appeared so are unstable and there's little the local community can do to change it. But in a democracy they all have power to elect local representatives, and if they rely on their representatives instead of a mostly unaccountable company, they can exert control the outcome of situations if they don't like where things appear to be going.
1: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cuyahoga-river-caught...
No, you don't get to change what I said to fit your worldview. The 70's and the 80's had tons of multinational companies that didn't treat their employees like cattle, and that treated each of their branches as its community.
> We just view the past with rose-tinted glasses (...) If you want actual evidence of wrongdoing, it's trivially easy to find.
It's curious why your cynicism doesn't cut both ways...
Just as it is easy to find evidence of corruption at all levels of government.
> But in a democracy they all have power to elect local representatives, and if they rely on their representatives instead of a mostly unaccountable company, they can exert control the outcome of situations if they don't like where things appear to be going.
There are a lot more "ifs" here:
- If the local representatives are not in the pocket of the corporations. - If the local representatives are not part of the elite with different interests from the common folk. - If the local representatives are not just using their current term as a launching pad for a bigger point. - If the community is cohesive enough to not have individuals just thinking for themselves, or (worse) divided into polarized feuds and make them waste all their political energy into hurting each other.
And were those companies acting as stewards of small communities, taking some of the role of local governments? If not I'm not sure how it applies.
> It's curious why your cynicism doesn't cut both ways...
> Just as it is easy to find evidence of corruption at all levels of government.
It does, and I agree. The difference is that with elected officials you have a mechanism to do something about it. How do you change the agenda of a company that controls the economy of the town you live in? You're not on the board, you can't feasibly get enough of the stock (if it's even public) to sway their strategy.
I will lay out my argument very clearly, again, so there's no confusion, and I will make some parts explicit that I left out that people seem to be making assumptions on.
- For any group in power, you cannot control their future actions. Any person that acts in a way you agree with today, may not act that way tomorrow. That extends to all politicians and all management of companies.
- Because of this neither a company, or interest group, or individual, whether elected or not, can be relied on to work in your interest in perpetuity. I do not view a governing body or a company in any way as superior or inferior to each other because both can go bad.
- Having some way to incentivize or change those in power is important because of the above.
- Citizens of a democracy have some power to do this. People that rely on a non-governmental body for this are thus relinquishing some of their control to affect whether those in power if they are working against their interest.
- Therefore in the absence of evidence that a specific governing body is better or worse than some company in meeting the needs of a community if given the resources of that community (e.g. lessened tax burden and favorable treatment by the community and local government), choosing the apparatus that you have more control over is the better choice.
I am not making any claim that an elected government at any specific instance of time is inherently more likely than a company to act beneficially for a community, but I wholeheartedly believe that since the community can change that local government, they are a better choice to have the power.
