Тег: Corporations

A little bit more about taxes and death

Sperry’s article about why there is no point in opposing taxes was actively discussed in the comments of the telegram channel, which was largely the goal of the publication. In short, the text is about how, one way or another, even in a free market, a sum comparable to government taxes will be squeezed out of you anyway and spent on roughly the same things the state would have spent it on; and since there is no difference, why be outraged?

The article shows two extremes. One extreme is the organization of an enterprise requiring a vast amount of unskilled labor in conditions where manpower is in huge abundance. Appealing to historical examples, Sperry reminds us that in such cases it is usually more profitable to pay workers mere pittance, and preferably not in money, but in food tokens, while suppressing discontent through organized violence. The other extreme is the organization of an enterprise requiring a handful of highly qualified specialists who are exhausting to find, and who must be kept from being poached by competitors. Here, the employer not only pays them a hefty salary but also provides substantial bonuses, from a simple coffee machine in the break room to fitness gyms, expensive health insurance for the employee’s entire family, flexible work schedules, and company stock options.

In both extreme cases, Sperry makes it clear that the worker is not free and is forced to eat whatever they are given. In one case, tokens for miserable food at the plantation store instead of a simple human wage. In the other, an unwanted fitness gym instead of a simple salary increase. But why, exactly, does this happen?

For it to be profitable to coerce labor through violence, that labor must be very monotonous, concentrated in space, and not involve active movement. Only in this case can one get by with mobile armed overseers, who must be very few in number relative to the workers; otherwise, the cost of the thug no longer pays off. Thus, tending bushes or mining raw materials are perfectly optimized for mass slave labor, but grazing livestock is not particularly so. But, one way or another, in a free market, if you put together a gang of thugs to organize forced labor, you will have to be the leader of those thugs. Relax for a moment, and tomorrow you will find that your foreman has taken your place, and you are already being driven to pick bananas.

Naturally, the planter is not interested in such an outcome; he wants his property rights protected and the workers, even if armed, to know their place. And here, the state comes to his aid. The state becomes the guarantor that the security foreman will moderately and diligently perform his job for hard cash rather than seizing the plantation for himself. In exchange, the state takes taxes, and with them maintains an army and police. From this moment on, the planter is doomed. Tomorrow the state will raise land taxes, introduce inheritance taxes, nationalize latifundia, or otherwise optimize the privileged class because it consumes too much, and its “dekulakization” will inevitably be popular among the people. It turns out that for a share of his profit, the planter receives the same tokens for protection, just as his workers receive tokens for food. And the quality of the tokens’ provision will arbitrarily decrease as the issuer’s appetite grows.

So, either you are a stern Spartan who personally arranges krypteia with colleagues so that the helots know their place and do not think of rebellion, or you degenerate into an effeminate sybarite who has outsourced his functions of coercion, and the question of your abolition becomes effectively decided.

And what about the second extreme case? Generally speaking, in a free market, mega-qualified specialists will not eat whatever they are given. The employer sets up a fitness gym in the office because the specialist specifically wants that. He is too lazy to go lift weights after work; he wants to have the option when the urge hits, and if the employer is not ready for that, there are competitors. And if the worker grows tired of the fitness gym, they will have no problem putting a bar next to it—just keep working, sweetheart. You don’t want anything extra, just more money? Here is more money, and work from home if you like. Of course, all these measures to increase loyalty benefit the employer only if the specialist genuinely enjoys their work, but it cannot be otherwise; otherwise, they would not have acquired their outstanding qualification.

However, even if a corporation’s main engine consists of a few mega-professionals, it still cannot do without a team of mid-level employees; someone must handle the routine. And these people are the ones who don’t get to choose between fitness, a bar, or cash in hand. Firstly, it is above their rank. Secondly, a benefits package reduces profit and therefore reduces the profit tax. Salary, on the other hand, requires payment of payroll tax. Therefore, it is often more profitable for a corporation to pay its rank-and-file employees less in cash, and instead provide benefits in kind, which, of course, evokes associations with food tokens in the plantation cafeteria.

Well, why does the corporation need the state? For the same reason the planter does: to protect the corporation’s interests through brute force (mainly by limiting market entry for competitors, plus government contracts). Naturally, as a result, the corporation also ends up vulnerable if a certain high-ranking state official decides to “dekulakize” it. What could replace the state regulator? As in the case of the union of planters, it would have to be some situational alliance of industry representatives agreeing on voluntarily observed norms and standards. If the corporation’s business itself is not based on coercion, then living without a state is still somewhat easier for it than for latifundists.

Thus, the state, by its very existence, exerts a corrosive effect on large business: it reduces the costs of violence against workers or competitors, and as a result, business acquires state-like characteristics. It is much harder for small business to latch onto this mechanism, so even within an existing state, it remains a purer market agent and therefore will survive the abolition of the state with much greater ease. This leaves the ancaps with only one question: can a society without a state maintain a high level of structural complexity and a deep division of labor in the absence of large business? Or can large business remain so in the absence of a state? I will leave this question hanging for now.

Corporate Psychopathy – the Cause of the Global Economic Crisis

There is a theory developed by researcher Clive Boddy, according to which psychopaths working in corporations, particularly financial ones, played a significant role in the emergence of the 2008 global economic crisis. As is well known, not all managers are inclined to work for the benefit of the company that hired them. Some of them are dysfunctional leaders who literally destroy the company with their actions. One important type of such leaders are psychopathic personalities, which we will now discuss in more detail.

As we know, psychopaths in literature are defined as personalities who have problems manifesting empathy and sympathy toward other people, behave coldly and ruthlessly toward them, lack a conscience, and feel no guilt for causing harm to anyone. In turn, corporate psychopaths are individuals with similar characteristics who engage in organizational activities. They usually present themselves as pleasant, attractive, and successful individuals, but in reality, they merely manipulate everyone around them, usually to their detriment, to achieve purely personal goals.

Such individuals often receive rapid promotions and become leaders due to their charm and confidence, while they are prone to ignoring the needs of others, deceiving them, or even engaging in bullying. Furthermore, there is evidence that in some companies, including international financial corporations, psychopaths were even specifically selected for leadership positions due to the belief that such personalities are best suited for such work.

Usually, such individuals brought short-term success to companies through mass cost-cutting and employee layoffs. However, they were in no way concerned about the potential long-term harm of the strategies they chose, and in general pursued exclusively their own benefits, discarding their obligations and responsibility, striving to obtain as many personal “bonuses” as possible while everyone else was in the midst of financial litigation. From the actions of such “effective managers,” one can well expect that they will ultimately receive a large check for their efforts to “save” the company, after which it will simply go bankrupt.

Now imagine what would happen if, due to certain global changes in the corporate environment—such as increasingly frequent company mergers, the tendency of employees to change jobs more often and move to companies previously completely unknown to them, changes in the technological environment and others, which became common practice on the eve of the global crisis—psychopathic personalities received far more opportunities to occupy high positions, using not their actual work skills, but manipulation and political skills? In such a situation of growing corporate psychopathy, a corporate and social catastrophe can be expected, which is precisely what authors studying this problem warned about in their materials as early as 2005.

Such a problem has still not been given proper attention, which puts the very future of capitalism at risk. Of course, this problem is far from the only one in economic matters, but it deserves more detailed study and the application of appropriate measures.

Voluntarist, Bitarch

How corporate psychopaths affect working conditions and the long-term success of a company

Voluntarist, Bitarch

In businesses with high staff turnover and relatively superficial assessments of personality traits when appointing employees to various positions, unscrupulous and deceitful corporate psychopaths often find opportunities to promote themselves. Such characteristics as ultra-rationality and a lack of emotional distress and empathy for other employees may even initially seem useful in activities aimed at generating profit. However, in the long run, the actions of corporate psychopaths can lead to catastrophic consequences.

To begin with, many employees cannot psychologically endure being their subordinates. Under psychopathic managers, staff turnover increases significantly. Additionally, they cause a decrease in the level of cooperation between different departments within the company. For example, psychopathic managers may order employees not to interact with other departments in any way except through their mediation. This is done to hide the fraudulent schemes they are implementing. Another management trait of corporate psychopaths is the bullying and intimidation of subordinates to draw them into their schemes, as well as the forced dismissal of anyone who refuses to obey them unconditionally.

At the same time, as counterintuitive as it may sound, psychopathic managers appear to be excellent employees to senior management, as they are proficient at reducing the company’s monetary expenses. Of course, in reality, this is not their own achievement; they appropriate it from other managers whom they have forced to participate in their schemes. They are adept at deceiving senior management and concealing the bullying they inflict on their subordinates.

Of course, in the long run, such manipulations and the creation of unbearable working conditions only cause harm. It is believed that corporate psychopaths are often the cause of company bankruptcies. Talented and skilled good people resign under their leadership, the company’s ethical reputation plummets, and product quality declines, leading to the loss of customers. Furthermore, through deception and manipulation, corporate psychopaths obtain positions for which they are unfit, while “silencing” truly experienced employees for the sake of their own personal interests.

Research often cites the example of American turnaround manager Albert Dunlop, who specialized in “saving” companies, which consisted of bringing them into a saleable condition while completely ignoring their future. Many researchers believe he was a psychopath. On Wall Street, he was known for his ruthless and intimidating approach to cost-cutting and heartless indifference toward firing employees. After becoming the CEO of Scott Paper, he disposed of assets worth about 2 billion dollars, fired a third of the workforce, and successfully sold the company to a competitor a year later. However, the company proved to be non-viable, and its headquarters were closed. In the end, about 11,000 people lost their jobs. Dunlop, meanwhile, walked away with a 100 million dollar severance package. Dunlop acted similarly with the company Sunbeam. After a year of his management, the company reported a huge increase in sales, and its shares rose by 50%. However, it was later revealed that this was a deception. At the very beginning, Dunlop created the impression that the company was incurring huge losses so that it would later seem that its situation had sharply improved. In the end, he faced trial for fraud, and the company went bankrupt.

Executives who exhibit psychopathic traits, such as ruthlessness and heartlessness, create unbearable working conditions and, in pursuit of purely personal gain, may even destroy a company. Such individuals should be feared; they should never be given leadership positions, at least until they undergo therapy to correct the dysfunction of the violence inhibition mechanism, which is why they are ruthless psychopaths.

State violence threatens corporations

Bitarch, Voluntarist

We have already previously considered the topic of why it is profitable for corporations to fight against violence. In order to produce new products and generate profit from their sales, it is extremely important for them to develop and implement new technologies. However, if violence as a general phenomenon continues to exist, further scientific and technical progress will simply become impossible. New technologies also provide new opportunities for committing acts of violence, including catastrophic ones. Imagine if a smartphone battery became energy-dense enough to cause a large explosion, or if home computers became powerful enough to allow any random person to create and test viruses using artificial intelligence for simulation, which could then be recreated in real life using a DNA/RNA synthesizer that has also become more advanced and accessible. For corporations, this is a collapse; they must participate in solving the problem of violence to preserve and increase their own income. You can find more details on this argument in the material “Corporations Against Violence”.

But one must consider not only the risks of individual acts of violence. If dangerous technologies available to the general masses have not yet been released on the market—meaning corporations have nothing to worry about in that regard for now—then violence on the part of the state threatens them directly already. Recall what recently happened to Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba Group. Due to critical remarks regarding state economic regulation, the Chinese authorities began to pressure him in every way and destroy him as a businessman. In general, China has taken up the harsh subordination of all large technological corporations on its territory.

Such a scenario could happen to any billionaire and any corporation. Well-known figures such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates, or Jeff Bezos possess enormous funds and influence in society. But the state can nullify all of this at any moment by applying certain sanctions supported by security forces, who are always ready to forcibly compel obedience if the orders of a stationary bandit are not followed. Using China as an example, we clearly see that rulers like “Comrade Xi” do not care at all about the funds and influence of corporations and their owners; for the sake of their own desires, authoritarians will take all of this by brute force.

It would be correct to note that specific governments may not be interested in using force against corporations. But what guarantees eternal power to those specific people in government? Nothing! Sooner or later, power always changes. And if the current government is peaceful enough not to threaten corporations, the next government—regardless of whether it was elected democratically or seized power in an armed coup (although this scenario is more dangerous, as it most often brings deranged dictators to power)—could well declare so-called “nationalization” for corporations and subject the corporation owners to harsh repression. Moreover, such changes can occur even within a single administration—after all, nothing can guarantee its commitment to the same interests over a long period of time.

For these reasons, it is quite profitable for corporations to invest in the fight against violence, and they will do so if initiatives to combat violence become noticeable enough to attract their attention. It is far better to invest a few percent of their profit in balancing the potential for violence or, for technology companies, to participate in the development of gene therapy against violence, rather than constantly risk being destroyed by violence.

Can corporations create their own army, police, and so on, thereby subjugating the people?

анонимный вопрос

Of course they can. The most vivid example of this is the British East India Company. Therefore, the question one must actually answer is “how to prevent corporations from doing this?”

Political philosophers have long been chewing over a related question about how to prevent a government from descending into tyranny. The proposed solutions can be divided into two categories. The first is technological. These are various schemes for the separation of powers and other types of institution-building. The second is ideological. This is the promotion of a readiness to resist any attempts to slide into tyranny.

It is roughly the same with corporations. One can build schemes for exactly how conflicts will be resolved in a distributed mode under ancap. For example, I am quite fond of the Friedmanite, or the related Molinieu scheme. Or one can simply postulate that, firstly, it is always the individual who decides whether to abide by a particular contract or leave it, and secondly, that man is the measure of all things, and if he believes he sees an injustice, it is up to him to decide whether to help eliminate it. There is no magic non-aggression pact that is mandatory for universal compliance; there are only private notions of what is right. Has a corporation crossed the line? The corporation should be punished.

Anarchy is not viable without the constant readiness of people to take direct action to uphold justice. Certain structures, such as dispute resolution organizations, simply allow for the division of labor. A small and tight-knit corporation of evil is capable of terrorizing a small territory and squeezing it dry. But under conditions of anarchy, it has little chance of building on that success and expanding beyond a certain limit: the accumulation of a critical mass of coordinated adversaries will drain all the corporation’s strength into containing them.

So, if I wished to assert myself under ancap through coercion and the seizure of others’ property, I would do so with a small group, anonymously, and vanish into the night as soon as the opponent regained their senses. In a developed information world, this would most likely mean hacking attacks—it is harder to cover one’s tracks after raids on physical objects. Yes, this kind of criminality is entirely possible and even viable under ancap. But all those speculative cases in the vein of “your grandfather installed a pirated version of Windows half a century ago, interest on the penalty has accrued since then, and therefore by the decision of our pocket court, you are consigned to contract slavery for thirty years”—these are attempts to imagine an anarchy in which everyone remains afflicted by statist brain rot. As long as they are afflicted, there will simply be no anarchy, and once the disease is overcome, such cases will become impossible.