🚀 go-pugleaf

coatta@cs.ubc.ca (Terry Coatta) writes: 
> [Note:  The title you originally supplied with your response is not
> really indicative of my position on the role of companies within
> society... I don't regard companies as ``evil empires'', simply as
> extensive, powerful individuals, operating within society to achieve
> certain goals.  As with any interaction between members of society
> there will be conflicts which need to be resolved.]

I didn't mean to imply anything by it, I just put it down flippantly - sorry.
I agree with your view of companies.

> > But this is readily prevented by zoning laws, and such a system
> > operates effectively at present.
> 
> Well, zoning laws were one of the things that I had in mind in my
> previous posting.  Based on your previous postings I wasn't entirely
> sure that you would consider zoning regulations to be a legitimate
> application of government.

They are reasonable as devices that maintain community standards.  Obviously
I disagree with changing them freely to suit the needs of the day.  They
should adapt slowly.

> > Can you present some examples of when negotiations
> > are even needed?
> 
> Perhaps this is subsumed by zoning regulations, but I think it is
> legitimate for citizens to require that suitably-sized companies
> be required to provide child-care services on-site.  This could be
> achieved by said citizens organizing themselves and dealing directly
> with companies, but as I pointed out before, this doesn't strike 
> me as realistic.

I totally disagree with this.  Why would it be the concern of the general
citizenry whether or not a given company provides child-care?  It is an
arrangement between the workers and their employer, and is none of the
public's business.  It is not far from this sort of regulating to forcing
private companies into adopting Affirmative Action policies.

Companies will install child-care if it is cost effective, if it increases
worker productivity, and if it allows them to attract talented people.  These
are all possible reasons why they might consider child-care, but again, it
should strictly be an arrangement made between the company and its
employees.

> > Your points caused me to think about one big problem of corporations.
> > When they break the law, there is no one who is made to feel the pain of
> > punishment.  Fines are as meaningless to them as they are to rich men, and
> > nobody can be incarcerated.
> 
> This is another facet of the same issue.  Of course, ``negotiate'' is not
> a reasonable term to use in this context, but the basic thrust is the
> same.  Law cannot be maintained unless the body which enforces the
> laws has powers sufficiently similar to those of the entities being
> governed by those laws.  In an anarchistic utopia the citizens of a
> nation could respond to a trespass of the law by a company through
> simply refusing to purchase whatever goods/services it sold.  The
> unfortunate reality is that such concerted action is almost impossible
> in a large, heterogeneous, physically distributed society.  The
> industrial revolution has effectively rendered the anarchistic
> utopia an impossible ideal.

True, but you can get damn close.  The primary function of government should
be to enforce the laws that support human rights.  This involves a police
force, a military (to protect the borders within which the human rights are
supported), and a judicial system.  This doesn't leave much room for
modern style politicians (praise the fates).  The theoretical purpose of
politicians is to act as representative agents in debates over how the
laws/polices that support human rights should be adapted to suit the times.
When the laws are only concerned with human rights, this doesn't involve
much, so politiking is minimized.  Our system, concerned extensively as it is
with issues far beyond human rights (entitlements, subsidies, transfers...),
has a multitude of niches for the bigger-than-life politician.  
(But I digress.)

So if you restrict laws to those supporting human rights, government gets
really small.  The only thing left of any size is the "enforcement" section.
(You might want to throw in say education and health care services - because
of the economies of scale available.)  This is not too far from an
anarchistic utopia.

One point about the enforcement of laws is that, while laws should be limited
to allow people as much freedom as possible, when they transgress they should
be absolutely hammered.  The opposite paradigm is currently being installed.
We are constantly given more and more regulations, but transgressors are
punished less and less.  Related to this is the fact that a "socialism of
liberty" is going on.  What I mean is, every time child molesters are given a
reduced sentence, parents end up forgoing more of their free time and liberty
keeping closer track of their children.  When I was a kid we didn't have to
be driven to school.  A similar effect is occurring with rapists and women.
In fact, the whole society has shifted away from one where people are
inherently trusted, and punished firmly for violating this trust, to one
where, like children, our every action is guided, and when we "make a
mistake", we are more or less forgiven.  In the very least it is insulting.

Of course I still haven't suggested what we can do when big companies
transgress.  Maybe making individual workers responsible for corporate abuses
is the answer.  After all, somebody opened the valve that let the dioxins
into Howe Sound.  If the workers are truly unaware of what is going through
the valve, go after the Process Engineers.  That should breed some
responsibility into the design process.  It also gives the Engineers more
clout ("None of us will do it, we could all go to jail.") when upper
management insists on doing something bad, bad.

Ken Buckland
kenb@ee.ubc.ca