Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Wednesday, May 9. 2018

A Maggie's attitude

Taleb believes that individuals require a great deal of autonomy in order to be truly free. In this view, working in large corporations or other hierarchical environments is antithetical to freedom.


Arnold Kling, in a review of Taleb's new book Skin in the Game 

Posted by The Barrister in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 14:27 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

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Depends on how you view freedom and how much you want to have.

If you voluntarily work for a corporation (as I have all my life) in order to make an income or fulfill your life's work desires, then you are choosing to make a trade off of certain freedoms for something else. Money, power, certain aspects of life, etc. These are all part of the trade off for the rights and liberty you give up.

Sometimes I get really pissed off at the companies I work for, and I certainly DO NOT share the "diversity" or "social justice" values my current firm pushes on its employees. I merely put up with them while in the office...and slowly, silently push back against them (to great effect, at times).

Corporations are not, by their very nature anti-freedom. Many are open and embracing of different views on rights, freedom, and even work/hierarchical structure.

After all, I get substantial freedoms to work from home, and even potentially taking sabbatical.

If you were FORCED to work for a corporation, I'd agree...but nobody is making me work here. I can leave whenever I choose.
#1 Bulldog on 2018-05-09 15:35 (Reply)
couple of points: Hierarchies (pecking orders) have existed long before humans. It is how humans organize labor, politics, learning. From the tribal chieftain to the president. The desire for a philosopher king is an old-old desire.
Freedom within hierarchies depends upon its goals, management style, risk and reward systems. Vast differences between military, corporate, governmental, scholastic, olympics/sports, construction.

evolution is not just the survival of the fittest. For social animals like humans, it is also the survival of the most cooperative. Societies have an internal tension between individual needs/desires and the group goals. Every sport or game or business has internal cooperation and external competition. (since the first two cells joined up in their search for and acquisition of resources (food) Evolution has been both cooperation and competition.)
#2 Blick on 2018-05-09 16:12 (Reply)

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