"Michael S. Lorrey" wrote:
> Paul Hughes wrote:
> > Also true as long as *individuals* remain the focus of such transactions. But what
> > I see happening are large numbers of individuals being controlled by small numbers
> > through the traditional hierarchy of corporations. If this is not the case, then
> > why is it that less than 5% of any company dictates and controls policy while the
> > other 95% have to *obey* or get fired.
> >
> > i.e. Corporation = Dictatorship. I challenge anyone to say otherwise. Sure I know
> > there are a *few* exceptions.
>
> A corporate CEO, chairman, or president is held accountable by the board of
> directors (i.e. congress) who themselves are held accountable by the
> stockholders (the body of voters).
>
> If a corporation is a dictatorship, then so is every 'democratic' society that
> ever existed, and there is no such thing as democracy.
Err...not quite. In a democracy, one person = one vote, and buying
votes is (supposedly) out of bounds. In a corporation, one stock = one
vote, and buying stock is how one is supposed to acquire votes. Thus,
those with the most money invested in the company have the largest say,
and they're going to be interested in making more money with their
money. They also tend to vote themselves into the board of directors,
thus making the board in practice accountable to no one but itself
(since they are typically the majority stockholders).
> An employee has the choice whether or not to be a voter, by buying stock, just
> as every citizen of a democratic country is free to choose whether or not to
> vote. Is the elected president of a country a dictator simply because some part
> of the population decides not to vote?
Unless said employee has lots of money to invest - which is almost never
the case - said votes will be worthless in practice, as described above.
(The stocks may be worth some money, but the votes they give have a
value of zero since they're always outvoted.) Even in a democracy (or,
more accurately, a republic, there being few if any national direct
democracies at the moment) with millions of people, a single person's
vote can still make some difference - and without the motivation of
"make the money I invested in this turn into more money" dominating
voters' minds, other values have a chance to compete.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:36:55 MDT