Are we talking about work or life? Sure, private companies aren't democracies, but why should they be? Democracies are extremely inefficient. Imagine if Linux or Python projects were run as democracies and not lead by BDFLs? I can't imagine them being nearly as effective because democratic processes to get new features would always be gridlocked. Benevolent dictators are 10x, maybe even 100x more efficient than democracies.
Outside of work I certainly live in a free society. I can walk up to a rich person ("a lord") and insult him to his face and nothing will happen.
>Are we talking about work or life? Sure, private companies aren't democracies, but why should they be? Democracies are extremely inefficient.
Isn't the common argument of economists that democracies are more efficient? (I do believe they're just paying service to their own governments, and just say what gets them grants and such, but in any case, that's the conventional wisdom).
Plus, democracies are "less efficient" compared to what dictatorship that did better than a democracy?
The main counter-example that comes to mind is China, and even them are mainly effective because of huge population and low labor costs, by being the place to outsource production by those democracies that can pay for it.
>I can't imagine them being nearly as effective because democratic processes to get new features would always be gridlocked.
Grid-locked by what? The purpose of voting in a democracy is to remove gridlocks. You don't even have to vote for everything, you can vote on a platform, and can delegate power for a certain time to someone to make the decisions, and then judge how they performed, and vote again after the period ended.
>Outside of work I certainly live in a free society. I can walk up to a rich person ("a lord") and insult him to his face and nothing will happen.*
You'd be surprised.
Plus, they can crush your neighborhood (e.g. to throw the tenants out and build some monstrocity), cajole with your lawmakers, fuck your working life, pollute your city/countryside/water supply, and usually nothing will happen.
And if they really cared, they could trivially have you killed, with nothing happening. It's just not worth the small risk of them being tied to it. But they hire legal teams and detectives to throw dirt at their enemies all the time..
> Grid-locked by what? The purpose of voting in a democracy is to remove gridlocks.
Well I suppose in a "pure" democracy where voting decides everything there is no gridlock, but those types of systems usually suck because there are no checks or balances, and whoever buys up the most votes wins. Most western nations are not governed by pure democracies. USA is a federal republic with 3 systems of government that check and balance each other and they get gridlocked all the time.
> And if they really cared, they could trivially have you killed, with nothing happening
I wouldn't say "with nothing happening". Something would definitely happen. If you're OJ Simson and the prosecution botches your case, then sure "nothing happened" (besides the millions you spent on lawyers and bad PR). But even OJ wasn't untouchable - he spent around a decade in prison later for other felonies. What about Jeffery Epstein? Harvey Weinstein? Yeah, their money buffered them for decades, but justice eventually caught them in its jaws.
>I wouldn't say "with nothing happening". Something would definitely happen. If you're OJ Simson and the prosecution botches your case, then sure "nothing happened"
OJ did it himself. A millionaire/billionaire could outsource this in tons of different ways, including totally untracable.
In some historical cases (including in western countries, never mind a place like e.g. Mexico) they could even get the police to do that for them...
That was 1997 at a conference. There was no social media or cancel culture.
My point is that you can be fired for insulting the wrong rich or the wrong anybody if it’s caught on camera and gets enough views and it brings shame to your lord. You’re not free when you clock out or leave the office. As an employee, you’re a representative of your company 24/7 whether you like it or not.
Linux and Python are both projects where people can vote with their feet, though. The projects themselves are not a democracy, but they're certainly not the same sort of ballgame as employment. If I decide my management chain is doing the wrong thing, there's a huge personal cost to finding another job, and little guarantee it will be better. If I decide Linux is doing the wrong thing, I can just stop using it or contributing to it.
That is - the fact that Linux and Python have BDFLs is not the reason for their success. The fact that they have effective BDFLs who make sound decisions that actually work is the reason for their success. And the BDFLs only have power insofar as the community still believes in them - Guido stepped down and Linus has faced significant opposition.
BDFLs and traditional corporate governance are quite efficient, yes. But democracy doesn't aim to be efficient; it promises to be pointed in the right direction. There's no sense in going at 100x speed in the wrong direction. Democracy isn't the only way to get there - if you have tangible data about leadership and where they're pointed and how they make decisions, and the cost of switching is fairly low (so that you can keep pressure on leadership), that works too.
When was the last time you had any data about how effective your management chain would be when you started your job?
(I'm happy in my current job because I asked hard questions about management at each place I interviewed, and I found one where my own management chain seemed to have good people - but even so, only one person in my management chain is still the same as when I interviewed, so I still took a gamble, and I had far less data on any of them from a bit over a day of interviews than anyone has on Linus or Guido.)
It's obviously true that being banned from contributing to an important project can be saddening and in rare occasions harm your career, but it happens very rarely.
OTOH losing your job can be way more serious consequences and happens way more often, even without any blame on the employee (e.g. a company shutdown)
And on top of that, a project BDFL cannot order inactive contributors to do some work under threat of banning them.
I would love to know where you're pulling the 10x or 100x efficiency stats on dictatorships, and what exactly are the sectors of the dictatorship that are more efficient?
Also, it seems like your definition of freedom has no responsibility attached to the actions. Yes, you may be able to do as you wish, but so can others onto you(especially if they have more leverage).
> Outside of work I certainly live in a free society.
Only if you define freedom as the capacity to do whatever is allowed or at least not expressly prohibited by the state without legal consequence. Fortunately no one defines it that way. You cannot be simultaneously free and subject to state power. Companies simply add another layer atop the restrictions to freedom imposed by the state. You might feel freer outside of work, but don't make the mistake of thinking you are free.
Being satisfied with temporary respite from greater restrictions imposed at work is hardly something you should celebrate. Slaves in antebellum America enjoyed free time as well, presumably many were intelligent and self-aware enough to resent their situation despite this.
It is not defined as such, but it certainly only seems possible in the absence of the state. One well known dictionary phrases the relevant definition as "the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action". Many nation states (although the US is the worst offender in this regard) and those whose interests a given state protects, have quite successfully convinced their citizenry to celebrate the limitations placed upon them and further to mislabel these limitations as freedom.
There are degrees of democracy (as I think your comment rightly points out).
Maximum democracy in this case might be, the RFCs are written by anyone, work on features is started when people vote to start it, and there is widely distributed veto/filibuster power.
A bit less democracy might be that the maintainers select the ten proposals they feel are best, and put them to a vote for people to choose.
I just read a really good book on this topic called "10% Less Democracy". I'd highly recommend it. It shows how "maximum democracy" usually isn't the best setting, at least for governments. Their proposal for tax is interesting: write a 4-page bill in Congress that outlines the % of income to be collected, and maybe some amount each decile should pay, and an unelected tax body (like the IRS) figures out how to make that happen, as cheaply and transparently as possible.
I wouldn't describe the Rust processes as democracy. The team members are the ones to decide on RFCs, and they are not elected. Their "appointment" is more a meritocracy.
Outside of work I certainly live in a free society. I can walk up to a rich person ("a lord") and insult him to his face and nothing will happen.