A less dramatic way to put this might be: the person who is paying the bill is the person who gets to decide. In a large company this may be some manager who controls the budget your compensation comes out of. If you’re an independent contractor this is your client. If you’re hiring a person to paint your apartment, this is you.
Arguably, this is as it should be. Taken to its logical conclusion the alternative would mean that nobody is entitled to make a decision about anything without taking a referendum on the matter.
Reasonable people will be interested in informed input from the people they employ, but it should not be surprising that in the end the painter you hired doesn’t get a vote on the color you want your bathroom.
>the person who is paying the bill is the person who gets to decide.
Paying the bill with money made by who? Sure, in the case of independent contractors the money is coming out of someone's pocket, but in most structured companies (which is what GP is talking about), the money comes from the people making and pushing the product. In real terms, the employees are the ones paying the bill.
>Taken to its logical conclusion the alternative would mean that nobody is entitled to make a decision about anything without taking a referendum on the matter.
That's literally just an argument against democracy, which we have, as a society, come to the conclusion is a generally good thing. (Well, fascists disagree, but society also has opinions on them.)
>Reasonable people will be interested in informed input from the people they employ, but it should not be surprising that in the end the painter you hired doesn’t get a vote on the color you want your bathroom.
You're conflating the relationship as a client and the relationship as an employer. You get to tell them what color paint to use, but not what type of ladder or brushes to use, or whether they're allowed to use the bathroom, sit while working, or eat lunch.
>A less dramatic way to put this might be: the person who is paying the bill is the person who gets to decide.
Well, the reason they're "paying the bill" is because they have the money and you don't.
Which is as good as the King having gold and army, and you, the serf not.
>Arguably, this is as it should be. Taken to its logical conclusion the alternative would mean that nobody is entitled to make a decision about anything without taking a referendum on the matter.
If only we weren't forced by the laws of nature to take things to their "logical conclusion" (i.e. their exaggerated slippery slope ending), but could instead use some moderation and judgment, but still come with something better than strict hierachical dominance in companies...
> Taken to its logical conclusion the alternative would mean that nobody is entitled to make a decision about anything without taking a referendum on the matter.
I think a much more generous reading would be that taken to it's natural conclusion this would mean that leaders in the workplace would govern more by consent and not by fiat based on their ability to wield economic power within the corporate structure as lever to coerce workers in to faithfully executing their commands no matter how ridiculous or counter-productive.
Corporations are constituted entirely by laws which evolve under democratic processes and those laws have already been used to limit, structure, and shape the power that corporate managers hold. They cannot defraud investors, they cannot imprison or lash their employees and so on. So is it really unimaginable that there might be some kind of democratic legal reform that would place other limits on their powers without requiring death by a million referenda? I don't think so.
In fact, I think there's probably every reason to believe that, if anything, shareholders would be even better served by preventing executives and middle management from building fiefdoms loyal to them personally which are often not really in-line with the goals of the institution.
Arguably, this is as it should be. Taken to its logical conclusion the alternative would mean that nobody is entitled to make a decision about anything without taking a referendum on the matter.
Reasonable people will be interested in informed input from the people they employ, but it should not be surprising that in the end the painter you hired doesn’t get a vote on the color you want your bathroom.