>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...
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..