If you have an hour, you would do well to listen to this excellent discussion on a company called Valve, which produces video games, which Callum forwarded to me. It has flat management, and some admirable organizational features. There is a transcript, but it is hard to read, so give it a listen.
The economist refers to anarcho-syndicalism, which is critiqued here.
Many anarcho-syndicalists also subscribe to a doctrine known as "mutualism." According to prominent mutualist Kevin Carson, mutualists "believe in private property, so long as it is based on personal occupancy and use."[1]
Exactly. Use it or lose it. There needs to be a way to redistribute land away from the unproductive to the productive, from those who amassed wealth through state-backed violence of usury, and those shut out of the state-controlled markets. Problem is we are stuck in a false dilemma:
For Mises, the only two thinkable systems were socialism and capitalism, and only the latter was realizable, whether in hampered or unhampered form.
Now, there is also anarchy. As great as Von Mises was, capitalism allows usury, and thus affirms the abominable practice of a very few aggregating all power unto themselves. English common law makes provision for redistribution in what we call adverse possession, or use it or lose it. Islamic law goes much farther, with the ease of the innovators to take unused land. With adverse possession, you do not have to buy property, you can just take it. The state serves to maintain unjust structures with violence, so common law has ways to get around it.
Only in anarchy can we have the spontaneous order and economic justice we need. Everyone who realizes this tries to have it both ways, for example the Miseans today call themselves anarcho-capitalists and the trade union anarchists anarcho-syndicalists. How about just anarchist?
Notes on the tape:
This economist got an email from the Valve CEO and almost deleted it. Folks, please, if the note is important, write a letter and mail it! First class USA mail is like 47 cents and int'l is $1.10. Don't use email for important introductions.
Part of the discussion gets to where the customers are producing more goods and better than the employees, and how the company deals with this. Fascinating stuff.
There is an academic discussion of capital vs labor, which is seen as not holding in the online video game world. I'd say the dichotomy is false in all fields, not uniquely false in the video game field.
Valve has no management anyone would recognize, and from this comes some interesting points:
Valve has 300 employees and over a billion in sales. New hires have to be indoctrinated in how to work without supervision or management. Some people cannot hack it. Another aspect is the idea that once a person is infected with worker/manager disease, they cannot be cured. I wonder about this.
I think people can rebel in place, and I've bogged on thinking like an independent contractor.
Valve has a house full of creative designers. Valve has employees of other game houses creating for Valve and making more money on the side with Valve than with their full-time employment.
Just as Apple created the optimum method of distributing music, Valve has done so with video games and what it calls Steam. Some 70% of all videos games are traded on Steam.
There was no discussion of IPR. which in video game design must be an issue. I don't know how much evidence people need that there are far better ways of rewarding innovation and assuring creativity than IPR (which in any case has only bad results.) But with Steam, here we go again. It is a human trait to be willing to die for a system that promises to reward you, even if you know that cannot be true.
Recommended listen...
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
The economist refers to anarcho-syndicalism, which is critiqued here.
Many anarcho-syndicalists also subscribe to a doctrine known as "mutualism." According to prominent mutualist Kevin Carson, mutualists "believe in private property, so long as it is based on personal occupancy and use."[1]
Exactly. Use it or lose it. There needs to be a way to redistribute land away from the unproductive to the productive, from those who amassed wealth through state-backed violence of usury, and those shut out of the state-controlled markets. Problem is we are stuck in a false dilemma:
For Mises, the only two thinkable systems were socialism and capitalism, and only the latter was realizable, whether in hampered or unhampered form.
Now, there is also anarchy. As great as Von Mises was, capitalism allows usury, and thus affirms the abominable practice of a very few aggregating all power unto themselves. English common law makes provision for redistribution in what we call adverse possession, or use it or lose it. Islamic law goes much farther, with the ease of the innovators to take unused land. With adverse possession, you do not have to buy property, you can just take it. The state serves to maintain unjust structures with violence, so common law has ways to get around it.
Only in anarchy can we have the spontaneous order and economic justice we need. Everyone who realizes this tries to have it both ways, for example the Miseans today call themselves anarcho-capitalists and the trade union anarchists anarcho-syndicalists. How about just anarchist?
Notes on the tape:
This economist got an email from the Valve CEO and almost deleted it. Folks, please, if the note is important, write a letter and mail it! First class USA mail is like 47 cents and int'l is $1.10. Don't use email for important introductions.
Part of the discussion gets to where the customers are producing more goods and better than the employees, and how the company deals with this. Fascinating stuff.
There is an academic discussion of capital vs labor, which is seen as not holding in the online video game world. I'd say the dichotomy is false in all fields, not uniquely false in the video game field.
Valve has no management anyone would recognize, and from this comes some interesting points:
Valve has 300 employees and over a billion in sales. New hires have to be indoctrinated in how to work without supervision or management. Some people cannot hack it. Another aspect is the idea that once a person is infected with worker/manager disease, they cannot be cured. I wonder about this.
I think people can rebel in place, and I've bogged on thinking like an independent contractor.
Valve has a house full of creative designers. Valve has employees of other game houses creating for Valve and making more money on the side with Valve than with their full-time employment.
Just as Apple created the optimum method of distributing music, Valve has done so with video games and what it calls Steam. Some 70% of all videos games are traded on Steam.
There was no discussion of IPR. which in video game design must be an issue. I don't know how much evidence people need that there are far better ways of rewarding innovation and assuring creativity than IPR (which in any case has only bad results.) But with Steam, here we go again. It is a human trait to be willing to die for a system that promises to reward you, even if you know that cannot be true.
Recommended listen...
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
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