The Coming Authoritarianism.

[padraig (u.s.)]

also just one more thing in re neoliberalism, I would really encourage stan or anyone else who discusses it to learn something about it

at some point, as the saying goes, you have to engage with the actual text. and of course in my case I always want to understand how my enemies think.

like it's no secret that Hayek, Friedman etc held democracy, and personal freedom in general - besides the freedom to participate in the market, which is what Friedman meant by Free to Choose - in utter contempt, even if they were usually savvy enough not publicize that contempt.

it's one of things that confuses ppl about neoliberals - they're supposedly all for personal freedom but very happy to violently repress personal freedom in order to supposedly bring about even more freedom , i.e. "we had to bomb the village in order to save it". in fact, in that regard neoliberals - in a particularly ironic twist - resemble nothing so much as a Communist vanguard, subjugating the people in the name of the people's own ultimate happiness under the assumption that they know better than the people what that happiness is and how to reach it. and you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs (or in this case, Chilean dissidents, people driven into poverty by austerity, etc).

 

[boxedjoy]

you know when you go into a shop or takeaway and they ask you do a feedback survey on service? Those responses are targeted - both in numbers of responses and in levels of customer satisfaction. It's grim. You can't force people to take time out their lives to fill in a questionaire. And you can't expect everybody who fills these out to be reasonable and logical. I've heard stories of people in shops losing their bonus because their customer satisfaction rating was low, and it was responses from people saying things like "well nobody is 100% perfect so I can't give them a 5 star rating."

The metrics are literally designed to measure niceness. Which is pointless because if in the services industries you need a survey to tell you that you've hired nice people then... maybe you shouldn't be responsible for hiring in the services industries.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I read something horrific a few years ago about a woman who'd got an unsolicited text cheerily asking her to rate her experience on a scale of one to five stars, after she's been to hospital.

The reason she'd been to hospital was because she'd had a miscarriage.

This sort of stuff is bad enough when you've bought something online or taken a ride in an Uber, but that's an extra level of shittiness.

 

[Mr. Tea]

"They cleaned me up pretty well after the embryo I was looking forward to bringing into the world as a new human life died inside me and spontaneously aborted, OTOH the coffee machine was out of order, so four stars out of five."

 

[sufi]

Revealed: Pret a Manger's bizarre 'emotional labour' rules for workers who are told to 'be happy', touch each other and NEVER act moody | Daily Mail Online
2 Feb 2013 — Details have emerged of a regime of 'enforced happiness' at Pret A Manger, where staff earning little more than the minimum wage are monitored to ensure they are relentlessly cheerful ...


www.theguardian.com › apr › pret-...
Pret a Manger – behind the scenes at the 'Happy Factory' | Supporting business growth | The Guardian
14 Apr 2015 — Back in 2013, Pret's CEO, Clive Schlee, made headlines when he revealed that on store visits: “The first thing I look at is whether the staff are touching each other. Are they smiling, reacting to each other, happy, engaged? I can almost predict sales on body language alone.”
Missing: rule ‎| Must include: rule



newrepublic.com › article › pret-ma...
Pret A Manger: When corporations enforce happiness | The New Republic
31 Jan 2013 — Labor of Love. The enforced happiness of Pret A Manger. John Li/Getty Images News.
Missing: rule ‎| Must include: rule

www.hrmagazine.co.uk › prets-peo...
Pret's people management secrets - HR magazine
23 Jan 2015 — As Pret a Manger expands its global reach, the focus is on building and maintaining a happy ... staff are encouraged to be natural while serving, rather than following strict customer service rules. Once a ...

since reading this http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n01/paul-myerscough/short-cuts

i've been hugely enjoying the pret behaviours, removed by pret from here; http://www.pret.co.uk/us/jobs/pret_behaviors.htm
but kindly cached by the google here: http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...tm+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-a

still kindly archived here, though pret deleted the page in shame long ago: https://web.archive.org/web/20110716183540/http://www.pret.com/us/jobs/pret_behaviors.htm proper drpraved

 

[Mr. Tea]

The best bit of all that was that they were financially incentivizing employees to behave like they were "not just in it for the money."

 

[wild greens]

A bit problem of the current Internet left is that they ("we") often get caught up in the semantics of reality without realising to the outsider it appears that you're just a procrastinating wanker with a good thesaurus

I think it has lead to a weakening of opposition to corporate society

and the "work-play" line is a similar heightening of an already existing trend

that is, the blurring and eventual demolition of the line between work and not work

i.e. you're not "working" but you're writing work emails, in an omnipresent endless work Slack chat, etc

or on an even more insidious level, the feeling that any time you're not devoting to personal branding is wasted

it's a conception of work ethic that Benjamin Franklin would have marveled at

Can I ask what industry you're in?

 

[constant escape]

Well put - I tend to think of it as a situation where we lack even the tools for the job, so from the perspective of those who are eager to get to work, some of us just seem like recluses of the workshop. Whereas, I think time and pains need be taken to build the proper tools, time and pains that undoubtedly come across as abstract and of only a remote importance.

 

[constant escape]

Yeah I think part of the reason my usage of "neoiliberalism" can read as totalizing and nebulous is because I tend to use it in conjunction with, and often representative of, social liberalism, environmentalism, globalism, etc.

I've been trying out using "(neo)liberalism" just to make a distinction, but I don't know if that helps. Perhaps a better word is needed to refer to this kind of aggregate/alliance of -isms, or perhaps no word is needed. A word, that is, to describe the current stage of capitalism in all of its dimensions, a broad term, a term that can be dissected and broekn down into constituent terms like neoliberal (in the economic sense), liberal (in the social sense, maybe even political), globalist, etc.

 

[version]

 

[luka]

That's what Gus keeps telling us

 

[version]

"Member of the Cognitive Elite" would make a great bio addition.

 

[craner]

at some point, as the saying goes, you have to engage with the actual text. and of course in my case I always want to understand how my enemies think.

like it's no secret that Hayek, Friedman etc held democracy, and personal freedom in general

Maybe engage with The Constitution of Liberty.

 

[luka]

Maybe engage with The Constitution of Liberty.

Are you talking to Padraig telling him he has his Hayeck wrong or are you trying to lead our Stan to the dark side?

 

[craner]

Are you talking to Padraig telling him he has his Hayeck wrong or are you trying to lead our Stan to the dark side?

I was giving Padraig a gentle slap on the wrist for doing precisely what he warned Stan against.

 

[luka]

thought so.

 

[luka]

But I would say this is precisely why reading is superfluous and information is useless.

 

[craner]

But I would say this is precisely why reading is superfluous and information is useless.

I know you would, and I would say the opposite.

 

[luka]

when people read a book they only see what they are predisposed to see.

 

[craner]

That's the secret of our friendship.