Families, clubs, professions, industries, firms, cities, and states are all important units of economic organization. That is, we coordinate to some extent via all of these units, to achieve mutual ends. But firms and cities make an especially interesting comparison.
It might be too late to pitch in, but let me bring out a few counter examples (to city love, not to corporation distrust)
In indian movies and literature it is very common for a villager to yearn for his village, but having to live in a city. Songs dedicated to the village are more common, but to cities, relatively less. Songs about cities are always laced with a lot of "Beware". They rarely have straight compliments, always back-handed compliments.
I'm not sure if this is because India is relatively new in the process of urbanization.
Another example of city caution, I found was in 'Lila' by Robert Pirsig, in which he calls the big city a beast that slowly devours those within it.
>Rudd-O, why are we indoctrinated more to love city than firm symbols?
Families and cities (governments, in reality) are fundamentally coercive - the indoctrination is to prevent, or at least reduce, rebellion. And most people are stupid enough that it works, most of the time.
I agree that the relationship between landlords and tenants is perceived by many as similar to the relationship between employers and employees, but one thing to keep in mind is that people are charged very high rents in cities which nullify a lot of the benefits of cities, such as higher nominal wages. The rents seem erratic and irrational to renters, and there's a good reason... because the majority of rent in cities comes from land value, and that land value is something which the landlord did not create but is simply allowed to own. So most of what you're paying to the landlord is not a return on his labor/risk involved in constructing the building, but rather you are paying him for his state-granted privilege of exclusive access rights over a particular location. If you have not land, you are essentially paying to exist on the planet.
I have to say that I like many firms more than cities. For example, the city I live in recently banned plastic bags from stores. That's pretty annoying.
Maybe this "liking cities" effect is concentrated to people who live in large cities (NY, etc.)? In suburban areas I can't see it at all, when you routinely go to a different "city" for work, shopping, or to visit friends you don't really feel a connection to any of them.
I know Fiske gives 4 modes, but one of them (market pricing) is just an abstract off-shoot of the basic equality matching mode, so that reduces to 3 fundamental modes.
And as to politics, I'm afraid it just seems to kill folks' minds. It's time to throw out all the 'isms' and start afresh... and that includes 'Libertarianism'.
I don't think the Packers are owned by any governmental unit. There is a joint-stock corporation and fans themselves own shares (although the incorporation charter announces that any remaining funds on liquidation will go to charity rather than shareholders).
mjgeddes, your link gives four modes. And it's far more plausible that the fried-brain structure precedes adherence to an ideology.
But there, the naming is seen as a necessary but unhappy side effect of needed more revenue for the team. And teams like Green Bay are lauded for being city government owned.
"AngryK and Doc, why do we focus on products for cities but management for firms?"
Two possibilities:A)Stockholm syndrome? In a job, we actually have some amount of power over company policy. Voting individually, we have roughly zero power over city policy. So we focus on the good instead of the bad?
B)We have a land-king false association bias. We associate issues that are geographically locked with the government? It explains many very odd medieval and ancient beliefs.
Firms have great power over their employees, and have very opaque decision making apparatus. And in the case of large firms they can drastically and unpredictably devastate communities built around them by closing a plant or business.
A city as an organization is much less powerful, it can't close up shop and move, or fire a resident, and the main dominance instruments of the city, police officers, are seen much more as tools of the state (which often is a villain in stories). A city is seen as a loosely collected group of individuals rather than an organization with a distinct will and power structure, and thus much more predictable and much less threatening.
Correct. I can't understand why Robin keeps expressing puzzlement over the fact that people simply refuse to reduce everything to economic thinking, its all explained by Alan Fiske and his elementary modes of social cognition, here:
Firms clearly trigger mode 1, cities are triggering modes 2 and 3.
BTW Libertarianism is based solely on mode 1 thinking, that's why CEV isn't going to implement Libertarianism (or even little 'l' libertarianism, or any form of libertarianism for that matter) as the ideal political system, contrary to what many 'Less Wrong' and Singularitarian folks think. Actually Rafal, based on what I have read, I think it is really possible that many LWers,Singularitarians and transhumanists are in fact missing the brain circuits needed for mode 2 and mode 3 thinking, or at the very least, Libertarian ideology has fried these brain circuits ;)
In the Nippon Professional Baseball league (the top league in Japan), most of the teams have both a city and a firm affiliation (for example, the Tokyo Yakult Swallows), though some teams are only identified with a firm affiliation (the Yomiyuri Giants). In the U.S. as well as Japan, major sports teams play in facilities named for firms, and some of these venues are no less loved by their fans than the teams that play there (see Wrigley Field).
Off topic, but I found someone pointing out a strange combination of common preferences that's usually your bag:"Every society has social and legal norms dictating the responsibilities of parents and children, husbands and wives. Canada has decided that medically necessary physician and hospital care is a collective responsibility, while long-term care - the assistance with day to day living that so many of us will either be needing or giving when we get old - is, at least to some extent, the responsibility of an individual or his or her family.
The status quo makes no sense morally: there is no ethical difference between the the cancer patient's need for surgery and the Alzheimer's patient's need for comfort."So says Frances Woolley at WCI.
Dealing with firms provokes "economic mode" thinking, where we feel unsentimental and try to maximize our individual gain. That's because firms exist to maximize *their* individual gain.
Another theory is that we often see firms as illicit dominators. We see the employer-employee relation as a dominance-submission relation, because firms give employees orders. Of course customers often give orders to firms, such as to waiters and cab drivers. But perhaps the joy of sometimes dominating does not outweigh the pain of at other times submitting
Waitstaff do resent customers, generally speaking.
Is this because the major is democratically elected? CEOs are also usually elected, its just via one stock one vote, instead of one person one vote.
People resent firms they work for, not the ones they own, and people who own a lot of stock are generally much more well predisposed to firms in general. When stockholders complain about companies it's much more similar to how people complain about their governments.
It might be too late to pitch in, but let me bring out a few counter examples (to city love, not to corporation distrust)
In indian movies and literature it is very common for a villager to yearn for his village, but having to live in a city. Songs dedicated to the village are more common, but to cities, relatively less. Songs about cities are always laced with a lot of "Beware". They rarely have straight compliments, always back-handed compliments.
I'm not sure if this is because India is relatively new in the process of urbanization.
Another example of city caution, I found was in 'Lila' by Robert Pirsig, in which he calls the big city a beast that slowly devours those within it.
>Rudd-O, why are we indoctrinated more to love city than firm symbols?
Families and cities (governments, in reality) are fundamentally coercive - the indoctrination is to prevent, or at least reduce, rebellion. And most people are stupid enough that it works, most of the time.
I agree that the relationship between landlords and tenants is perceived by many as similar to the relationship between employers and employees, but one thing to keep in mind is that people are charged very high rents in cities which nullify a lot of the benefits of cities, such as higher nominal wages. The rents seem erratic and irrational to renters, and there's a good reason... because the majority of rent in cities comes from land value, and that land value is something which the landlord did not create but is simply allowed to own. So most of what you're paying to the landlord is not a return on his labor/risk involved in constructing the building, but rather you are paying him for his state-granted privilege of exclusive access rights over a particular location. If you have not land, you are essentially paying to exist on the planet.
I have to say that I like many firms more than cities. For example, the city I live in recently banned plastic bags from stores. That's pretty annoying.
Maybe this "liking cities" effect is concentrated to people who live in large cities (NY, etc.)? In suburban areas I can't see it at all, when you routinely go to a different "city" for work, shopping, or to visit friends you don't really feel a connection to any of them.
I know Fiske gives 4 modes, but one of them (market pricing) is just an abstract off-shoot of the basic equality matching mode, so that reduces to 3 fundamental modes.
And as to politics, I'm afraid it just seems to kill folks' minds. It's time to throw out all the 'isms' and start afresh... and that includes 'Libertarianism'.
I don't think the Packers are owned by any governmental unit. There is a joint-stock corporation and fans themselves own shares (although the incorporation charter announces that any remaining funds on liquidation will go to charity rather than shareholders).
mjgeddes, your link gives four modes. And it's far more plausible that the fried-brain structure precedes adherence to an ideology.
But there, the naming is seen as a necessary but unhappy side effect of needed more revenue for the team. And teams like Green Bay are lauded for being city government owned.
"AngryK and Doc, why do we focus on products for cities but management for firms?"
Two possibilities:A)Stockholm syndrome? In a job, we actually have some amount of power over company policy. Voting individually, we have roughly zero power over city policy. So we focus on the good instead of the bad?
B)We have a land-king false association bias. We associate issues that are geographically locked with the government? It explains many very odd medieval and ancient beliefs.
Most cities have a large percent of your expenditures in sales taxes as well. Where do you live!
Firms have great power over their employees, and have very opaque decision making apparatus. And in the case of large firms they can drastically and unpredictably devastate communities built around them by closing a plant or business.
A city as an organization is much less powerful, it can't close up shop and move, or fire a resident, and the main dominance instruments of the city, police officers, are seen much more as tools of the state (which often is a villain in stories). A city is seen as a loosely collected group of individuals rather than an organization with a distinct will and power structure, and thus much more predictable and much less threatening.
Correct. I can't understand why Robin keeps expressing puzzlement over the fact that people simply refuse to reduce everything to economic thinking, its all explained by Alan Fiske and his elementary modes of social cognition, here:
Elementary Modes of Fiske
mode 1: exchange-based (market pricing and equality matching)mode 2: community-based (communal sharing)mode 3: authority-based (authority ranking)
Firms clearly trigger mode 1, cities are triggering modes 2 and 3.
BTW Libertarianism is based solely on mode 1 thinking, that's why CEV isn't going to implement Libertarianism (or even little 'l' libertarianism, or any form of libertarianism for that matter) as the ideal political system, contrary to what many 'Less Wrong' and Singularitarian folks think. Actually Rafal, based on what I have read, I think it is really possible that many LWers,Singularitarians and transhumanists are in fact missing the brain circuits needed for mode 2 and mode 3 thinking, or at the very least, Libertarian ideology has fried these brain circuits ;)
In the Nippon Professional Baseball league (the top league in Japan), most of the teams have both a city and a firm affiliation (for example, the Tokyo Yakult Swallows), though some teams are only identified with a firm affiliation (the Yomiyuri Giants). In the U.S. as well as Japan, major sports teams play in facilities named for firms, and some of these venues are no less loved by their fans than the teams that play there (see Wrigley Field).
Off topic, but I found someone pointing out a strange combination of common preferences that's usually your bag:"Every society has social and legal norms dictating the responsibilities of parents and children, husbands and wives. Canada has decided that medically necessary physician and hospital care is a collective responsibility, while long-term care - the assistance with day to day living that so many of us will either be needing or giving when we get old - is, at least to some extent, the responsibility of an individual or his or her family.
The status quo makes no sense morally: there is no ethical difference between the the cancer patient's need for surgery and the Alzheimer's patient's need for comfort."So says Frances Woolley at WCI.
+1
Dealing with firms provokes "economic mode" thinking, where we feel unsentimental and try to maximize our individual gain. That's because firms exist to maximize *their* individual gain.
Another theory is that we often see firms as illicit dominators. We see the employer-employee relation as a dominance-submission relation, because firms give employees orders. Of course customers often give orders to firms, such as to waiters and cab drivers. But perhaps the joy of sometimes dominating does not outweigh the pain of at other times submitting
Waitstaff do resent customers, generally speaking.
Is this because the major is democratically elected? CEOs are also usually elected, its just via one stock one vote, instead of one person one vote.
People resent firms they work for, not the ones they own, and people who own a lot of stock are generally much more well predisposed to firms in general. When stockholders complain about companies it's much more similar to how people complain about their governments.