The real challenge is getting employers to take a more assertive and, though we dare not say so aloud, paternalistic role when it comes to non-elite employees.
Williamson is advocating that we transmute the public safety net (some portion of it) into a federally-subsidized archipelago of regimes of private power, a web of patronage relations, bonding employees to employers. Company towns are proposed as a model, but this time around their creation would be back-stopped by the central government.
A really aggressive/paternalistic employer might even go so far as to rent a couple of modest apartments near the office and make them available to relocating employees, deducting the rent out of their paychecks. A super-paternalistic employer might even go so far as to mandate personal financial counseling for all employees and take steps to help them make good decisions. There are things that we could do through public policy to encourage that, too. Instead of making employee relocation an ordinary deductible expense, we could partially refund some of those costs, redirecting some of the money we might have spent on certain public benefits to employers who make them unnecessary.
Presumably lots of employers would like to be really aggressively paternalistic, but wouldn’t want to pay for the privilege. But if the federal government picks up part of the tab …?
The piece concludes:
Employers 100 years ago went out of their way to keep their workers away from whiskey, and they incurred some expenses in doing so. There aren’t very many companies today where a $28,000-a-year employee can walk into the human-resources office and say, “I want to do something about my credit-card debt,” or “I want to save up for a down payment on a house” and expect to get any real help. Changing that could do some real good.
There are lots of ways this form of owing your soul to the company could go – ahem – wrong. Not to put too fine a point on it. As Williamson writes:
The cynical might say that this sounds like a plan to take people who are averse to change and risk and convert, on the relative cheap, their malingering on unemployment and welfare to stagnating in dead-end jobs. Even if that were the case, it still would represent an improvement.
I think I could be waaaaay more cynical than that.
We overtax workers, who in effect make interest-free loans to the federal government and then get excited when they get their own money back — with no interest, but in a lump sum. People like lump sums. That is not rational from a strictly economic point of view, but it is a genuine aspect of human economic behavior. Employers and government both have the opportunity to do something creative with that.
Under Williamson’s proposal, we still overtax workers (by Williamson’s lights), who in effect make interest-free loans to the federal government, which gives the money to private employers, to give the money back to workers with strings attached, to make them beholden to these employers (and to foster an irrational sense of gratefulness and obligation to employers, who will seem to be the source of the largesse, but aren’t.) This makes sense if generating unequal regimes of private power and domination is an end in itself. It will turn these jobs into dead-ends in at least one sense. It will make them marginally harder to exit – like a company town. (I did like this line from the piece. “Some people never learn.”) Williamson tries to salve this no-exit problem by suggesting employers could offer stingy pay packets to save up for generous severance packages. That would foster mobility. But a likelier strategy, assuming employers like having power – or simply are profit-maximizers – is to assume they would knit strands of federal subsidy into webs of private power and control. It would be like employer-provided health care: you can less easily afford to quit, because benefits (housing, financial services (?), delayed pay-outs) are tied to your job. If employees can less afford to quit, employers pay less, control more. The point is not, as Williamson says, that this would allow the unemployed to say ‘yes’. The point is that this would lessen the power of the employed to say ‘no’.
This specific public policy proposal to convert the safety net into a massive federal corporate welfare program isn’t going to become reality. But, to Williamson, it’s an attractive dream. If only there were some … road to serfdom!
The comments are interesting. Everyone is pleased at how Williamson’s proposal will keep the federal government’s grubby mitts off of this massive, complicated new federal program.
{ 54 comments }
Typhoon Jim 10.19.15 at 4:11 am
I think there are plenty of people willing to say yes to all manner of jobs, providing they exist in the first place. I suspect that is the prime problem here.
John Holbo 10.19.15 at 4:38 am
My URL is a nod to how this post’s theme is Corey’s hobby-horse. But obviously I’m nodding at John Q’s earlier post, as well. (Don’t want him to feel left out!)
bad Jim 10.19.15 at 7:51 am
Hi. I’m Jim. (Hi, Jim!) I used to be a paternalistic employer. Yes, I was a capitalist. I tried to deal with my employees’ problems incrementally. I thought I could take care of everything myself: a program here, a bonus there, but year after year I was paying more and more for less and less. Then one day I opened my newspaper and found that America wasn’t the only country on the planet! It’s amazing, but true: there are other countries with different approaches to workers.
Dr. Hilarius 10.19.15 at 8:26 am
Time to pull out my copy of Report From Iron Mountain. But I suspect Williamson’s intent isn’t satirical.
Phil 10.19.15 at 8:56 am
This makes sense if generating unequal regimes of private power and domination is an end in itself.
Welfare paternalism – for when government welfare is just too empowering!
I like the reference to the appeal of lump sum payments. I used to work for a guy who built loyalty that way – after five years he’d pay for a gift worth £500, then at year 6 he’d give you £600, a year later £700 and so (theoretically) on. Not giving you the cash at year 5 was a nice twist. Perhaps needless to say, he didn’t offer a pension plan or any kind of formalised benefits; he didn’t offer a standard working day, for that matter.
As bad Jim suggests, there are other countries. I started my working life in a very strange and foreign land known as “Britain in the 1980s”. Back then a fairly high degree of paternalism was what you’d expect, but companies didn’t go begging for handouts to the government to fund it – they took the hit and paid over a slightly larger share of profits to the workforce. And they competed – they competed with each other to offer good terms to employees. Seems strange now, but there you are. We had these things called ‘unions’, back then, and we’d only recently got rid of ‘full employment’. Tell that to kids these days and they won’t believe you.
JT 10.19.15 at 10:46 am
I am a reasonably senior manager at a very large company which has some paternalistic tendencies, so two things come to mind:
1. I’m very grateful I’m not a senior manager at a Williamson-style company where I have control of food and accommodation for my staff as well as their employment. My life is complicated enough and filled with enough little crises without needing any more. Thanks to my company’s reasonably progressive policies, when my employees have personal crises I can a) express my sympathy and support and b) give them plenty of (paid) time off to sort it out themselves, the latter of which I think they value more than any number of attempts on my part to stop intelligent adults getting into trouble in the first place.
2. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be an employee of me or anyone else in a Williamson-style company. Fact is, occasionally employers and employees fall out, for a wide variety of reasons. This is painful for both sides, but the corporation is designed to spread the employer’s pain into manageable packets – line manager, senior manager, HR etc. Whereas the employee is already all alone (unless they’ve had the foresight to join a union) and therefore the 40 hours a week of working life, even before it gets to any dismissal, can become wretched. This often has a serious effect on people’s wellbeing. Stretching it out to the 168 hours you’d also be in the company’s housing, eating in its cafeteria etc would be torture.
Mdc 10.19.15 at 11:32 am
If the company were a worker-owned cooperative, or a worker-run non-profit, sign me up!
Sancho 10.19.15 at 11:34 am
Seems Williamson would like businesses to get federal funds so private employees can receive the same in-house services military employees do. So naturally the comments are full of gurning at the awfulness of the public sector.
Guess a socialist program isn’t so bad if at least some taxpayer money makes its way to a Republican super PAC.
Trader Joe 10.19.15 at 11:43 am
There’s this place called Silicon Valley where nearly all of the aforementioned ‘paternalistic’ benefits can be frequently found. Housing, meals, low cost loans, financial advice – check, check, check and check. Google even makes it mandatory that 401k plans are funded at 10% of gross salary to make sure its employees are taken care of deep into retirement….no government money required – all you need is a vibrant industry where competition for talent is high and companies are sufficiently profitable that there is plenty of money to sprinkle around.
Obviously there are plenty of ways such a system can be exploited and its doubtful that most industries can pull it off, but they can and do work in some places and with the right leadership.
s0meguy88 10.19.15 at 1:21 pm
No. He didn’t advocate and he doesn’t advocate that. It is a tough call. Are you cynically grossly misrepresenting what was actually written? Or at this point are you totally unable to differentiate between the straw men in your head and what people actually say?
I say a bit of both but mostly the first. Not sure what time it is there, and it is a bit back handed, but hopefully that compliment gets your day off to a good start.
John Holbo 10.19.15 at 1:38 pm
“No. He didn’t advocate and he doesn’t advocate that. It is a tough call. Are you cynically grossly misrepresenting what was actually written?”
OK, I’ll bite. How am I misrepresenting him?
ZM 10.19.15 at 1:47 pm
It would probably be good for American companies to have to be more responsible in my view.
I have complained to Drag City and Matador Records several times and they have no complaint procedures for people that get written about without their permission as happened to me.
Matador Records does not reply to correspondence at all, although Stephen Malkmus tweeted to me twice, except in French. And Drag City has a complaints process that can only be instigated by artists saying they are sorry to Rian Murphy and then he will withdraw their records from sale. But none of the artists that wrote about me seem to have said they are sorry to Rian Murphy yet as he has not withdrawn any records from sale that I have noticed.
I think Joanna Newsom has written about me again in her new record Divers. I sent Drag City a cease and desist letter in August so this should not have happened. This means I can charge her with harassment and stalking now.
Only some of the lyrics are on the internet so it is difficult to be sure.
But the song Divers says “And never will I wed. I’ll hunt the pearl of death to the bottom of my life, and ever hold my breath ’til I may be the diver’s wife.” which is just the same as on Saw Dust And Diamonds where the woman waits at the top of the white stairs, which is about me, until at the end Joanna Newsom decides to have an affair with Will Oldham which leads to the song Only Skin, which relates to his song about skinning me on The Letting Go. I think it is very impolite for him to sing about skinning me, and then for her to sing that it is only my skin (this is before she sings he can make better music with her now anyhow now I am skinned).
There is a sort of similar theme on Sapiokanikan, where the “The cause is Ozymandian” but if it is about the matter involving me the cause is just due to a sadist and Joanna Newsom plus the woman from The Tenniscoats and Bill Callahan in Australia in 2005 — it is more like Days Of Our Lives.
Then on The Things I Say she sings “I’m ashamed to have turned out this way
Well I desire to make amends” I do not want her to make amends by writing yet another song about me :-( I don’t like her, her singing so many songs about me is weird (in The Guardian interview she said song writing was compulsive for her — but compulsively writing songs about me is not healthy she should tell Rian Murphy to withdraw her records from sale, negotiate redress with me, and get help for her compulsive song writing behaviour), and I do not want any more songs written about me at all. Which I already communicated to the record company. If she really wanted to make amends she could have already told Rian Murphy she was sorry for the previous records so he could have withdrawn them from sale by now since it is October and I wrote to him at the start of the year.
jake the antisoshul soshulist 10.19.15 at 1:52 pm
Williamson is a pretty typical conservatarian in that he believes or pretends to believe that evils generated in the private sector are always better than those evils generated in the public sector. And the most evils generated by the public sector are related to addressing discrepancies of wealth and power.
John Holbo 10.19.15 at 1:53 pm
ZM, are you doing ok? I can’t tell if you are serious or not.
John Holbo 10.19.15 at 1:58 pm
“Williamson is a pretty typical conservatarian in that he believes or pretends to believe that evils generated in the private sector are always better than those evils generated in the public sector.”
I’m honestly curious if there is, as someguy88 suggests, some way that Williamson could be advocating public policy measures to encourage employers to be ‘super paternalistic’ that won’t involve massive federal support, i.e. subsidies to pay for the paternalism. In the piece he explicitly goes beyond even tax breaks, which would already be massively complicated. Is there any way to read W. except as advocating that we divert welfare spending to support this other, hypothetical program, presumably at the federal level?
DrDick 10.19.15 at 2:13 pm
Having grown up in a company town (pop 30K and national headquarters for a major oil company which has since merged and moved to Houston), just let me say “Oh F*!K No.” there can be benefits, but it is a really disastrous idea.
Donald A. Coffin 10.19.15 at 2:46 pm
Paul Romer has been advocating something similar, or a larger-scale basis, for some time now:
http://paulromer.net/tag/charter-cities/
ZM 10.19.15 at 2:52 pm
I am serious. She wrote about me on her other records, I am finding it really stressful worrying that she has written about me again on this Divers record.
It is unfair of people to refer to me in art.
I am pretty sure Will Oldham told her about me and she wrote mean songs about me on The Milk Eyed Mender. Then on Ys she sang about me on Emily and Saw Dust and Diamonds and Monkey and Bear and then about having an affair with Will Oldham on Only Skin. I think they wrote some of Ys and The Letting Go together while having an affair as The Letting Go was originally called wai, and Ys and wai are pronounced similarly, and Ys is about a sunken city and wai means water. I had a psychotic episode when I heard the Cursed Sleep EP from The Letting Go, it has a song called The Signifying Wolf and Joanna Newsom has a song on The Milk Eyed Mender about signifieds butting heads with the signifiers.
Joanna Newsom then sang about me again on Have One On Me, calling me Lola Montez like she called me a performing bear on Ys and full of saw dust, here she sings that she was brought here to my town (where I saw her at the local theatre where Lola Montez danced in the gold rush) to “See Lola – Ta Da Ta Dum – Do Her Famous Spider Dance For You” by the King of Bavaria who represents Bill Callahan in the song (Joanna Newsom is Miss Gilbert). This was the concert where Joanna Newsom and Bill Callahan performed Emily and the woman from The Tenniscoats stared at me for a whole song (the sheepies song from We Are Everyone) like Will Oldham had done to me in 1998 and 2001. Joanna Newsom also criticises Will Oldham and Bill Callahan in this record by singing about them and their “guitars and their pens” but she never sings about herself and her harp and her pen. Then she has a song about Will Oldham being Bluebeard, indian giving (referring to his Superwolf song I Gave You), and tells him to “go back to his funnel web” in a scathing tone, funnel webs being Australian spiders, and sings “I knew you once now I know you less.”
I have complained to the record companies but they won’t do anything no matter how many emails I write to them. I want all the records with songs about me withdrawn from sale and damages.
I wrote to Will Oldham in late 2013, asking him what his corrections policy was, and at that time I was writing here on Crooked Timber and just then David Berman from The Silver Jews put that he read Crooked Timber on his blog roll on his Menthol Mountains blog.
Then Will Oldham and Davide Berman wrote a poem together about parasite. Then Will Oldham made a film clip for his Bad Man song with a dog wearing a mask of his face being let of the leash by a woman. Then Will Oldham’s next record was a revised version of his previous record, which is like a Correction I think, as in when I asked what his corrections policy was, except it just confused me and upset me and was not a good correction at all. And Will Oldham and Angel Olsen’s film clips in 2014 referred to my internet comments here and on John Quiggin’s blog. And Alasdair Roberts wrote a song Artless One referring to me and my internet comments here. People in my town noticed this when the Quail and Dumplings film clip came out.
I have asked for an explanation but no one has given me one, and the record companies won’t take complaints about the singers except if the singers complain about themselves. This is not a good company complaints policy in my opinion.
Stephen Malkmus tweeted at me, and Alasdair Roberts the Scottish singer tweeted at me too. This is for my twitter account that is devoted only to tweeting at them about this until I get an explanation. But I still have not got an explanation or an apology.
I have not been able to get a lawyer to help me, so I can only try to bring this matter to light in emails and comments, to try to stop them singing any more songs about me, withdraw the existing records with songs about me, and negotiate redress since they caused me emotional distress and psychological damage, defamed me, injured my reputation, and invaded my privacy.
Will Oldham’s brother Ned Oldham wrote a song about Will Oldham and me last year too, called Further Gone, it is insulting in my opinion, but he sings I am “Sargasso Sea”, I am sure you know the novel, but I tried writing to Ned Oldham too since he mentioned this post-colonial book, but he wouldn’t write back to me either.
I think Will Oldham started writing about me as a joke in 1998, after my friend and I met him in Australia. I think he thought that I dressed up as his wife in the Old Jerusalem film clip, as he refers to me as his wife in songs, and I could not work out why, but I think that must be why. He sings on The Letting Go that Bonnie Prince Billy was a creature formed of listlessness so I guess he thought it was a funny joke to sing songs about me. But I hadn’t seen the film clip. I think Joanna Newsom found what Will Oldham told her about me amusing and wrote about on The Milk Eyed Mender, some of the lyrics are really mean, like singing that I fashion paper caps out of the pages of Camus, and other cruel things.
Later after The Letting Go on another record Will Oldham has a song about giving my name away and giving away the song I gave to him and singing it away too . This is like the metaphor of skinning me, which refers to them writing songs about me, as since they did not know me it was like taking my skin, what they could see from the outside. Joanna Newsom has the song Emily on Ys, and Will Oldham shortens it to Milly on a song on The Letting Go. Will Oldham knew my middle name was Emily as it was written in my Robert Burns book he took without asking in 1998 before he tried to step on my head, and then the next night stared at me for the whole song Give Me Children (which is not a song about having children, it is about a woman asking him not to let people see them as people would not understand, except he didn’t care and wrote the Give Me Children song about it). And in the film clip New Black Rich from last year which refers to my internet comments about Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the myth of Caenis he depicts the woman representing Joanna Newsom as a centaur, as centaurs threw trees on Caenis, and there is some more I won’t go into on a public site.
I have asked for an explanation from Will Oldham since late last year, and Drag City from easy this year, but I have not got one. Will Oldham wrote to me his songs are fictional and not personal statements. But I think songs are exactly like personal statements as I always read to see what the authors are like and what they say, not so much for the stories, and I have done that since I was a teenager as it is more interesting usually to study the authors.
I have written to Matador Records too as Stephen Malkmus’ last record was called Wig Out At Jag Bags and has lyrics about something ironically Byronic and I think it refers to me. But I have not got an answer. So I have just tried to work it out as best as I can.
I complained to Drag City but instead of caring they just released more songs about me, like O My Stars by The Faun Fables (Dawn McCarthy from The Faun Fables sang on The Letting Go).
I have copied most of my reasons for thinking this and my analysis to Sean O’Hagan the writer at The Guardian, who made a record with Will Oldham in the 1990s which also featured the piano player Liam Hayes who was there when we met Will Oldham in 1998 and was very kind to my friend, but I don’t know if Sean O’Hagan is interested in writing the story or not.
It is very stressful for me. No one will give me an explanation. And I did not want to be referred to in all these songs. And as the companies won’t do anything and I don’t have a lawyer all I can do is write emails and comments and try to bring it to light.
ZM 10.19.15 at 3:01 pm
And if Will Oldham’s songs are fictions, he should not just base fictional songs on a person in Australia, without caring about the negative impact on that persons’ life of having numerous fictional songs recorded and sold about them. They are only part fictional if they are in some way based on me. I read him say that Bonnie Prince Billy is an imaginary character in an interview. But you can’t invent an imaginary character and write from the imaginary character songs about a real person in Australia :-(
s0meguy88 10.19.15 at 3:16 pm
Oh. Sorry.
On the one hand we have a pretty liberal/technocratic suggestion about how we might attempt to structure existing public unemployment benefits in order to get people to relocate to where the jobs are. (In part, this is probably partly an acknowledgement/bit of a walk back from an early post advising, Want a job cog man? Relocate to the jobs!)
On the other hand we have the same thing, A Cass Sunsteinish cultural nudge suggestion (for employers) that involves ‘Instead of making employee relocation an ordinary deductible expense, we could partially refund some of those costs, ‘
From this gossamer thread you have woven an entire collection of garish Izod/oppressor sweaters. (Izod! I am so old!)
Noting that people are not entirely rational about income tax refunds(and other stuff like relocating), that companies are not entirely rational about what group of workers they offer relocation benefits too, and thinking about proposals that we might somehow convert some portion of unemployment benefits to a relocation bonus while simultaneous converting a tax deduction/relocation expense into a direct subsidy in order to nudge both groups in a better direction
does not equal
‘proposal, we still overtax workers (by Williamson’s lights), who in effect make interest-free loans to the federal government, which gives the money to private employers, to give the money back to workers with strings attached, to make them beholden to these employers (and to foster an irrational sense of gratefulness and obligation to employers, who will seem to be the source of the largesse, but aren’t.) ‘.
The first is what was actually suggested. The second is a bogeyman in your head.
belle le triste 10.19.15 at 3:33 pm
there are in fact two different sean o’hagans: one writes for the guardian, one used to be in the high llamas — the second made a record with will oldham in the 90s, the first has (iirc) interviewed oldham — but they are not the same person
hix 10.19.15 at 3:36 pm
Dont think even the silcon valley type all-inclusive-resort employers are very healthy for employees. They have a tendency to create an environment where the workplace becomes the only place one lives and in the end still works far longer than one should, even if there are many amneity breaks. Quite a bit of danger that it ends very unhealthy and definitly not a lifestyle one can do for 10+ years.
John Holbo 10.19.15 at 3:39 pm
ZM, I’m sorry – truly – to hear you think all this has been done to you. You left similar comments in some other threads and I thought you were saying it all in/for fun. I thought you were having me on. I don’t know you. I don’t know these artists. I can now appreciate that you wouldn’t be continuing to write such stuff unless you really were upset about it. I remember you said in some other thread that it all started with a breakdown you were going through at (or after?) one particular concert. (Correct me if I’m wrong.) In addition to not knowing you, and not knowing these artists, I’m not a doctor. But I think you should consider seeing someone where you live – a doctor, a therapist. Friends and family you can talk to in person about this stuff you are writing about. I have to tell you: these don’t seem like reasonable thoughts to me. Who am I to say? I know. But please: consider maybe that the problem isn’t the one you feel it is. Whatever you went through, which triggered this: it’s something in you, and it’s still going on. I am sure you can’t turn thoughts and feelings off. That’s not how it works. But: talk to someone you know about all this. I do hope you are doing ok.
John Holbo 10.19.15 at 3:46 pm
someguy, if Sunstein had wanted to advocate super-paternalism, he wouldn’t have called his book “Nudge”. If Williamson wanted just a nudge, he wouldn’t have called for ‘super-paternalism’. (You did read the linked piece?)
Jim Buck 10.19.15 at 3:48 pm
You appear to be relapsing ZM.
LFC 10.19.15 at 3:51 pm
@ ZM:
Are you aware that this stuff you are writing about songs and records appears to be disconnected from reality? You can’t charge a singer with stalking and harassment because you have some notion that certain lyrics in a song might obliquely refer to you. If the supposed reference is so oblique that no one gets the reference except you (which appears to be the case, from what I can gather from your posts about this), then it can’t possibly be an invasion of your privacy.
LFC 10.19.15 at 3:53 pm
note: I posted my comment @26 before seeing Holbo’s @23, which contains good advice.
John Holbo 10.19.15 at 3:54 pm
ZM, forget that I replied to someguy. I’m more worried about you. Jim Buck is right. You are experiencing some sort of relapse and you should get help. Can you talk to friends and family near you about what you are going through?
Bartleby the Commenter 10.19.15 at 3:57 pm
“But: talk to someone you know about all this. I do hope you are doing ok.”
This joke Commenter is taking a break from their shtick to send you wishes of peace and strength ZM. Talk to someone you trust about your thoughts and feelings. Take care of yourself.
jake the antisoshul soshulist 10.19.15 at 5:06 pm
@Holbo. “pretends to believe.”
Federal funds are perfectly fine if they are filtered through/distributed by conservatives.
See block grants, privitization, etc. Plenty of room for “skimming” in those cases.
s0meguy88 10.19.15 at 5:14 pm
John Holbo,
Again. The only thing anything like a concrete policy in the whole bit is a a suggestion that maybe we think about somehow converting some portion of UI benefits into a relocation package and maybe somehow provide a direct subsidy(most likely meant instead) of a tax deduction for relocation expenses to employers.
I guess if it just possible that you can read
‘We already have in effect a forced-savings program for American workers, except we call it a “tax refund.†We overtax workers, who in effect make interest-free loans to the federal government and then get excited when they get their own money back — with no interest, but in a lump sum. People like lump sums. That is not rational from a strictly economic point of view, but it is a genuine aspect of human economic behavior. Employers and government both have the opportunity to do something creative with that. ‘
and conclude that
‘Williamson is advocating that we transmute the public safety net (some portion of it) into a federally-subsidized archipelago of regimes of private power, a web of patronage relations, bonding employees to employers. ‘
‘Under Williamson’s proposal, we still overtax workers (by Williamson’s lights), who in effect make interest-free loans to the federal government, which gives the money to private employers, to give the money back to workers with strings attached’
I read, see this example of how people are irrational about tax refunds, we can do something with those/that mildly irrational inclination(s). See the above relocation proposal.
You see a nefarious proposal to replace the welfare state.
I guess it is just almost possible. But based on the context of the piece, and the very liberation inclined Williamson’s writing’s in general, I am going to say very strongly – NO.
Bartleby the Commenter 10.19.15 at 5:20 pm
“very liberation inclined Williamson’s writing’s in general”
I could point out the insanity of this statement but I would prefer not to.
Chip Daniels 10.19.15 at 7:24 pm
One of the problems with the market is business failure, when businesses don’t plan ahead for their future and end up going bankrupt.
Perhaps we should become more paternalistic, and coercively force businesses to put some money away in savings, not to take on too much debt, or venture into risky market segments.
Other failures include poor employee-management relations resulting in high turnover and absenteeism. We should institute a rigorous regime of workplace mediation, where the federal government mediates and enforces worker safety and wages.
Bartleby the Commenter 10.19.15 at 7:46 pm
“Other failures include poor employee-management relations resulting in high turnover and absenteeism. We should institute a rigorous regime of workplace mediation, where the federal government mediates and enforces worker safety and wages.”
I am intrigued and would subscribe to your newsletter but, as always, I prefer not to.
Jerry Vinokurov 10.19.15 at 7:55 pm
Kevin Williamson supports measures that would give employers even more power over the lives of their employees? Say it ain’t so!
John Holbo 10.20.15 at 12:19 am
someguy, it seems like the difference between your reading and mine is this: I see Williamson proposing ‘super paternalism’ and one very small policy instance of it – relocation benefits – while clearly implying this is the tip of a bigger iceberg, ideally. You see him proposing just relocation benefits. But obviously Williamson wouldn’t be comparing this one small thing to company towns – or writing phrases like this: “If that sounds a little bit like a labor-intensive version of college life today, that is no accident” – if he were just proposing relocation benefits. Relocation benefits don’t sound like a labor-intensive version of college. He also wouldn’t be calling it ‘super paternalism’ if it were just relocation benefits. (That’s why I asked if you had actually read the Williamson piece. You will pardon me if, even now, I harbor some reasonable doubts about your reading, or reading comprehension, based on your comments.)
All I added to what he wrote was: will the end, will the means. The means to an evidently rather extensive new public policy of employee paternalism – government-supported neo-company town-ism – is a massive federal program to manage this.
Are you simply objecting that it is unfair of me to add ‘will the end, will the means’, on the grounds that he didn’t actually say he was willing to will the means? If so, that doesn’t seem like very sensible public policy.
cassander 10.20.15 at 12:25 am
@by John Holbo
>into a federally-subsidized archipelago of regimes of private power, a web of patronage relations, bonding employees to employers.
Is that supposed to be worse than a federally subsidized archipelago of public power, a web a patronage relationships bonding voters to politicians? Because while I don’t think Williamson’s ideas are good, I hardly see the world he paints as categorically worse than what we have now.
John Holbo 10.20.15 at 12:37 am
Thank you, Cassander, for pointing out that my reading of Williamson is perfectly reasonable!
As to whether his scheme would be worse than what we have now: It wouldn’t make the government smaller, for example. Or take complicated, intrusive decisions about private life out of the hands of bureaucrats in Washington. Rather, it would empower bureaucrats to empower a private elite (business owners) as the coercive soul-crafters of workers. What could go wrong, freedom-wise?
cassander 10.20.15 at 1:16 am
@John Holbo
>As to whether his scheme would be worse than what we have now: It wouldn’t make the government smaller, for example. Or take complicated, intrusive decisions about private life out of the hands of bureaucrats in Washington. Rather, it would empower bureaucrats to empower a private elite (business owners) as the coercive soul-crafters of workers. What could go wrong, freedom-wise?
I agree completely. It wouldn’t make government smaller, and it would almost certainly make it less efficient, which is why I said I didn’t think it was a good idea. But it’s nice to see that you’re coming around to understanding that federal bureaucrats are not bottomlessly wise and well meaning, and learning to see the dangers of leaving power in their hands. My efforts here are not in vain.
John Holbo 10.20.15 at 1:23 am
“But it’s nice to see that you’re coming around to understanding that federal bureaucrats are not bottomlessly wise and well meaning … My efforts here are not in vain.”
Cassander, I also believe the sky is blue and water is wet. I am deeply in your debt, obviously.
cassander 10.20.15 at 1:40 am
@John Holbo
I spent this weekend trying to get people around here to admit that Nixon was to the right of Barack Obama, so I try not to take things for granted.
geo 10.20.15 at 2:59 am
cassander: federal bureaucrats are not bottomlessly wise and well meaning
Do you believe public officials are ipso facto democratically unaccountable, as private employers are?
ZM 10.20.15 at 3:43 am
John Holbo,
No I was not joking in the past. I am worried Joanna Newsom has written about me again. I can’t go into all the details on a blog like this, which is why Sean O’Hagan from The Guardian has most of my longer reasons for why I think songs are about me.
You are right, some strange things happened during Joanna Newsom’s 2005 tour of Australia, which let me to only go to one of Will Oldham’s 2006 concerts instead of both. I think after this he must have been upset and that is when Joanna Newsmom and Will Oldham had the affair she sings about on Only Skin which is written in relation to his song about skinning me on The Letting Go. After the strange things at Joanna Newsom’s 2005 concerts it was a very confusing time for me, and the day after I heard the next Will Oldham release, the Cursed Sleep EP, I had a psychotic episode.
For a few years after 2006 I could not think about it at all, as I was too fragile. I thought I must have been wrong. But then I listened to his newer music and it seemed like it could be about me. From this time to 2014 I was not sure if the person Will Oldham was singing about was me.
I read quite a lot trying to work it out, but I could not research for any long period at a time so I could not reach any conclusions and neither Will Oldham or Joanna Newsom ever said what or who their songs were about, and I never found any one saying they are the person in Will Oldham’s songs, or any journalist saying who the person was.
So since I wrote to him in 2013 and his actions since then, I am confident in asserting I am the person now.
No one would believe me from 2006 when ever I said anything about Will Oldham singing about me. So I could not get any help from counsellors or any one from 2006 to 2015.
I wrote to Will Oldham in late 2013 and because of his songs and film clips and interviews since then, after a lot of explanation from me, now at last counsellors and health professionals will let me talk about this so I can get help and talk about it, instead of not being able to talk about it.
I do not think I am relapsing at the moment, I am a lot better at the moment in fact. After writing to Will Oldham in late 2013 I was unwell a lot from mid 2014 to mid 2015. I am taking medication and seeing professionals and I am a lot better and more stable now.
John Holbo 10.20.15 at 4:46 am
Hi again ZM, I could point out that just feeling that a song could be about you, and not having proof to the contrary, isn’t much proof that it is about you. It’s easy to find personal connections in things other people produce. It is really unlikely that all these people are so focused on you, let alone have malice towards you. I am sure you have thought all this through yourself. I am sure it also doesn’t change the way you feel. But I’m very glad to hear you are getting help.
ZM 10.20.15 at 5:22 am
LFC,
“You can’t charge a singer with stalking and harassment because you have some notion that certain lyrics in a song might obliquely refer to you. If the supposed reference is so oblique that no one gets the reference except you (which appears to be the case, from what I can gather from your posts about this), then it can’t possibly be an invasion of your privacy.”
The oblique nature of the harassment makes it worse in my view. If it was direct it would be much less distressing for me, and people would know what they did, instead of me having to write textual analysis and history to justify my assertions. Will Oldham even wrote a song on his Singers Grave A Sea Of Tongues, which was the revised (or corrected) version of Wolfroy Goes To Town, that his songs must have “felt riddled with evil imposing” I would prefer if people were going to write songs about me without asking me they at least did not riddle in the songs.
The record company Drag City won’t act on my complaint unless the singers complain about themselves, which Rian Murphy said is their policy about complaints.
When I complained to the record company Domino Records about this, they said they would not act on my complaint and withdraw the records unless directed to by the police or a lawyer.
I would prefer to resolve this informally by negotiating redress with the artists and companies, including getting all the records with references to me and female characters based on me withdrawn from sale. But the companies will not investigate my complaint no matter how much evidence I give them as my grounds for my assertion and complaint.
So I looked up civil and criminal laws. Civil law that applies include personal injury law for emotional distress and psychological damage, also defamation, libel, and invasion of privacy. Criminal laws that apply include stalking, harassment, and sexual harassment.
I am considering criminal charges because the singers will not apologise and give me an explanation for their actions, and to stop any further references to me in new recorded material or in the live performance of exisiting material that refers to me.
This is because they have not stopped referring to me, for example, The Faun Fables who Dawn McCarthy is in who sang on The Letting Go with Will Oldham released a song and video O My Stars that referred to me after I had already complained to Drag City about being referred to in songs. I am very unhappy about this and have stated references to me constitute harassment, and what is not harassment is apologies and explanations.
There are three sorts of offences which constitute stalking in US Federal law, one is action that “causes, attempts to cause, or could reasonably be expected to cause substantial emotional distress to the target of their conduct”. Being referred to in songs and film clips has caused me substantial emotional distress, so that clause is met. So this means stalking is applicable if I decide to press charges about this. The Federal law applies instead of the State law when the person who commits the offence “engage in interstate commerce in the commission of the crime.” I think this is met, since interstate commerce refers to “any work involving or related to the movement of persons or things (including intangibles, such as information) across state lines or from foreign countries.” As I am in Australia the information which constitutes the stalking has moved across state lines to me here in Australia.
Harassment law appears to be state based in the US as far as I can tell so far.
As Drag City is based in Illinois I looked up laws for artists in Illinois, and I found that the legal advice for artists in Illinois is not to represent a person in your art work without getting prior permission from the person as otherwise legal issues may arise.
For example, invasion of privacy arises when you state things referring to that person that the person has not publicly stated themselves. And defamation applies when you use artistic license to embroider the facts about the person, suggesting things that are not true about the person, or when you conflate more than one person into a single representation which also suggests things that are not true about any one of the persons represented.
***
That was a bit off topic though, even though the thread is about companies taking responsibility, and the record companies should be more responsible. The record industry generally is not very responsible in my observations. Lots of musicians have problems with alcohol and finances or end up committing suicide, so the industry would be better providing help for addictions, financial management, and mental health issues.
I would like to point out that some of the company towns in the 19th C were quite forward thinking in the town planning and facilities provided compared to what was planned for and provided in the normal laissez faire cities at the time. This depended on the owners of the company and whether they were of a benevolent mindset or not.
There is a precedent for companies working with government bodies to provide social services and facilities already, as I think in master planning for new suburbs generally it is now the case that the responsible authorities negotiate with the developers for contributions for community facilities and so on, whether monetary or in kind.
I don’t see that it is problematic for companies to provide help for employees problems. HR departments could provide this service either themselves or through referrals quite well, and probably some already do to varying extents. It would probably help make the workplaces better as well, as there would be a focus on companies being responsible for employee wellbeing as part of their corporate social responsibility. Although of course you would have to make sure it was implemented to be a positive change to avoid the various negative issues that could arise as much as possible, and have inspectors or a board or something like that to oversee things.
ZM 10.20.15 at 5:30 am
John Holbo,
I am already quite aware of this. I only assert this now publicly after I wrote to Will Oldham in 2013 and told him he used the word hubris wrongly in relations to climate change and gave him the long definition from the unabridged OED and asked him what his record company’s corrections policy was.
Then he made a film clip revising his song Black Captain for the Greenpeace climate change activist Peter Wilcox, revised his previous record Wolfroy Goes To Town into Singer’s Grave A Sea Of Tongues and wouldn’t tell his brother Paul Oldham why, and referred to my internet comments on Crooked Timber in his film clips with the help of David Berman who wrote on his blog he read Crooked Timber. They both must have felt sorry for doing this this year, as they both embedded the song Old Violin which is about giving your life to music and wanting to take your life due to music. But they still haven’t said sorry or given me an explanation :-(
You are quite right it is unlikely that singers would write songs about me, but that is not my fault, they are the ones who did this unlikely thing and never asked me, if they had asked me I would have told them my sensible advice was not to do this unlikely thing.
Sancho 10.20.15 at 7:18 am
ZM, mate. Go straight to your doctor (or a doctor) and explain that these thoughts are a big deal in your life right now, and follow their advice on what to do next.
If there is, in fact, an international conspiracy to stalk and harass you through prog rock music performances – and you’re canny enough to know how improbable that is – then letting the doc help you out won’t change it, and you’ll be back at square one with nothing lost.
However, in the far more likely event that you’re super stressed right now and all snowballed up in ideas of reference, then there’s quick, effective assistance available that will help you enormously.
I’m not going to post any more about it unless you ask, but this is my field and I strongly encourage you to at least give my advice a shot. You’ve got nothing to lose.
ZM 10.20.15 at 8:01 am
Sancho,
Thank you for your concern. I already see health professionals on a regular basis and take medication daily.
This year is the first time the health professionals will let me talk about this issue since 2006. This is due to there being more evidence since I contacted Will Oldham in late 2013 as mentioned, and due to support from others.
I can understand where you are coming from if you are a professional in this area — but you do not know me, and you do not know what evidence and reasons I have for saying this.
I have discussed this with my health professionals, the nomothetic approach that they are educated in means that, like you, they have been disinclined to listen to me in the past, but professionals need to balance a nomothetic approach with an ideographic approach that relates to the individual person and situation. As I have said I cannot possibly go into all the detail on a blog like this.
I am happy to drop this now, since although I appreciate your concern is meant well, this is the problem with paternalism as raised in the OP, despite that I think it has its merits.
s0meguy88 10.20.15 at 2:12 pm
John Holbo,
Great so we agree. One example is provided.
No need to over complicate things with questions about what was implied and I failed to infer due to my sub standard reading comprehension.
Because we don’t have any details about what was implied. We have one example.
From that one example you have built an entire edifice of oppression that replaces the entire welfare state. How? Why?
John Holbo 10.20.15 at 4:21 pm
“No need to over complicate things with questions about what was implied and I failed to infer due to my sub standard reading comprehension.”
Well, I’m willing to entertain alternative hypotheses to explain your low score, someguy. But, as you say, it isn’t that important.
“Because we don’t have any details about what was implied. We have one example.”
No, we have more than an example. We have an example plus a whole thing Williamson wrote, which contains the example. That’s the bit you leave out – the whole thing he wrote. If you think there’s some way to read what he wrote, so it all turns out to be a mild-mannered Sunstein-style nudge in favor of relocation tax-breaks, then, by all means, explain that to me. I really don’t see it. Why the neo-company town frame if that is utterly misleading and wrong? Is Williamson just a terrible writer, on your view? Riddle me that.
LFC 10.20.15 at 5:37 pm
cassander @41:
I spent this weekend trying to get people around here to admit that Nixon was to the right of Barack Obama, so I try not to take things for granted.
Anyone interested in that discussion can go read it and see for themselves who was arguing what and how convincingly. No point in trying to mischaracterize it after the fact.
V 10.20.15 at 5:46 pm
The whole paternalistic company idea reminds me of my time in the military. There WERE some good parts about the readily available help for nearly any aspect of your life. Your squad leader and platoon sergeant were supposed to be there to help if you needed anything, there were tons of programs to help a person out with finances or childcare or family health issues, etc, etc, etc. For some people, probably most people, it was a way to get a good start on life, and get educated on things in the real world while having some safety nets. In fact, the modern military base is a lot like the company town of old–we have our own grocery, our own department store, our own car buying services and recreational services, social safety nets….you really didn’t have to leave base if you didn’t want to, we even had government approved fast food restaurants!
But the trade-off for that was that every aspect of your life, including some of your more intimate affairs, were basically your boss’ business. You had no secrets, and no real privacy, and in the hands of an unreliable NCO….that could make your life hell. The military is rife with favoritism and other less savory problems, and we had strict rules about everything (that got broken more often than anyone likes to admit). In current American corporate and industrial climates, with our crap worker protection, I could not imagine allowing your employer to have that much oversight into your life and private practices without widespread abuse.
We were constantly told that that was the trade-off….you got the benefits, and you gave up freedoms, but it was all necessary for the good of the mission, of the military, and of your country. You, as a person, were totally subservient to those last three Gods. And I’m willing to allow for that idea to be true…that it is necessary for a well disciplined military to have that tight of a hold on its members.
But I don’t see it being true for the average worker. I don’t see that being true for the average American. I also don’t think it’s acceptable at all–and I hardly think it allows for the kind of ‘freedom’ that people tout as the all-important American right. I had far rather the government provide these benefits to all, at equal and fair standards, than have it be up to any given employer, who has a vested interest in providing as little as possible while retaining tight control over an employee, for little more than profits at the end of the day. Maybe I’m idealistic, but I’ve seen very few companies that would earn my loyalty (and forgiveness for its failings) the way the military did. Companies have tried, but in the end, it was always about money rather than the actual health of the business, the customer service, or internal harmony. The military, at least, is honest about what rights you lose when you sign the contract, and how much you are expected to bleed in the course of your duties.
Jim Pharo 10.21.15 at 4:25 pm
I wonder if we aren’t chasing the MacGuffin here…
Whether the exercise of power is by a government or by a company, what matters to me is the values of that power. I have a fair amount of power of my children, and surely sometimes that leads me to excess. But I do make a significant effort to ensure that that power is exercised in what I perceive to be their best interest. I’m not sure that government officials or company owners make any comparable effort, and I’m pretty sure they have little incentive to do so.
Worrying about the relative evils of various modes of power misses the point of what values that power serves. This is the case for the benign dictator in some ways, but ultimately whether or not I find the exercise of power over me noxious depends on the extent to which I agree with that power’s values. If I’m generally aligned, I’m ok with those instances where I’m not. If not generally not aligned, I rankle even where I agree.
Too often, power’s main value seems to be power. It ought to be something more like “peace and love, baby!”
Robespierre 10.21.15 at 8:58 pm
Which is why we have such things ad elections and limits on government power (or for that matter parent power)?
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