Comment by cess11
9 hours ago
At the Versailles court of the Louies there were constant parties and games, gambling and otherwise. It wasn't to bond or for fun, it was to keep the aristocracy too busy to threaten the dictatorship, as well as letting the king exert an immediate influence over them through a borderline insanity.
Infamously the first or second Versailles Louis, I forgot which, got very aggressive around the topic of toilet excretions, basically forcing aristocrats to try and handle being drunk and desperately needing both to piss and stay in his vicinity. The ceremony around the parties and the court in general over time got more and more intricate and maddening, causing the aristocracy to spend more and more resources on getting clothes and drinks and showing up at the right time and doing the right thing and being on top of the fashion of the day.
It would be weird if a late modern corporate dictator didn't apply similar tactics, since they are known to work and didn't come to an end until the guillotines rolled into town. Things like sleepovers in the office, ceremonial games, constant 'after work', oddball demands regarding clothing and behaviour, intimate surveillance and gossiping, and so on.
>Things like sleepovers in the office, ceremonial games, constant 'after work', oddball demands regarding clothing and behaviour, intimate surveillance and gossiping, and so on.
That sounds more like a cult than a company.
I don't understand why anyone would put up with that, if they had any other alternative. And most people do have alternatives.
With the number of people that have been swept up in cults over history the entire idea that "people can just easily leave" doesn't seem to pan out well.
> I don't understand why anyone would put up with that
To paraphrase McBain's answer to "how do you sleep at night?"
"On top of a pile of money with many beautiful ladies".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO0JaecRWy0
People with the skills to earn lots of money can generally also get well paid jobs at companies not run by sociopaths.
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Corporations are commonly run as cults, at least to some extent. It could be demands of loyalty ('we're a family'), personality cult, dress code, 'teambuilding exercises' and so on.
The alternatives usually involve a threat of more uncertainty or misery.
Louis XIV had a notably insecure childhood, with portions of the nobility were in open rebellion. When he came of age, he set about to make damn sure that they were under his thumb.
But the parallel seems lacking to me: Musk and Zuckerman can't jail recalcitrant managers.
Sure, every tyrant has a story that superficially allows some shift of blame.
They could, though. It's just that they likely would have to do something more involved than depriving them of their contracts, which is often enough to get rid of the problem and unlike an aristocracy where bloodlines and births set limits there are now institutions that produce replacements 'at scale'.