Private enterprises do not have to honor the tenants of free speech in the employment practices, nor should they be required to. They should be able to, for example, fire someone who spouts racism, sexism, xenophobia… or any other form of hate speech, which has happened many times. But likewise, we do not have to support private enterprises that are more worried about PR blow back than basic decency and liberty to allow their employees to speak your mind, that use their position of authority to curb speech that might be distasteful to them or their customers but otherwise does nothing wrong. We can boycott and protest these enterprises, and we should. And for those enterprises that are public, that answer to us, we should make sure they know that the jobs of those responsible are on the line too.
Some of the things said in this article amount to celebrating violence, and I can see good reason to distance your company from that. But there is no reason to fire anyone that simply expresses reasonable dislike for one’s behavior and words, or for warning others that words can have consequences. Actually, the irony for firing someone for warning that words can have consequences is almost comedic, except the wrong people faced the consequences. Anyone firing anyone for simply speaking ill of the dead, for pointing out that they weren’t the hero or beacon of righteous truth people are pretending they are, should be fired as well.
I mean, they are. Unless you work for yourself, a partnership (of which you are a partner), a co-op, have tenure, or have a good union, under our 🦄🌈capitalist utopia ™… your employment status is subject to termination on the whims of your employer, so long as they dont violate ADA or anti-discrimination laws in the process. Welcome to the oligarchy, friend.
Edit: For clarity, when I was saying that that “should” be the way, I meant under our system as it exists, not the that is the ideal.
Read my edit. I was not defending the oligarchy. But room does need to be left for people to face non-legal consequences for hate speech, up and including unemployment, whether under the oligarchic system we have or under a more preferable socialist system.
People can and should have the choice to not associate themselves with others, particularly financially. If I hire an assistant and they call my client the n-word, even in a private context, I’m going to fire them and I should be able to, whatever the process required to do so. I don’t think that is wrong. The fact that one person can do that unilaterally on a whim is wrong, but that is a separate issue. Again, though, in either case, whether the enterprise is capitalist, socialist or anything else, misuse of this power will have consequences.
If a worker is slinging slurs there should be ways to stop them, but that doesn’t mean we have to empower private enterprise to have even more control over our lives. The boss shouldn’t be the one that gets to decide what counts as hate speech.
Private enterprise != boss/business owned by a capitalist. A socialist business, jointly owned and run by all of the workers, is still a private enterprise. And they should still be able to collectively decide the terms and/or process around deciding to continue association between an individual and the company and revoke that privilege for anyone that violates those terms. I was not defending any boss from firing people based on their personal feelings for their Facebook posts. That is not acceptable. It’s also an entirely different aspect than what I was speaking about. But neither should the enterprise itself be unallowed to hold people to account or decide that they do not wish to continue a business arrangement if the other party says some bigoted shit.
Private enterprises do not have to honor the tenants of free speech in the employment practices, nor should they be required to. They should be able to, for example, fire someone who spouts racism, sexism, xenophobia… or any other form of hate speech, which has happened many times. But likewise, we do not have to support private enterprises that are more worried about PR blow back than basic decency and liberty to allow their employees to speak your mind, that use their position of authority to curb speech that might be distasteful to them or their customers but otherwise does nothing wrong. We can boycott and protest these enterprises, and we should. And for those enterprises that are public, that answer to us, we should make sure they know that the jobs of those responsible are on the line too.
Some of the things said in this article amount to celebrating violence, and I can see good reason to distance your company from that. But there is no reason to fire anyone that simply expresses reasonable dislike for one’s behavior and words, or for warning others that words can have consequences. Actually, the irony for firing someone for warning that words can have consequences is almost comedic, except the wrong people faced the consequences. Anyone firing anyone for simply speaking ill of the dead, for pointing out that they weren’t the hero or beacon of righteous truth people are pretending they are, should be fired as well.
This functionally means that the majority of worker’s lives are under undemocratic and totalitarian rule by private enterprise.
I mean, they are. Unless you work for yourself, a partnership (of which you are a partner), a co-op, have tenure, or have a good union, under our 🦄🌈capitalist utopia ™… your employment status is subject to termination on the whims of your employer, so long as they dont violate ADA or anti-discrimination laws in the process. Welcome to the oligarchy, friend.
Edit: For clarity, when I was saying that that “should” be the way, I meant under our system as it exists, not the that is the ideal.
You’re the one that said private enterprises should not have to honor the tenants of free speech. You’re defending the oligarchy even as you mock it.
Read my edit. I was not defending the oligarchy. But room does need to be left for people to face non-legal consequences for hate speech, up and including unemployment, whether under the oligarchic system we have or under a more preferable socialist system.
People can and should have the choice to not associate themselves with others, particularly financially. If I hire an assistant and they call my client the n-word, even in a private context, I’m going to fire them and I should be able to, whatever the process required to do so. I don’t think that is wrong. The fact that one person can do that unilaterally on a whim is wrong, but that is a separate issue. Again, though, in either case, whether the enterprise is capitalist, socialist or anything else, misuse of this power will have consequences.
If a worker is slinging slurs there should be ways to stop them, but that doesn’t mean we have to empower private enterprise to have even more control over our lives. The boss shouldn’t be the one that gets to decide what counts as hate speech.
Private enterprise != boss/business owned by a capitalist. A socialist business, jointly owned and run by all of the workers, is still a private enterprise. And they should still be able to collectively decide the terms and/or process around deciding to continue association between an individual and the company and revoke that privilege for anyone that violates those terms. I was not defending any boss from firing people based on their personal feelings for their Facebook posts. That is not acceptable. It’s also an entirely different aspect than what I was speaking about. But neither should the enterprise itself be unallowed to hold people to account or decide that they do not wish to continue a business arrangement if the other party says some bigoted shit.