We desperately need to find new organisational forms - it's crazy in modern western democracies most of us spend our lives in command and control dictatorships
However the transition is hard. Democracy is nice but companies are too close to the daily life of people to allow a vote every four years and let others decide policy
GitHub could have experimented with new ways of deciding policy (voting) - and I would argue that it's likely they would have got things like "write good docs" voted in anyway.
And it would be interesting to see how one handles voting on issues like "gender bias"
But we will all have to have companies like this one day - otherwise where do the big value wins come from. We can't keep inventing technology of the 21 C and hope they overcome the management hierarchies of the Stone Age
There are other forms of structural organisation than strict hierarchies.
One interesting one proposed by cyberneticist Stafford Beer was dubbed Syntegrity [1].
It involved relationships between workers structured like a bucky ball, where each person had direct influence over a number of topics, and oversight of a number of others.
The result was (in theory) an arrangement where everyone had some responsiblity, but there was no overall "leadership". In theory
We have the same general primary social structure - certain people have control of a lot more of the resources than others and don't want to cede that control.
Is there any wonder that we have those structures in organisations whose focus is "making a profit", ie ensuring unequal distribution of resources by increasing the control of resources for those who already have the most.
There is a certain logic in capitalism - farmers who are a successful are good at farming. The history of taking farms away from farmers and redistributing the land is usually bad.
So I have very few issues with "making a profit", it's just that "fire is needed in the engine room, to drive the steam engines and turn the wheels. But one does not invite fire up to the cockpit and let it steer". Democracy should choose where to steer. Capitalism can provide the engine room.
The problem arises that the successful capitalist farmer is rich and well fed; those living around the farm might be starving though.
Under other structures to be successful the farm would need to have everyone reasonably well fed.
In the capitalist regime the farmer is rewarded by keeping successful method to himself. Then he gets more farms to control and more wealth.
Under other ideologies the successful farmer shares his ideas and method so that the society can prosper, in turn the well fed populous can work well and improve the farmers life too.
The capitalist farmer wants other to fail, then he gets more. The other farmer needs others to succeed, then he gets more.
Modern western democracies aren't democracies, they're republics. Part of the reason they aren't direct democracies is actually a thing you mention: in a direct democracy the 51% effectively rule over the 49% and there is no recourse for the minority to have their needs met.
Also, no need to re-invent the wheel. If you want a model where an organisation isn't led by a "self-appointed dictator", just look at cooperatives, or foundations like Mozilla.
Most of the people I've talked to who make the argument that a republic is not a democracy base point to Federalist #10. But Madison was comparing a "pure democracy" - "by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person" - and a "republic" - "by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place".
> In contemporary usage, the term democracy refers to a government chosen by the people, whether it is direct or representative.[32] Today the term republic usually refers to a representative democracy with an elected head of state, such as a president, who serves for a limited term; in contrast to states with a hereditary monarch as a head of state, even if these states also are representative democracies, with an elected or appointed head of government such as a prime minister.[33]
> The Founding Fathers of the United States rarely praised and often criticized democracy, which in their time tended to specifically mean direct democracy;
"it's crazy in modern western democracies most of us spend our lives in command and control dictatorships"
I think you are confusing structure and culture. I've always worked for the past decade under a boss and retained autonomy and spiritual ownership of my work. Yes, a boss can be a micromanaging asshole but going full anarcho-syndicalism usually just means that politics will happen, structures of influence and fealty will form and the end result is still a tree of authority.
The problem is you have no - absolutely no - right to influence policy and business decisions; decisions that vastly overwhelm the impact your good or bad coding will have on the value produced by the company.
I had to look up anarcho-syndicalism and no I don't think that's what I mean. I mean democratic participation of the whole company in the decisions affecting the whole company.
Edit: unfair to say no influence. Fair to say no "right" to an influence.
while remaining typically authoritarian in day to day activities (I've heard).
Non-democratic governance does not mean people could not be encouraged to participate and be creative. The book "Creativity Inc" by Ed Catmull ponders the problems of leadership and management at Pixar (namely, how they attempt to avoid all the stupid mistakes that are obvious in hindsight).
You might be interested int the "seven day weekend" by Ricardo Semler as well.
Human organizations are complex and difficult. I don't think you can legislate the pathologies away unless they are really obvious. But there are several companies already that include workers way better than not.
However the transition is hard. Democracy is nice but companies are too close to the daily life of people to allow a vote every four years and let others decide policy
GitHub could have experimented with new ways of deciding policy (voting) - and I would argue that it's likely they would have got things like "write good docs" voted in anyway.
And it would be interesting to see how one handles voting on issues like "gender bias"
But we will all have to have companies like this one day - otherwise where do the big value wins come from. We can't keep inventing technology of the 21 C and hope they overcome the management hierarchies of the Stone Age