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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @10:38PM   Printer-friendly
from the promote-them-to-where-they-can-do-the-least-damage dept.

Geert Hofstede's "Culture's Consequences" is one of the most influential management books of the 20th century. With well over 80,000 citations, Hofstede argues that 50 percent of managers' differences in their reactions to various situations are explained by cultural differences. Now, a researcher at the University of Missouri has determined that culture plays little or no part in leaders' management of their employees; this finding could impact how managers are trained and evaluated globally.

"We all want a higher quality of life, a desirable workplace environment and meaningful work -- no matter our home country," said Arthur Jago, professor of management in the Robert J. Trulaske College of Business at MU. "In management theory, we focus more on leaders' differences rather than their similarities. By analyzing the data in a new way, I found that managers across country borders and across cultures are more alike than different."

Crud. Does this mean you can't get away from PHB's no matter where you go?


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  • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Thursday December 22 2016, @12:52AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday December 22 2016, @12:52AM (#444545) Journal

    There's another word that is much more appropriate than "dehumanize". "Abstract".

    Still not reading your Marx, khallow? The terms is "alienation", as in "the alienation of labor". You may remember they made a whole TV Show about it: "Alien Nation".

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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Thursday December 22 2016, @01:28AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 22 2016, @01:28AM (#444560) Journal

    "the alienation of labor"

    Yet another broken phrase from Marx. I'm not interested in a pile of confirmation bias where the philosopher decides ahead of time who are the bad guys; what are the bad actions; and labels/argues everything with an excessive amount, even by philosophical standards, of straw man theater and insult.

    And once again, we see the usual failure of Marxism to improve on the situation. The "alienation" of labor under capitalism hasn't held a candle to the alienation of labor and everything else under Marxism-based governments of the 20th Century. Implementation has fallen a bit shy of the rhetoric!

    Of course, as an outspoken owner of capital, I have bragged endlessly about my dehumanizing of labor in the past. Alas, kuro5hin.org archives no longer exist, so I can't narcissistically link to the boast where I dehumanize some poor dude in a 7-11 for a bottle of orange juice and change (orange juice tastes so much better when it's delivered on the servile backs of the working class, duh). It's pretty brutal and confirms all the over-the-top, paranoid, fucked-up delusions Marxists have had about capitalists. I didn't even think about the man or his family as I quenched my savage thirst which was, no doubt, inflamed by the severe global warming that I caused with my wicked schemes of not caring enough about the environment.

    This dark, terrible day is lost to history. Else we could, like, turn it into an anti-holiday where we refuse to celebrate the dehumanization of capitalism which has done more, than any other system of economics in the history of the world, to make us better humans - and deliver orange juice on demand for hot summer days.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @01:56AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @01:56AM (#444568)

      You are just so blind.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 22 2016, @02:17AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 22 2016, @02:17AM (#444579) Journal

        You are just so blind.

        I've seen flat Earthers on SoylentNews with better arguments than that. I could link to some? You need the help.

        Throwaway lines that mean nothing are unworthy of you.

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Thursday December 22 2016, @06:46AM

          by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday December 22 2016, @06:46AM (#444640) Journal

          None are so blind as those that will not see! Where did I here this before? Alright, Lefty Soylentils, here begins chapter two of the education of khallow. He has time, probably snowed in without a lot of work to do, or any? So our dear khallow is something like Descartes in winter camp, when he wrote the "Meditations on First Philosophy", except that khallow is no philosopher, and evidently has internet access. So it begins:
          . .
          .
          Alienation of labor refers to the relation of a worker to the product of his efforts. Craftsmen throughout time have had this relation.
          What they produced was theirs, even if they sold it to someone else. You probably still feel this, if you write code, it is your code, even if your employer claims that it was work-for-hire and you have no property rights at all. Oh, wait, maybe that is a pertinent illustration of alienation. Part of it, according to Karl, is that a person's labor confronts him as a thing, independent or alienated from his being, unlike the relations of production (sorry, Marxist jargon, again?) the way he related to the products he produced under earlier economic systems. What you produce is not yours, you have been paid, so just, well, you know, so do it!

          As for the benefits of Capitalism, Marx agrees with khallow! But here a short introduction to dialectics is in order. Or, maybe not, khallow would never understand. Let's just say, that in order for humans to truly connect with their true nature, they first have to be separated from it, so that they might come back to it and see it in a post-alienated fashion. Read some Hegel for this. Although, if you can't read Marx, Hegel is well beyond your ken. Keep this in mind, however: Marx is not saying that Capitalism is an immoral mistake, he says it is a necessary step in the development of human existence. The only wrong thing to do is to maintain that it is an eternal natural order, which it is not. This, too, shall pass, khallow! Spring break-up is just months away.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 22 2016, @10:42AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 22 2016, @10:42AM (#444673) Journal

            What you produce is not yours, you have been paid, so just, well, you know, so do it!

            It's this sort of confusion that is typical of Marxism. In my view, I don't own something that I can't trade. So either I own the output of my labor and can, via contract, exchange ownership of the output of my labor to an employer. Or I can't which implies I don't own the output of my labor. Which is it, aristarchus?

            Keep this in mind, however: Marx is not saying that Capitalism is an immoral mistake, he says it is a necessary step in the development of human existence.

            This is part of Marx's convenient asymptotic process that never has to go anywhere because we can merely assert that it will do so at some point in the future beyond when I've exhausted my patience. In other words, it's not falsifiable because you can never show that you didn't wait long enough to let the process work. This is the political version of the halting problem [wikipedia.org].

            But I don't have to take seriously that which can't be shown. Capitalism has been shown both to work and to be improvable. Marxism hasn't.

            The only wrong thing to do is to maintain that it is an eternal natural order, which it is not.

            Which has never been a problem here. You still haven't shown that Marx is at all relevant. As I have noted before, show something better and you'll have my full attention.

            • (Score: 3, Insightful) by tathra on Thursday December 22 2016, @03:56PM

              by tathra (3367) on Thursday December 22 2016, @03:56PM (#444740)

              So either I own the output of my labor and can, via contract, exchange ownership of the output of my labor to an employer.

              you agree to exchange the output of your labor as a requirement of employment. you dont own it, anything you produce is automatically your employers. i'm not sure how you're confused on this.

              Capitalism has been shown both to work and to be improvable. Marxism hasn't.

              i dont actually know anything about Marxism, but i do know that most examples of "communism" aren't communism, just extremely authoritarian state capitalism (that is, the state owns the corporations, not the people; i believe its better known as "nationalization"). i'm not sure communism is even actually possible, but libertarian socialism certainly is - there are many examples of it in the US, they're typically called "co-ops". the issue with capitalism though is that its only a useful economic method so long as there are markets to expand into and there is still room for growth and expansion. in today's world, both of those are no longer possible or extremely limited. now, personally i think libertarian socialism is the way to go (that is, voluntary collectivism, encouraged by regulations via tax breaks to co-ops or something like that, maybe there's an even better way to go about it that i dont know yet), but even more important than my personal views is the idea that we should use methods that work. there is no one-size fits all solution, and focusing on only a single concept or method, and pushing harder and harder when it starts failing, and then even harder and harder when pushing it harder makes it fail more - is recipe for disaster. we must absolutely be open to trying new methods and going with whichever ones work best for a given situation. sometimes that would mean capitalism is the best solution, and sometimes that would mean socialism (imo authoritarianism should never be used, which shouldnt be relevant here but it always gets confused and seen as a requirement of non-capitalistic economic systems and thats just not the case), but above all people must be open to new ideas instead of being mindless ideologues stuck on a single, failing concept.

            • (Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday December 22 2016, @06:28PM

              by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday December 22 2016, @06:28PM (#444790) Journal

              It's this sort of confusion that is typical of Marxism. In my view, I don't own something that I can't trade. So either I own the output of my labor and can, via contract, exchange ownership of the output of my labor to an employer. Or I can't which implies I don't own the output of my labor. Which is it, aristarchus?

              Once again, my dear and fluffy khallow, the confusion is on your part! But you already knew that. Exchange value is only one aspect of value, and it is capitalism's reduction of all value to this single one is what Marx refers to as "commodity fetishism" in the opening pages of Das Kapital. Here possession is the law, not labor. John Locke, who you may have heard of, tried to hold that it was the mixture of one's labor with some natural material that introduced property rights, but this soon becomes only a fiction.
                    The other form of ownership is what we might call inalienable: Copyright law focuses on the right to make copies, production of commodities, and restriction of the right to trade. But there is the other aspect of copyright, the more important, I think, what the Berne convention refers to as the "moral right" of an author. This is what Marx is talking about, that the product of your labor be yours, even if it be sold and "owned" by another. So it still exists under copyright, and in most craft and arts, where the producer is part of the product, or in other words, is not alienated.

                    Stealing authorship is the crime we are talking about here. There is a vast difference between "unauthorized copying" of an artist's work, and trying to claim that you are the author of the work, plagiarism. Of course, authorship can be just as extinguished in industrial production: a worker will more often than not be unable to tell which particular widget he actually produced a part of. (And it is worse, as Henry Ford knew, when the worker is unable to afford to own what he produces, but that is another issue.) Work-for-hire does the same thing, only the producer does know, and the reduction of ownership to possession and right to alienation (exchange, or gift, or destruction) is something of a legal fiction.
                    The really twisted version, though, is the essence of Trumpism: Branding and ghostwriting. Someone hires an artisan to produce a work specifically for the purpose of the employer claiming authorship? We usually call this "fraud", or market plagiarism, or intellectual slavery. Is your confusion relieved, khallow? I trust you are not being intentionally obtuse.

              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 23 2016, @01:08AM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 23 2016, @01:08AM (#444888) Journal

                and it is capitalism's reduction of all value to this single one is what Marx refers to as "commodity fetishism" in the opening pages of Das Kapital.

                And there's another slanted term that no one else respects. If only we could get rid of the many brutally boring parts in between, it'd be a proper parody of human thought.

                Exchange value is only one aspect of value

                There are two things to note here. First, value is not ownership. You are conflating two very different ideas. Second, there are an uncountably infinite number of valuations possible at any given time and the Marxism-flavored one is just one of many such.

                But the only valuations that matter are the preferences we express by making choices. It's decisions that make valuation real. Since we're speaking of choices made in the course of trade (capitalism otherwise not being relevant aside from the context of the trade), then of course, it's exchange value by default.

                This is what Marx is talking about, that the product of your labor be yours, even if it be sold and "owned" by another.

                And we now get to the supernatural aspect of Marxism, labor cooties. So how do I deal with the world being awash in labor cooties? I don't care about it one fucking bit. You would do well to do the same.

                I think also you haven't thought through the implications. This sort of ownership rationalization is also why companies are converting ownership to subscriptions. When you no longer own the things that you buy, that causes Marxism-like problems.

                I will say this, you do make a good case that Marxism is some sort of moderately communicable mental illness. But I'm not feeling it past that observation.

                • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday December 23 2016, @01:58AM

                  by aristarchus (2645) on Friday December 23 2016, @01:58AM (#444893) Journal

                  So, Azuma got to you, eh? Alright, I can wait until you are capable of rational discussions of the issues again. However long it takes.

                  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 23 2016, @05:14AM

                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 23 2016, @05:14AM (#444941) Journal
                    Azuma is sincere. Even though we disagree strongly, I don't have a problem with her. You sound like you're in tarbaby mode [soylentnews.org] again.
                    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday December 23 2016, @06:40AM

                      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday December 23 2016, @06:40AM (#444964) Journal

                      Sincerity is important but so is being correct. You, Mr. Hallow, are very often incorrect, and dangerously so. You may not have a problem with me, but I sure as shit have a problem with you, and am thanking my lucky stars your hands are nowhere near the metaphorical levers of power.

                      Your biggest problem, ironically, is a cancerous case of the aforementioned "feelz over realz hurr hurr hurr." Specifically, you are an ideologue: you have an abstract notion of what "capitalism" and "free market" and "regulation" are, and attempt to bend reality around these frankly solipsistic, self-serving definitions. You are placing ideas above the people they were created to serve. This is a kind of secular idolatry, a sort of moral priority-inversion bug, and we've seen the results time and time again when this is tried with everything from hard collectivism to utter laissez-faire.

                      It's always the same result. In theory any of these pure ideological systems could work, and in practice none of them do, and all for the same reason: people are complex, messy, irrational things, and in large numbers you get some truly bizarre emergent behaviors. This insistence on ideological purity at the cost of unbounded suffering and death is the mark of a sociopath.

                      --
                      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                    • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday December 23 2016, @12:38PM

                      by aristarchus (2645) on Friday December 23 2016, @12:38PM (#445015) Journal

                      My only interest is in your education, khallow. You seem to be intelligent enough. But perhaps you have been mislead by some unwarranted assumptions. It is alright. Happens to all of us, at some point in our lives. But I can see that right now you have doubled down and shut down and cannot even read, let alone consider, what I have written. The tarbaby is the assumptions you have attached yourself to, much like your default position on global warming. Not much I can do to convince you otherwise, if you refuse to engage in rational discussion.
                                So: labour (best to use the English spelling, more dignified?): My point is that if I make something, it is mine, my product. This may be touchy-feely to you, but perhaps you have never actual engage in physical labor before. I find that this is a common short-coming amoungst the neo-conservative, alt-right, libertarian, and even neo-liberals. Truly, the everyman connection with actual production is lost, ergo, more alienation. But even in fast-food emporiums, the old dictum of "put a little of yourself into everything you serve!" is being upheld. Except, since they are given no creative options, the only thing they can do is spit on your burger, or lick all your taco shells. Not that I would condone such action, but also that I never eat at such places, at least not since that one video.

                      • (Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Friday December 23 2016, @02:10PM

                        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday December 23 2016, @02:10PM (#445026) Journal
                        Let's review what I noted. First, there's all those phrases with slanted connotation: "dehumanize", "alienation of labor", and "commodity fetishism" just in this thread.

                        Then there's the cognitive dissonance such as insisting that labor continues to "own" the products of its labor long after labor has sold them away. Even if we ignore the raw terribleness of the idea of permanent, irrevocable ownership (which has let us note been used, sometimes successfully, by both businesses and government to claim ownership over a lot of things), it still means that by that idea, I don't own my labor well enough that I can sell the output of it to someone else without creating permanent entanglements. Thus, the Marxist version of labor ownership is actually a weakening of the ownership of labor while the opposite is claimed.

                        Another spectacular example of this happened in Das Kapital where Marx backs up his claim that the "capitalist" doesn't add value via his labor by proof via heavy sarcasm and nonsense story where the capital's stooges are smirking as the capitalist makes these claims.

                        Another such happened when you equated value with ownership. Just because someone thinks something is valuable doesn't mean that they own it.

                        There's the broken ways of looking at the world such as obsessing over the conflict of interest between workers and everyone else, or using dialectic materialism as a starting point for any sort of reasoning - when you can get the same results, even the same broken fallacies, for less effort, by not doing that.

                        Then there's the parts of Marxism that just have no connection to reality at all, like claiming that there's some unalienable ownership of the products of labor, asserting stuff which doesn't work that way in the real world (like insisting the added value of capital is zero, even though it painfully is not), or asserting an asymptotic march of human society to a particular flavor of utopia by a process that never has to work in reality, much less do that particular march.

                        When confronted with these sorts of problems, I notice the rebuttal always ends up that the flaw is with me not with this incredibly broken reasoning. This is typical religious evangelism. You disagree merely because you're not listening to God. The fault is always with the skeptic not the kool aid drinker.
                        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Friday December 23 2016, @10:02PM

                          by aristarchus (2645) on Friday December 23 2016, @10:02PM (#445246) Journal

                          When confronted with these sorts of problems, I notice the rebuttal always ends up that the flaw is with me not with this incredibly broken reasoning.

                          This must happen to you quite a lot! You know, if something like this happens consistently, it just might be that the common factor is the cause. Not saying that correlation is causation or anything, but there is an obvious rebuttal, you know. And like I said, I can wait.

                          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:02AM

                            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:02AM (#445445) Journal
                            The thing is, it's always the same group of people who come up with those same arguments. Plus, reasoning doesn't go far when it merely insists a point of view is right.
                            • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:06AM

                              by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:06AM (#445446) Journal

                              Still waiting. . .

                              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:45AM

                                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 24 2016, @06:45AM (#445461) Journal
                                Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
                                • (Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Saturday December 24 2016, @08:23AM

                                  by aristarchus (2645) on Saturday December 24 2016, @08:23AM (#445485) Journal

                                  But I have hope for you, khallow! Faith in your fellow thinking creatures is not insanity. So, I'll keep waiting. After the holidays is fine. But just keep this in mind: pride in craftsmanship, a signed original, "I built that". Non-transferable property rights.

                                  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 24 2016, @09:13AM

                                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 24 2016, @09:13AM (#445492) Journal

                                    But just keep this in mind: pride in craftsmanship, a signed original, "I built that". Non-transferable property rights.

                                    A "property right" that only exists in the imagination of some crafters, can't be exercised, and has no relevance to the real world. Quite the solid foundation for Marxism, isn't it? Maybe I'll invent my own imaginary sky god to watch over you. He'll be patient too.

                                    You're shooting blanks. Your naked emperor has truly gone fishing.

                                    • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday December 26 2016, @03:49AM

                                      by aristarchus (2645) on Monday December 26 2016, @03:49AM (#445957) Journal

                                      Oh, you silly libertarian! Here, I want to sell you a Picasso, except that it was not painted by Picasso. Or I want a drop point hunting knife, handcrafted by Bob Loveless! What? Produced by some factory in f-+*ing China? Well, not the same thing, then, is it? The labor of the craftsman matters, unless you are going to go all generic. Generic Bespoke Custom KHallow, that is what I got for Christmas.

                                      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 26 2016, @09:22AM

                                        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 26 2016, @09:22AM (#446015) Journal
                                        Branding is not persistent labor ownership of produced goods, but rather a form of capital. And as usual for these things, it is the responsibility of the capitalist than the worker to maintain. As to someone like Picasso, he is both worker and capitalist.

                                        Look, I don't know what your actual opinion on these matters is. But if this is your real opinion, then you need to get a better one. This whole thread has been a chain of obvious rebuttals to your bizarre and unfounded claims and meanderings. But since you've relied on Karl Marx, how could it be different? Sorry, the dude had some interesting ideas, but wish fulfillment had higher priority than rational argument or things that actually work, and his whole edifice is a dull, wandering morality play which makes for lousy philosophy.
                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @10:58AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @10:58AM (#454339)

                  Second, there are an uncountably infinite number of valuations possible at any given time

                  No. Since humanity is finite, the number of possible valuations at any given time is at most countably infinite.