Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE OOC Summit => Topic started by: V. Gesakaarin on 17 Nov 2013, 05:36
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Just a few drunken thoughts about the disassociated of the Caldari State:
- They are the "unemployed" of the Caldari State and do not work directly for a corporation. Live in what be described as poverty due to the State not providing a social welfare system.
- Exist mostly in communities similar to modern favelas/slums/shanty-towns/segregated districts outside corporate enclaves and urban centres.
- Are a source for cheap and "off-the-books" labour for the Megacorporations. Do all the bottom of the ladder jobs corporate citizens do not do -- cleaning, manual labour, and the like -- and are provided essentially a substinence wage for it.
- Disassociated communities can be a haven for criminal enterprises: narco-trafficking, prostitution, gambling, etc., that can be profitable enough for criminal cartels such as the Gurista, Angels and Serpentis to have a presence in the State and the poverty of the inhabitants provide many willing recruits.
- The criminal black/grey markets of the disassociated ghettos might also be utilized by the Megacorporations themselves off-record, and the "services" of providing illicit narcotics, prostitution and gambling may have a blind eye turned towards it.
- Corporate militaries may conduct particularly harsh and punitive actions in disassociated communities. This is primarily due to a real or imagined fear of open revolt against the corporate order by the disassociated. These fears might explain the particularly draconian measures against the Brothers of Freedom labour riots, and the Home Guard deployment against Tibus Heth at Piak. Public compliance by the CEP member Megacorporations with the CPD and the elevation of Heth to the office of Executor was due to fears he would raise the disassociated to open revolt against them.
- Being a member of the disassociated often brings strong social rejection as they are thought of by Caldari corporate citizens as either criminals, dissidents, a burden upon society, non-contributors, thieves, untrustworthy and unreliable. This might be exacerbated by corporate media propaganda that builds upon and creates these prejudices in order to justify their "pacifications" of disassociated communities.
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Except for the fact that they actually live in the same place they came from, it almost sounds like the way illegal immigrants are portrayed in the U.S. and U.K.
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I'd use the term "minorities". Then start singing Cartman's version of "In the ghetoooo!"
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Except for the fact that they actually live in the same place they came from, it almost sounds like the way illegal immigrants are portrayed in the U.S. and U.K.
How can they?
In the world of the Caldari State you have everything provided for you with your employment. Your home would almost certainly be included. Especially with the modulated way Caldari live.
And in reference to your off handed comment on immigrants, don't take out of game issues into game, they'll cloud your vision. And don't start an argument here, you'll just pointlessly derail the topic.
As I imagine, considering the heavily urbanised way of Caldari living, as soon as you fall between the cracks you're a homeless person rough sleeping in the super city you used to work in, if you're lucky you'll find a way to rent accommodation from someone.
On shanty towns, the Caldari authorities wouldn't allow shanty towns to develop on the edge of their good employees living areas so I seriously doubt they'd form. Actual settlements of disassociated would be in the rural areas of the Caldari state and would simply have developed from a lack of sight from the megacorps and would not be things that would develop from poor unemployed people but rather settlements that have been around for at least a century.
Like in real life the disassociated would gather together in the lesser patrolled areas of the super cities. They'd do the dirty work you describe and such.
I think I agree with most of the rest of what you say but I'm commenting on the fly so if I've missed anything I'll pick it up later.
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Well the Caldari State is a deeply capitalist society, and if there are winners there are also going to be the losers such as the disassociated who live on the fringe in poverty, right? The Caldari mindset also seems to approve of such a situations because those who fall into unemployment might be seen as weak or a burden to society because they failed to survive the test of social darwinism. That, and while they might face persecution and prejudice the Megacorporations might actually need the disassociated -- why make massive investments and outlay in an automated factory when you can exploit the poor to work in a sweatshop for next to nothing?
It's just like today, a corporation could spend the billions for a high-tech production plant in a developed economy or they could outsource the labour to a third-world sweatshop where they don't have to worry about things like minimum wage, safety regulations or high initial investments.
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Actually, now that I think about it the more effective method would be not to pay the disassociated a wage at all. Just send in your corporate military into a disassociated community, blackbag as many people as you want or need, prosecute them all with crimes in a corporate court (made easier and more efficient with pre-signed confessions) then sentence them all to hard labour in your sweatshops.
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Actually, now that I think about it the more effective method would be not to pay the disassociated a wage at all. Just send in your corporate military into a disassociated community, blackbag as many people as you want or need, prosecute them all with crimes in a corporate court (made easier and more efficient with pre-signed confessions) then sentence them all to hard labour in your sweatshops.
Yeeeaaaahh...as it turns out, that's only good if you don't really care about the quality of what is turned out. If people don't have an incentive to do something, they turn out shit. Hell, it's hard enough getting them to care when you are paying them an hourly wage well above the minimum.
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Actually, now that I think about it the more effective method would be not to pay the disassociated a wage at all. Just send in your corporate military into a disassociated community, blackbag as many people as you want or need, prosecute them all with crimes in a corporate court (made easier and more efficient with pre-signed confessions) then sentence them all to hard labour in your sweatshops.
Yeeeaaaahh...as it turns out, that's only good if you don't really care about the quality of what is turned out. If people don't have an incentive to do something, they turn out shit. Hell, it's hard enough getting them to care when you are paying them an hourly wage well above the minimum.
I didn't say they were going to build volkswagens or personal electronics, there's always sectors of the economy where you don't need quality, just output. Does it matter how many criminal disassociated die to build the metaphorical trans-siberian railway so long as it's built?
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Actually, now that I think about it the more effective method would be not to pay the disassociated a wage at all. Just send in your corporate military into a disassociated community, blackbag as many people as you want or need, prosecute them all with crimes in a corporate court (made easier and more efficient with pre-signed confessions) then sentence them all to hard labour in your sweatshops.
Yeeeaaaahh...as it turns out, that's only good if you don't really care about the quality of what is turned out. If people don't have an incentive to do something, they turn out shit. Hell, it's hard enough getting them to care when you are paying them an hourly wage well above the minimum.
I didn't say they were going to build volkswagens or personal electronics, there's always sectors of the economy where you don't need quality, just output. Does it matter how many criminal disassociated die to build the metaphorical trans-siberian railway so long as it's built?
It has nothing to do with worker deaths. It has to do with how much they pay attention to and care about the quality of the finished product. Even roads and railways require quality control, otherwise you end up with ones that don't last 10 years under any reasonable use.
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Actually, now that I think about it the more effective method would be not to pay the disassociated a wage at all. Just send in your corporate military into a disassociated community, blackbag as many people as you want or need, prosecute them all with crimes in a corporate court (made easier and more efficient with pre-signed confessions) then sentence them all to hard labour in your sweatshops.
Yeeeaaaahh...as it turns out, that's only good if you don't really care about the quality of what is turned out. If people don't have an incentive to do something, they turn out shit. Hell, it's hard enough getting them to care when you are paying them an hourly wage well above the minimum.
I didn't say they were going to build volkswagens or personal electronics, there's always sectors of the economy where you don't need quality, just output. Does it matter how many criminal disassociated die to build the metaphorical trans-siberian railway so long as it's built?
It has nothing to do with worker deaths. It has to do with how much they pay attention to and care about the quality of the finished product. Even roads and railways require quality control, otherwise you end up with ones that don't last 10 years under any reasonable use.
Some of those old concrete forts on the Normandy coast have stood the test of time rather well considering the people that had to build them.
Edit: My smartphone also still works rather as expected (probably until the warranty runs out) even though I know they were assembled in some Chinese or Korean sweatshop somewhere.
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Actually, now that I think about it the more effective method would be not to pay the disassociated a wage at all. Just send in your corporate military into a disassociated community, blackbag as many people as you want or need, prosecute them all with crimes in a corporate court (made easier and more efficient with pre-signed confessions) then sentence them all to hard labour in your sweatshops.
Yeeeaaaahh...as it turns out, that's only good if you don't really care about the quality of what is turned out. If people don't have an incentive to do something, they turn out shit. Hell, it's hard enough getting them to care when you are paying them an hourly wage well above the minimum.
I didn't say they were going to build volkswagens or personal electronics, there's always sectors of the economy where you don't need quality, just output. Does it matter how many criminal disassociated die to build the metaphorical trans-siberian railway so long as it's built?
It has nothing to do with worker deaths. It has to do with how much they pay attention to and care about the quality of the finished product. Even roads and railways require quality control, otherwise you end up with ones that don't last 10 years under any reasonable use.
Some of those old concrete forts on the Normandy coast have stood the test of time rather well considering the people that had to build them.
Edit: My smartphone also still works rather as expected (probably until the warranty runs out) even though I know they were assembled in some Chinese or Korean sweatshop somewhere.
The more work like that Disassociated do, the less work there is for employees. I can see them being used as in your examples from time to time, but not over the long term. It is tantamount to slavery, which is something the Caldari have never practiced according to PF. By almost any definition, it is slavery.
They may not get paid standard benefits according to Caldari law, but they must be given something significant as compensation to make the work voluntary instead of forced labor.
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Actually, now that I think about it the more effective method would be not to pay the disassociated a wage at all. Just send in your corporate military into a disassociated community, blackbag as many people as you want or need, prosecute them all with crimes in a corporate court (made easier and more efficient with pre-signed confessions) then sentence them all to hard labour in your sweatshops.
Yeeeaaaahh...as it turns out, that's only good if you don't really care about the quality of what is turned out. If people don't have an incentive to do something, they turn out shit. Hell, it's hard enough getting them to care when you are paying them an hourly wage well above the minimum.
I didn't say they were going to build volkswagens or personal electronics, there's always sectors of the economy where you don't need quality, just output. Does it matter how many criminal disassociated die to build the metaphorical trans-siberian railway so long as it's built?
It has nothing to do with worker deaths. It has to do with how much they pay attention to and care about the quality of the finished product. Even roads and railways require quality control, otherwise you end up with ones that don't last 10 years under any reasonable use.
Some of those old concrete forts on the Normandy coast have stood the test of time rather well considering the people that had to build them.
Edit: My smartphone also still works rather as expected (probably until the warranty runs out) even though I know they were assembled in some Chinese or Korean sweatshop somewhere.
The more work like that Disassociated do, the less work there is for employees. I can see them being used as in your examples from time to time, but not over the long term. It is tantamount to slavery, which is something the Caldari have never practiced according to PF. By almost any definition, it is slavery.
They may not get paid standard benefits according to Caldari law, but they must be given something significant as compensation to make the work voluntary instead of forced labor.
Do you pay much mind that the rare earth metals used in the components for the electronic device you wrote that post with was probably mined out of the ground by some illiterate peasant in northern China who is probably going to die in his thirties or forties due to cancer or heavy metal poisoning? How about your clothes, do you try to ensure that they weren't made in slum sweatshop by some child working twelve to fourteen hours in Cambodia, or Vietnam or India?
The same goes for the disassociated, because not only do they suffer from the vagaries of poverty and unemployment they potentially face the prejudice and persecution from Caldari corporate citizens: they're criminals, dissidents, trouble-makers, lack honour, live without shame, worthless dogs, burdens on proper society, weak, couldn't make it, talentless, without ability, without merit, thieves, untrustworthy... list can really go on. Of course, if you live as a disassociated, a non-citizen, a non-entity, then what legal protections do you really have from the corporations that control everything? What care does a corporate citizen, comfortable in their own lives have for a non-person?
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To help clarify what I mean; I'm sure unscrupulous management have occasionally opted to make use of cheap Disassociated labour from time to time. Perhaps the real workers went on strike, so the management threatened to bring in the Disassociated to run the factory (a clever threat to make the strikers Disassociated, and the Disassociated citizens again), or needed some extra hands on the railroad job.
But do I see a systemic habit of using forced unpaid labor of disassociated? No. In many cases, a job is seen as a citizen's ticket to a decent life. Without the job and work to go with it, a citizen is not worth the cost - and is indeed only a step away from not being one at all. For every job given to Disassociated labor, someone else is out of work and becomes a burden on society. This is an important concept in my view, because it means that slave labor is creating MORE disassociated and weakening society as a whole. Unpaid workers can't contribute back into the economy.
I'm not going to bother waving PF in your face and screaming about how it says no slaves, or anything, because I just don't think it makes sense for the Caldari to be using Disassociated on a large scale in the first place.
It makes a flavorful grimdark addition to say that the Caldari use misery factories filled with unpaid Disassociated, and build their space Burma Railway the same way - but it sounds like TonyG style evil Caldari for the sake of being edgy, like so many other tropes being thrown about these days.
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To help clarify what I mean; I'm sure unscrupulous management have occasionally opted to make use of cheap Disassociated labour from time to time. Perhaps the real workers went on strike, so the management threatened to bring in the Disassociated to run the factory (a clever threat to make the strikers Disassociated, and the Disassociated citizens again), or needed some extra hands on the railroad job.
But do I see a systemic habit of using forced unpaid labor of disassociated? No. In many cases, a job is seen as a citizen's ticket to a decent life. Without the job and work to go with it, a citizen is not worth the cost - and is indeed only a step away from not being one at all. For every job given to Disassociated labor, someone else is out of work and becomes a burden on society. This is an important concept in my view, because it means that slave labor is creating MORE disassociated and weakening society as a whole. Unpaid workers can't contribute back into the economy.
I'm not going to bother waving PF in your face and screaming about how it says no slaves, or anything, because I just don't think it makes sense for the Caldari to be using Disassociated on a large scale in the first place.
It makes a flavorful grimdark addition to say that the Caldari use misery factories filled with unpaid Disassociated, and build their space Burma Railway the same way - but it sounds like TonyG style evil Caldari for the sake of being edgy, like so many other tropes being thrown about these days.
If the law only applies to citizens, then sure you can't impress a corporate citizen into slave labour. We're not talking about corporate citizens, we're talking about the disassociated who are non-citizens by definition. If you want to discuss PF, sure, point me to where the Caldari State has universal human rights, or a constitution with a bill of rights because from what I see all rights extend directly from a corporate institution towards its employees and workers.
If you think this is about being grimdark and edgy, it really isn't, because to me it's just a natural part of the State system: if you fall off the corporate ladder then you are really screwed. The Disassociated aren't slaves, they just fulfill a source of cheap and expendable labour that aren't on the books and no one really cares about so life can go on for the average corporate citizen.
You're the one talking about tropes and grimdark when I'm trying to promote a discussion about what appears to be the underclass of the Caldari State. Unless you're saying it's impossible for a hyper-capitalist society to have the poor and those that live in poverty because of it?
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I think the problem would more likely be that there aren't enough disassociated. Not that it doesn't happen to them as you describe, but that it isn't that widespread because there are only so many available. We aren't talking about a situation where you have 50% of the population being used for cheap labor, we are talking single digit percents, maybe low teens tops - at least that's what I took away last time I read it. I think it is probably also more widespread in certain corporations than other (not because some corporations are more 'moral', but because some corporations are probably more image/propaganda conscious), and similar things go on in other places (the Republic - though less black bagging and more third world sweatshop - and contract deals with people who *are* allowed to own slaves in the Empire spring to mind).
On top of availability, there is convenience. If you have to travel very far for your unpaid labor, it starts to make less and less sense. I've no doubt that if SuVee starts up a mining program and there happens to be a world within a couple AU with a disassociated community they might 'recruit' there, but much farther than that and it seems like a lot of resources to expend.
Also (and this might be something that some corporations do, or even parts of corporations do one way, and parts other ways), with minimal effort, they might not need to use *forced* labor. Disassociated (some or most of them) probably want desperately 'back in'. All you have to do is promise them that if they are willing the submit to backbreaking labor for a few years, they might get a shot at starting back on the bottom rung as a real employee again.
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Piggybacking on what Veik said, we don't necessarily consider most countries today to be slave states, but slavery is very heavily dependent on definition. There are a lot of gold and diamond miners risking their lives in Africa under paramilitary rule just to make enough money to feed their families, which isn't necessarily slavery because they are getting paid. The example of Chinese industrial workers is another good example; they're being compensated but how much choice they have in where they go and what they do is debatable. You could almost wonder whether capitalistic societies really are that different from slavery, since I know a lot of my European friends are appalled at the scant benefits we get in America. I just have to tell them that it's how it is, nobody really goes above and beyond on benefits to keep costs down, so you can't really change jobs for benefits easily. Some of them call that slavery.
It's just one of those things that pops up when you say that a society doesn't practice slavery. There's an AWFUL lot of grey area, especially with disenfranchised people. Does it count as slavery if they're dissociated? Is it not slavery, but there's no minimum wage and thus you can exploit them without calling a spade a spade? Do they even have a choice, considering they need to probably take the most dangerous and terrible work possible if they don't want to go into illegal activities?
I mean, even at 10% of the population, we'd be talking about, over the entirety of Caldari space, an absolutely VAST source of cheap labor that has nowhere to turn to and, from what I've heard, no real human rights. That was why, in response to Kunarian's point, I said they were like illegal immigrants more than regular disenfranchised people. If you're disenfranchise, the government still wants to know where you go if you're disappeared into a swamp. But if you're off the register, you're a deniable asset. You could vanish and, considering your illegal status, you might simply never be heard from again.
Maybe they're just a bit more like the SINless.
In any case, transportation probably isn't too much of an issue. In Houston, there were little back-lot pockets where laborers would gather. People would drive up, pick them up for a day's work, then drop them back off again. I always thought that was strange, but in a lot of developing countries that's just how work usually gets picked up. You're a contractor at the mercy of fate.
Not sure if that's what the Disassociated are, I'm just providing some examples. I think it's worth noting that nothing in EVE is born out of a vacuum, since there aren't many particularly alien concepts floating around. Nothing may match up 100%, but it's not like EVE has a government run entirely by lottery.
Although come to think of it, there was a civilization that tried that, too.
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I think the problem would more likely be that there aren't enough disassociated. Not that it doesn't happen to them as you describe, but that it isn't that widespread because there are only so many available. We aren't talking about a situation where you have 50% of the population being used for cheap labor, we are talking single digit percents, maybe low teens tops - at least that's what I took away last time I read it. I think it is probably also more widespread in certain corporations than other (not because some corporations are more 'moral', but because some corporations are probably more image/propaganda conscious), and similar things go on in other places (the Republic - though less black bagging and more third world sweatshop - and contract deals with people who *are* allowed to own slaves in the Empire spring to mind).
On top of availability, there is convenience. If you have to travel very far for your unpaid labor, it starts to make less and less sense. I've no doubt that if SuVee starts up a mining program and there happens to be a world within a couple AU with a disassociated community they might 'recruit' there, but much farther than that and it seems like a lot of resources to expend.
Also (and this might be something that some corporations do, or even parts of corporations do one way, and parts other ways), with minimal effort, they might not need to use *forced* labor. Disassociated (some or most of them) probably want desperately 'back in'. All you have to do is promise them that if they are willing the submit to backbreaking labor for a few years, they might get a shot at starting back on the bottom rung as a real employee again.
I would agree, but even something like 10% of the Caldari State which might have a few hundred billion or even trillions of people living there that translates to tens of billions of disassociated people not part of the corporations. The thing is, if these people don't appear on the records or a census then not even the Megas can really know what the actual numbers are can they? You know they exist, you know they're there, but you have no idea how many of them are there. If they become this nebulous and transient population that, "Aren't like a proper and upstanding Caldari citizen," then it's no surprise to me if they'd face prejudice, vilification or even outright persecution by corporate authorities who might see them as an internal threat to the proper order of things.
Then there's questions like, where do the Gurista get all their recruits from? If you're a well-provided for corporate citizen with a job for life and the Caldari version of a nuclear family with white picket fences why would you run off to lead a life of crime? If you're a disassociated non-citizen with no job, no opportunity, and facing social stigma and corporate persecution then getting on board with a criminal cartel seems like a ticket out especially if you're young and don't find the prospect of having to do all the menial dead-end jobs for a Mega in order to work your way back into society all that appealing.
It also makes sense to me as to just why the CEP gave so much power and authority to Tibus Heth if one considers that the Disassociated as a source of irrational fear for the Executives and management of the Megacorporations. The fear of this internal and transient population that you have no idea how many there actually are rising up against you and overthrowing you. If you don't know how widescale a problem really is, then it's easy to give into the worst case scenario thinking because fears aren't rational, and the State was also suffering from an economic recession and the Brothers of Freedom riots just prior to Heth's stunt at Piak.
Now as for the issue of the Disassociated being slaves or an unpaid labour force -- I think that's just people running with one scenario of the corporations, if they wanted to, being able to use them as prison labour. Which seems plausible to me, because these people don't have legal rights, or protections as non-citizens, and the PR spin can just tell people they're, "Working off their debts to society." That doesn't mean it's the sole and only means the corporations have to exploit non-citizens if they wish to, because the relationship the Disassociated have with the Megacorps, the State and other Caldari is a complex one to me and it's why I opened this discussion to see what other people think about them.
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If the Disassociated are compensated for their work in some form be it pay or promise, and it's not a widespread or large scale abusive thing, I think it's entirely plausible.
It sounded at first like you were suggesting there may be these Mega-approved and habitual massive 'misery projects' being run that use hundreds of thousands of unpaid forced Disassociated labour under the whips of Caldari Commissars. But maybe that's just a learned response to your viewpoints on my part. I've grown a kneejerk reaction, so my apologies.
Is there a shade of grey where the Disassociated are exploited or abused? Almost certainly. Is it on a scale beyond the occasional small time company forging illegal work visas for DA workers to build a new office building? Probably not. I would think that if there are examples of the Burma Railway or Soviet Work Camps in the Caldari State, we would have heard about it by now at least from TonyG. The worst case scenario he came up with was just some poorly paid and abused employees, and even there most people seem to strongly disagree with that portrayal.
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If the Disassociated are compensated for their work in some form be it pay or promise, and it's not a widespread or large scale abusive thing, I think it's entirely plausible.
It sounded at first like you were suggesting there may be these Mega-approved and habitual massive 'misery projects' being run that use hundreds of thousands of unpaid forced Disassociated labour under the whips of Caldari Commissars. But maybe that's just a learned response to your viewpoints on my part. I've grown a kneejerk reaction, so my apologies.
Is there a shade of grey where the Disassociated are exploited or abused? Almost certainly. Is it on a scale beyond the occasional small time company forging illegal work visas for DA workers to build a new office building? Probably not. I would think that if there are examples of the Burma Railway or Soviet Work Camps in the Caldari State, we would have heard about it by now at least from TonyG. The worst case scenario he came up with was just some poorly paid and abused employees, and even there most people seem to strongly disagree with that portrayal.
To be fair, unfettered capitalism was the order of the day in the prewar period, and with people who made nothing and had nowhere to go essentially living in company housing, shopping at the company shop, and even being paid in company credit, that's what my first impression of the Caldari was when someone described them as "unbridled capitalism."
Since then, I guess I don't worry so much about the labor situation since all we ever see are capsuleers, but I've mostly started just toning it down and not measuring the Caldari as an authoritarian capitalist society per se. Otherwise, I'd imagine the corporations exploiting whoever they could if it drove down operational costs.
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If the Disassociated are compensated for their work in some form be it pay or promise, and it's not a widespread or large scale abusive thing, I think it's entirely plausible.
It sounded at first like you were suggesting there may be these Mega-approved and habitual massive 'misery projects' being run that use hundreds of thousands of unpaid forced Disassociated labour under the whips of Caldari Commissars. But maybe that's just a learned response to your viewpoints on my part. I've grown a kneejerk reaction, so my apologies.
Is there a shade of grey where the Disassociated are exploited or abused? Almost certainly. Is it on a scale beyond the occasional small time company forging illegal work visas for DA workers to build a new office building? Probably not. I would think that if there are examples of the Burma Railway or Soviet Work Camps in the Caldari State, we would have heard about it by now at least from TonyG. The worst case scenario he came up with was just some poorly paid and abused employees, and even there most people seem to strongly disagree with that portrayal.
Well the point I was driving at was that the disassociated, if they are not part of a Megacorporation, what legal rights do they have if it's only a Megacorporation that can write the laws and dispense justice for its own employee-citizens? The hypothetical scenario was that if a Megacorp subsidiary decided it was in their interest to go into a disassociated community, round some of them up, rubber stamp them all as criminals and send them off to a penal colony to do some hard labour for the "Greater Good" then what's to stop them?
Public disapproval? Sure, up to point, but if the disassociated potentially face social stigma and prejudice due to their situation how far would that go if they are already thought of as criminals and getting what they deserve? It might be an extreme example, but one that seems plausible in a State where there aren't things like worker's unions, independent tribunals, constitutional human rights, or strong Industrial Relations laws.
I think the Megacorporations exert massive control over the lives of both their own workers and that of the disassociated -- the difference being that the disassociated appear to be far more vulnerable to being exploited. Sure, they can be tolerated or even re-integrated back into a corporation but they can also just as easily be oppressed, marginalized and then swept under the rug because at the end of the day they're people that don't exist on the corporate records.
That aside, the disassociated do exist in the State, and the real questions for me are as to how and why they do.
I mean technically, every Caldari capsuleer could be considered as being disassociated in the sense that they're not actually fully a part of the State corporate system -- they operate under CONCORD and the Megas have no real authority over them anymore.
So there's probably flavour and variety to being a disassociated Caldari.
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I think you may get better traction on this point if you clarify which disassociated you mean. As you already alluded to, there are many flavors, some more prone to exploitation than others.
Known types of Disassociated:
Independent Capsuleers - Us.
Guristas - Members of the Guristas crime syndicate.
Criminals/Gangs - Other miscellaneous organized and disorganized criminals.
Indigenous Populations - Native or non-aligned populations.
Refugees: Immigrants - Unrecognized or illegal immigration into the State for whatever reason.
Refugees: Displaced - Those whose lives were destroyed by natural disaster, war, or other no-fault situations.
Unemployed: Dishonored/Ex-Convicts - Those whose lives were destroyed by their own choices, including released criminals.
Unemployed: Laid Off - Victims of corporate juggling and economic hardship, lost their job through no fault of their own and simply can't find new ones.
Sickly or Disabled - Victims of debilitating disease or injury.
Some would be more ripe for the picking and exploitation. Others would be watched closely, and collusion with them would be considered treason. Others would be strictly hands off... there's little reason to do business with lepers.
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I'd say in a general sense so far it's those open for exploitation as any persons living within the borders of the Caldari State that exist in a low socioeconomic background and lacking in legal rights extended from a corporate institution.
A broad definition, but I think the ranks of the disassociated are a broad group.
You could probably put members of criminal political groups on the list too such as the Templis Dragonaurs, Brothers of Freedom, and Provists. Maybe even some forms of unions or political party/organizations would be considered dissident/criminal and liable to cause their members to fall into disassociated status.
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So. A couple of thoughts.
The first is that classic line describing the Caldari as part Finnish machinist, part Zaibatsu. As the SINless Shadowrun reference indicates, I'm sure the majority of citizens are relatively content wage-earners going about usual business, with no risk of trumped-up charges to strip them of their citizenship and send them off to a gulag. Classically, company men could work uninspired but dedicated lives serving the company, and expect reasonable pay and plenty of security. Surely, Japan (hell, the entire world) is seeing that notion of a one-company career disappear, but the original idea stands. Indeed, TonyG was probably thinking of that when he had the Caldari economy flagging, and workers increasingly disappointed with the loss of the social contract. Still, considering this, and considering that communal-mindedness is a huge Caldari thing...
Abuses and mistreatment are probably more prevelant the further you go out from the economic centers. Managers and security may start thinking that the State is lightyears away, and that their duty to the Corporation on some forsaken backwater in Black Rise requires that they turn the screws on the troublesome citizen-in-name-only punks to get a few extra percent out of the colony for the sake of the boss back in Jita.
Again, this probably depends on corp culture, economic environment, and how everyone's handling Heth's rise and fall.
While I've no doubt abuses occur, whether they're at all common or even systematic is another question.
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The beauty about it to me is that for the characters we play it really doesn't matter if the abuses happen or not because if you support the system you'd say the same thing along the lines of, "Why of course not citizen, there exists no such thing as the exploitation of the disassociated here in the State. Everything is just fine and dandy!"
As to whether they'd actually believe what they're saying is probably another thing altogether.
Edit: By that I mean denying that there is a problem or just outright ignoring that there's poor people on the fringe of society is exactly how you'd think the non-citizen would be treated.
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So. A couple of thoughts.
The first is that classic line describing the Caldari as part Finnish machinist, part Zaibatsu. As the SINless Shadowrun reference indicates, I'm sure the majority of citizens are relatively content wage-earners going about usual business, with no risk of trumped-up charges to strip them of their citizenship and send them off to a gulag. Classically, company men could work uninspired but dedicated lives serving the company, and expect reasonable pay and plenty of security. Surely, Japan (hell, the entire world) is seeing that notion of a one-company career disappear, but the original idea stands. Indeed, TonyG was probably thinking of that when he had the Caldari economy flagging, and workers increasingly disappointed with the loss of the social contract. Still, considering this, and considering that communal-mindedness is a huge Caldari thing...
Abuses and mistreatment are probably more prevelant the further you go out from the economic centers. Managers and security may start thinking that the State is lightyears away, and that their duty to the Corporation on some forsaken backwater in Black Rise requires that they turn the screws on the troublesome citizen-in-name-only punks to get a few extra percent out of the colony for the sake of the boss back in Jita.
Again, this probably depends on corp culture, economic environment, and how everyone's handling Heth's rise and fall.
While I've no doubt abuses occur, whether they're at all common or even systematic is another question.
My first novel was set in a society not unlike the State, just gone seriously bad. Anyone not contributing to society was essentially erased from the system and taken in for genetic experiments, or had to flee into exile.
The mindset at work was essentially 'Your mere existence is a drain on resources'. The people in charge very proudly declared that they had no unemployment, and thus their entire society was productive and useful. Of course, they did this by taking the 'disassociated' and treating them as subhuman slave labour for all the dirty work that a real human shouldn't have to do.
That's the extreme version, but I see the State as having a similar mindset. If you're not part of the system, you're a resource drain - and thus you owe us, and don't get to complain about anything we do to you.
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You know, when the Caldari appear to practice social exclusion and ostracizing to varying degrees I still fail to see what would really prevent systematic abuse or exploitation of what could be said to be the most socially excluded and ostracized social group in the State -- if you become disassociated due to being a former convict, dissident etc., why would fellow Caldari even care about what happens to you anymore?
Altruism solely for the sake of altruism doesn't appear to be a Caldari cultural value.
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To help clarify what I mean; I'm sure unscrupulous management have occasionally opted to make use of cheap Disassociated labour from time to time. Perhaps the real workers went on strike, so the management threatened to bring in the Disassociated to run the factory (a clever threat to make the strikers Disassociated, and the Disassociated citizens again), or needed some extra hands on the railroad job.
But do I see a systemic habit of using forced unpaid labor of disassociated? No. In many cases, a job is seen as a citizen's ticket to a decent life. Without the job and work to go with it, a citizen is not worth the cost - and is indeed only a step away from not being one at all. For every job given to Disassociated labor, someone else is out of work and becomes a burden on society. This is an important concept in my view, because it means that slave labor is creating MORE disassociated and weakening society as a whole. Unpaid workers can't contribute back into the economy.
I'm not going to bother waving PF in your face and screaming about how it says no slaves, or anything, because I just don't think it makes sense for the Caldari to be using Disassociated on a large scale in the first place.
It makes a flavorful grimdark addition to say that the Caldari use misery factories filled with unpaid Disassociated, and build their space Burma Railway the same way - but it sounds like TonyG style evil Caldari for the sake of being edgy, like so many other tropes being thrown about these days.
Sounds to me like the crux of the difference of mindset between practicals and liberals.
Also, it's not really slavery. You could talk to a Caldari about those and calling it slavery, they will stare at you and tell you it's not. I would expect them to pay a misery to say that "they are paid, they are not slaves, they have a contract", even if the contract is a simple threat of being exposed to justice or whatever coercion is used. The coercion could also be more honourable, like "You are nothing, a disassociated. You do that job for us for x years and you will be granted a SuVee citizenship".
Also yes it may very well depend on the type of disassociated, though I do believe that as long as a group of people are not recognized or bound by any laws, they usually end up used and abused in many ways. It has always been like that through History, and call me a misanthrope but I believe that most societies would try to exploit and abuse anyone that is not protected by laws. If there is no law, there is nothing to be violated.
I would expect any kind of similar abuses in most factions upon groups with lesser rights, or non existant rights or laws to protect them. Why the exiled in Vo'Shun are not abused, or barely ? Because of Kadrea's Law. Without this one, you can bet their lives would be even more a misery of abuse. I would expect the same with slaves in the Empire, get lucky with a good Holder and you are fine. Get a bad one though.... Live in a gallente slum (an omega city for example) or in a poor district in the Republic, where law enforcement is null, and you might well live in hell and get exploited. Massive abuse ? Depends of the context. When it becomes too visible, it might actually turn counter productive. We can imagine a lot of various scenarii, from the mass exploitation of some fringe people here, and a really merciful fringe milieu there... All depending on the local and glocal context.
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I worry that we're thinking about this in too binary a way. The issue is that Caldari communalism exists in contradiction to and in contention with capitalist competitiveness, but it exists-- so there will naturally be a spectrum along which this slides. For instance, I'm sure that Wiyrkomi, with its noted conservatism, has strongly communal leanings-- by which I don't necessarily mean paint it all red, but rather paint it all Confucian. Filial piety in its strongest reading states that a son should be absolutely loyal and obedient to his father-- but implies that a father is failing at his duty if he abuses this loyalty and does not educate and prepare his son to take the father's mantle. Remember that a manager's actions are surely being watched by both his competitors and his superiors; while an employee jumping a rung to make a complaint would be unlikely and perhaps even counterproductive, it may be that the intense pressure on Caldari to conform and to meet ideals exists not just on workers.
To a degree, I see the competitiveness of the lower classes of Caldari society being essentially a proving-of-worthiness to the father, given that they are surely expected to accept lower wages for work than their counterparts in the Federation or Republic, and in theory the best of them are being groomed for the next step.
Of course, all this pressure to meet expectations likely results in people -wanting- to drop out, adding a new class of disassociated: those who refuse, whether by suicide, criminal activity, or simply slipping out of the system to Brown Sector.
Also, this doesn't touch on the Finnish machinist-- but I see that coming in more with Caldari militarism, which doesn't seem expansionist so much as, "Invade us, and you will gain only enough land to bury your dead."
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(also: "Disassociated workforce? No, of course not. But we do have independent contractors in our dormitories, with strict expectations for behavior lined out in their contracts.")
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Clarifying again. I don't think anybody cares about the Disassociated from the Caldari standpoint. I think they care that their jobs are being given to Disassociated. It would be like "them immigrants takin our jobs", except it would be "them disassociated takin our jobs". You listed some hard or low-class work, like railroad building, cleaning, and factory jobs - but any society has droves of 'legit' people eager and willing to take jobs like that. I know I'd jump on the opportunity for a factory job, myself.
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I'm not sure how it is in other countries but I have heard now several times that the usual trope consisting to say that immigrants steal our jobs where I live is actually more or less patently false, since they do the jobs that nobody does.
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That's generally my response whenever I hear someone bitching about that.
"Right, because you really fucking wanted that janitor job, or to shovel poop on a farm all day for less than minimum wage."
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My whole issue with using immigrant workers isn't with the immigrants, it's with their "employers." It's sort of a big problem with contractors, since sometimes you'll see a very low construction bid and know exactly how they're getting the bid so low. Then you have a quandary. You can't use them because they're subverting labor laws and you ultimately become responsible. However, they were the lowest bidder. You need to prove they're the lowest bidder for that reason, but sometimes that can cost you a lot of money and make it useless. So instead, you have a certain threshold you are willing to pay above the lowest bidder to ensure they use ethical labor. At the same time, that means you might be putting a legitimately low bid out of contention on a suspicion and you aren't guaranteeing that the people who are paying more are actually using legit labor, but are spiking the price.
It's a hell of an issue for us.
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I think you folks are derailing the topic because of my metaphor. How does that have anything to do with the OP?
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So. Bringing it back to the Disassociated, what I wonder is this: why are we equating Disassociated with the unemployed? Sure, there's likely significant overlap; but one does not necessarily imply the other.
By this I mean to say that we're still thinking in terms of classic corporations, who have no obligation whatsoever to their employees save a wage. Caldari Megacorps are more corporation-states in the sense of nation-states, complete with a remarkable degree of sovereignty and internal legislative power. They may see the economic advantage of having short-term unemployment insurance and job retraining programs. Imagine, for instance, that you've got a plan producing Fancy Drone Doohicky X1645; for whatever reason, it suddenly becomes obsolete (Curse you, Fozzie! Curse yooouu!), and the workforce has to be laid off. While the colony/station/Battlestar has an economy that can withstand the shift in the mid- or long-term, in the short term the sudden drop in spending by recently laid-off workers would have catastrophic effects on other businesses in the area.
Voila-- economic incentive for a short stint on welfare, and a retraining program for those who can be retrained and still show the motivation/desire to contribute economically. In basic terms, these programs would assist those faced with frictional unemployment; if those workers are unable to be retrained in a timely fashion, or for whatever other reason aren't able to find employment, well-- structural unemployment is where we see Disassociated.
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I think you folks are derailing the topic because of my metaphor. How does that have anything to do with the OP?
My point was merely that employing non citizens does not always equate to "stealing" the jobs of the locals...
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So. Bringing it back to the Disassociated, what I wonder is this: why are we equating Disassociated with the unemployed? Sure, there's likely significant overlap; but one does not necessarily imply the other.
By this I mean to say that we're still thinking in terms of classic corporations, who have no obligation whatsoever to their employees save a wage. Caldari Megacorps are more corporation-states in the sense of nation-states, complete with a remarkable degree of sovereignty and internal legislative power. They may see the economic advantage of having short-term unemployment insurance and job retraining programs. Imagine, for instance, that you've got a plan producing Fancy Drone Doohicky X1645; for whatever reason, it suddenly becomes obsolete (Curse you, Fozzie! Curse yooouu!), and the workforce has to be laid off. While the colony/station/Battlestar has an economy that can withstand the shift in the mid- or long-term, in the short term the sudden drop in spending by recently laid-off workers would have catastrophic effects on other businesses in the area.
Voila-- economic incentive for a short stint on welfare, and a retraining program for those who can be retrained and still show the motivation/desire to contribute economically. In basic terms, these programs would assist those faced with frictional unemployment; if those workers are unable to be retrained in a timely fashion, or for whatever other reason aren't able to find employment, well-- structural unemployment is where we see Disassociated.
I don't play Caldari, so maybe I'm just not in the loop, but isn't the idea of the State picking you up by your bootstraps, teaching you a new occupation, and getting you a job very un-Caldari? Maybe it's just the way they're roleplayed, but I had a strong sense that the Caldari have a very Darwinian approach to competition. If you're unemployed, by Caldari logic, the odds are that there's a good reason. I thought work programs and welfare were very Gallentean concepts (and, if you'd like, the Amarrians technically have a work and welfare program :?: ).
I suppose I'd figure that's why the Disassociated would be exploited. Obviously, if they're unemployed by Caldari logic, they aren't good for more than temporary or dangerous work because, if they had been, they'd have gotten themselves better jobs.
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Of course caldari don't treat dissassociated badly. This Would Not Be Nice Behaviour. And We Can Not Have That.
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Vic;
The issue is that we get one-dimensional, mustachio-twirling grimdark CAPITALISM UBER ALLES jackboot Caldari. The PF repeatedly mentions communalism, a society built on social pressure, and a sense of duty and responsibility-- but these last virtues surely go both up AND down. Otherwise, we get TonyG-style Caldari built on a caricature of late capitalism excess, and screw that.
When I say social safety net, I'm not talking mandated paid vacation (what? vacation? citizen, get back to work!), or an extensive welfare and retirement system (what? retirement? Unless you're rich, citizen, get back to work!). I'm saying that -some- elements of a safety net are economically beneficial-- and the Caldari are supposed to be entirely too pragmatic to just go, "Plant closed. Citizenship revoked. Fuck off, we're imprisoning you so that you can go mine asteroids," when at least some of the workforce may be recoverable.
I could easily see a reasonable corporate policy being a three month stint at a retraining facility with bare bunks and a prison-quality cafeteria, where workers whose quarterly performance reviews indicate are viable for retraining endure said retraining-- and if they can't find a new position or don't pass qualification exams? Welp, sorry, citizen, you're on your own. Oh, you were an auditor at a ritzy firm that got shuttered due to the CEO's embezzlement? Well-- he's in the gulags now, and you're at the retraining facility because there aren't positions open. How do you like ten-hour days of data entry? The CV here says you're qualified for financial sector work...
We don't have to twirl mustaches to make a grimdark world.
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I like this. Very cool stuff!
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Vic;
The issue is that we get one-dimensional, mustachio-twirling grimdark CAPITALISM UBER ALLES jackboot Caldari. The PF repeatedly mentions communalism, a society built on social pressure, and a sense of duty and responsibility-- but these last virtues surely go both up AND down. Otherwise, we get TonyG-style Caldari built on a caricature of late capitalism excess, and screw that.
When I say social safety net, I'm not talking mandated paid vacation (what? vacation? citizen, get back to work!), or an extensive welfare and retirement system (what? retirement? Unless you're rich, citizen, get back to work!). I'm saying that -some- elements of a safety net are economically beneficial-- and the Caldari are supposed to be entirely too pragmatic to just go, "Plant closed. Citizenship revoked. Fuck off, we're imprisoning you so that you can go mine asteroids," when at least some of the workforce may be recoverable.
I could easily see a reasonable corporate policy being a three month stint at a retraining facility with bare bunks and a prison-quality cafeteria, where workers whose quarterly performance reviews indicate are viable for retraining endure said retraining-- and if they can't find a new position or don't pass qualification exams? Welp, sorry, citizen, you're on your own. Oh, you were an auditor at a ritzy firm that got shuttered due to the CEO's embezzlement? Well-- he's in the gulags now, and you're at the retraining facility because there aren't positions open. How do you like ten-hour days of data entry? The CV here says you're qualified for financial sector work...
We don't have to twirl mustaches to make a grimdark world.
On that note, this is what I like about Templar One: The Caldari society is portrayed as one that promotes productivity, so much so that their citizens consider productivity to be the highest of virtues. If they find they are unable to do one thing, the State will find something that they CAN do. And if they show the aptitude but not the skills, they are sent off for retraining instead of simply sentenced to a salt mine somewhere. And finally, they will punish those who are impeding the productivity of their citizens, at least that's how I see it when the judges decided to exonerate the protagonist who would become a Templar and favor punishing his drunkard abusive father instead. Hell, he even got a job in the end, which he flunked in favor of rescuing his sister from an abusive executive lover.
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Can we ignore the ridiculously stupid excesses (I don't mind the non-ridiculously stupid excesses). Efficiency doesn't chuck out good material - if you're an awesome worker, you'll likely get picked up after an RIF and redeployed, perhaps with retraining if it warrants it.
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Can we ignore the ridiculously stupid excesses (I don't mind the non-ridiculously stupid excesses). Efficiency doesn't chuck out good material - if you're an awesome worker, you'll likely get picked up after an RIF and redeployed, perhaps with retraining if it warrants it.
Well, I don't know about ridiculously stupid. Lots of people would want to toe the line. But, if a corporation thought it could get away with it, the Disassociated are just sitting there ripe for the taking. Just like slavery is supposed to be an educational system that works sort of midway between optimal and exploitation, so would be the Caldari corporate law. I'd assume a relatively small number of paragons of the system are going above and beyond to be good to their employees, particularly in knowledge-heavy fields. I'd assume most corporations are in the middle, scraping the bare minimum or stretching the laws to cut operational costs. I'd also assume there are a relatively small number of corporations who are willing to break every law they can get away with in order to maximize profits. Given how many businesses operate in Caldari space, I'm assuming that's one of their major domestic issues.
I mean, you've got a people just on the fringes of the law that are desperate, impoverished, and lacking in anything but rudimentary job skills. They have limited to no personal rights. Even if it's illegal, someone is definitely going to use them. I'd say that, especially since the corporations run things and are beholden to their shareholders, that it would be more rare for discovered exploitation to be kicked up the ladder high enough to someone who would take action. That's the dark side of corporate systems having massive political influence. The people in charge have every reason to not bring it up since they're profiting off of the law breaking.
To counteract that, you'd probably need an independent corporation, paid on results, that went around vigorously hunting corruption with almost unlimited investigatory powers. I'm not sure the Caldari have that exactly. They're probably more worried when someone "overdoes" the corruption or if it makes the news (or at least other peoples' news).
Whatever it is, the Disassociated that don't go into lives of crime are just too easy a target to not exploit. I'm assuming that's why so many go into criminal careers to begin with.
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I don't have a problem with the concept of exploiting the disassociated, the only issue I have is with the idea of Corporations creating millions of them willy-nilly. Given the sheer size of the Okusaiken, with their billion divisions and subsidiary companies, it's far more likely that a worker whose role becomes redundant will wind up uprooted and shifted far away to another, perhaps less desirable, job.
Larger Corporations IRL have been doing this for decades - and an RL corporation can't be anything near the size of one of the eight, not even close, even given the low population density of the State.
I would think that any period of time as a Disassociated would be an indelible black mark on an employees record - a period of time when they pass out of the control of the corporation, when they leave the womb. As a Corporate Security officer, I would be highly suspicious of Disassociated new hires, because of the competition between the Okusaiken. Hell, I bet there's wicked competition between individual divisions and subsidiaries too - all trying to prove themselves the best Lai Dai or Ishukone or whatever.
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I was under the impression that the Disassociated were more than just people who'd lost their jobs. I thought they were the kind of people who had a very good reason to have been fired, like if they caught you stealing from the till or if you'd organized a strike. Maybe the odd one is a person who's just been outmoded and been forcibly retired.
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Vic; I think that's one issue we're discussing here. I definitely agree that the destitute, criminal, or those who are no longer contributing to the labor market are likely to all be or become Disassociated-- but there were implications with the initial posts that there'd be efforts to actively create and expand the underclass to create a pool of non-citizen labor, which may then be sent to 'penal colonies' for cheap/free labor.
The issue I take, really, is that while an underclass will inevitably develop, mustache-twirling it's-totally-not-slavery-let's-fire-them-and-they-have-no-rights takes it rather far. I can absolutely see abuses happened in low- or null-security areas, or as short-term expedients, and definitely more so with Practicals or when the service demands. However, it plays an awful lot into the one-dimensional corporate vampire reading of Caldari culture that TonyG played with; while this is an important element of the culture, it must at least be moderated by the Confucian element to Caldari culture.
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Regarding the original point of 'recruiting workforce by force' I've thought a bit. The Caldari dislike slavery as something that is damaging the economy (no value spread around), therefore I think that these measures might not be as common as we think. Taking a look at our modern days 'wage slavery' might be the much more common approach to this. Make extremely one-sided offers to people who have no choice and exploit them through the proper use of contract and commerce. There's plenty of possibilities to offer ways out of the disassociated status through these measures, whether them being real or just dangled in front of the prospective 'volunteers for dangerous off-planet excavation work'. Think temporary contracts that do not offer the same 'ciitzen deal' as proper employment does.
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Vic; I think that's one issue we're discussing here. I definitely agree that the destitute, criminal, or those who are no longer contributing to the labor market are likely to all be or become Disassociated-- but there were implications with the initial posts that there'd be efforts to actively create and expand the underclass to create a pool of non-citizen labor, which may then be sent to 'penal colonies' for cheap/free labor.
The issue I take, really, is that while an underclass will inevitably develop, mustache-twirling it's-totally-not-slavery-let's-fire-them-and-they-have-no-rights takes it rather far. I can absolutely see abuses happened in low- or null-security areas, or as short-term expedients, and definitely more so with Practicals or when the service demands. However, it plays an awful lot into the one-dimensional corporate vampire reading of Caldari culture that TonyG played with; while this is an important element of the culture, it must at least be moderated by the Confucian element to Caldari culture.
I can't see making Disassociated, no. That wouldn't make any practical sense, especially considering there are probably more than enough Dissassociated to exploit that you don't need any more. Also, I'd say it's probably a lot easier to exploit the people who already have no rights than to make more. I can see that happening on a case-by-case basis to screw over someone you don't like, if you can manage it. However, on a large scale, you can only do so much with exploited, unskilled labor.
Regarding the original point of 'recruiting workforce by force' I've thought a bit. The Caldari dislike slavery as something that is damaging the economy (no value spread around), therefore I think that these measures might not be as common as we think. Taking a look at our modern days 'wage slavery' might be the much more common approach to this. Make extremely one-sided offers to people who have no choice and exploit them through the proper use of contract and commerce. There's plenty of possibilities to offer ways out of the disassociated status through these measures, whether them being real or just dangled in front of the prospective 'volunteers for dangerous off-planet excavation work'. Think temporary contracts that do not offer the same 'ciitzen deal' as proper employment does.
To be fair, slavery has a lot of economic benefits (or it wouldn't have been so popular). Essentially, it's a people you can pay the bare minimum of cost to upkeep, essentially giving you control because you can control the costs. It might not be a morally good choice as far as the Caldari are concerned, but I'm assuming it isn't going to be off the menu for less upstanding corporations that think they can get away with it. Someone is going to realize that if you create things using de facto slave labor and your competition doesn't, you can produce the same products for less money, allowing you to make profits at lower prices or to make higher profits at the same prices.
I think that's why the IRL implications keep getting brought up. No matter how unpopular a concept is, some bastard is almost guaranteed to use it, and you usually find out it's more widespread than you'd ever imagine.
On that note, as opposed to just Disassociated people, are there fringe corporations? Whole corporations who deal in shady businesses where this kind of thing might be more common? It's more than likely that people who are exploiting the Disassociated aren't just breaking labor laws.
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Well, I've just repeated what's been stated in PF (slavery article), so it can be argued that the main belief* in the caldari corporate culture is that empowering their workforce to buy their products beats "free" labour.
[spoiler]Quoted from evelopedia: While they understand slaves provide ostensibly free labor, they also realize that a slave owner needs to feed, house, and clothe his slaves. Additionally, though slaves can produce items of value, they are unable to purchase anything and thus cannot contribute to a healthy economy.
Therefore, the Caldari view slavery as a misguided notion that does more harm to an economy (and thus a proper society) than good.[/spoiler]
Additionally an enviroment that isn't as locked down as slavery makes it easier to spot talented assets (part of the ideal of meritocracy) and promote them through the corporate ladder. This, in theory, should expand to the disassociated as well, although I'm fairly sure that we'll see an enormous bandwith between genuine attempts to bring people back into the fold, a practical source of cheap labour and very questionable deals to get free access for jobs that are either not entirely legal, violate corporate worker rights (/contracts) or highly dangerous.
Also the caldari give apparently no shits about 'the moral choice'. Or in other words, what is moral for a caldari (The heiian concept VS ruthlessness) might be something entirely different than it'd be for a gallentean or amarrian.
Regarding 'Fringe corporations': The big eight are not the only corporations in the State. There are some independant and big enough corporations, namely Perkone, and it can be assumed that there are a lot of smaller ones as well, although it might be difficult to compete in an enviroment where a Mega is already established, and it can be assumed that it might be quite difficult to find out who is owned by which mega the further you move away from the big public spotlights (think shadowrun). Therefore I would assume that every megacorporation has their little vessels to conduct business on the side. Of course without knowledge of the top Execs. Upon discovering these heinous machinations heads will roll and a public apology will be read out.
*we're talking economics, after all.
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The issue I take, really, is that while an underclass will inevitably develop, mustache-twirling it's-totally-not-slavery-let's-fire-them-and-they-have-no-rights takes it rather far. I can absolutely see abuses happened in low- or null-security areas, or as short-term expedients, and definitely more so with Practicals or when the service demands. However, it plays an awful lot into the one-dimensional corporate vampire reading of Caldari culture that TonyG played with; while this is an important element of the culture, it must at least be moderated by the Confucian element to Caldari culture.
I think the issue is that the Megacorporations can't fire all their workers and have them work for free while putting a gun to their head. Social unrest aside of it, one of the reasons I believe the Disassociated can be treated so poorly is because for in the Caldari mind it should be impossible not to have a job. In a sense it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy for the unemployed/disassociated: say you're fired and have your employment contract with a corporation torn up because you were convicted of a crime, how are you going to get a job again if you have that black mark against you? It becomes a no way out situation because the social prejudices against you reinforce themselves. All disassociated are criminals so don't hire them, until they have no choice but to become criminals to survive.
What makes them interesting as a part of the State is what also makes Eve interesting to me. It's that sort of sci-fi setting about humanity, and how even in the future with all our technology we can still be human and do very human things. What I'm trying to see here is how the Caldari view and treat these disassociated people not only through their own cultural lens but also just through the fact that they're people all the same. That, and I find it unrealistic if a society doesn't have its own imperfections, its flaws, because in the end they're human societies and prone to them.
Or perhaps I view the State differently. That just as much as there is the strength and prosperity, the glittering towers of glass and steel forged by a driven people there exists another State just beneath it populated by the weak and poor who did not make it.
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The trick is simply that it isn't binary-- unemployed, thus weak, criminal and to be discarded, or employed, and thus a cog.
If someone becomes unemployed due to malfeasance, incompetence, criminal behavior-- then it's a stain on them, and they're lost, likely expected to book their own passage off station with whatever meager savings they have because otherwise they're trespassing and will be arrested and sent off to a penal colony.
Plant closures, or situations beyond the control of the citizens that form the basis of the economic machine...? In that case, a dutiful and loyal citizen who works hard for his zaibatsu cannot be thrown aside quickly; else, what's the value of loyalty, and what does that say to those who continue to toil for the corporation? Please note that this is the sort of airy notion of the zaibatsu-as-feudal-domain, whereas nowadays the trend is that even Japanese corporate culture no longer provides security.
That said, we agree that there is absolutely an underbelly, a population of the dispossessed who seemingly have no hope for the future. The question turns back to how many of these exist, and how they intersect with the State proper. I think I start liking the idea when we step beyond the purely economic discussion of it.
Quick thought games: Wiyrkomi justification for use of Disassociated labor? The social conservatism plays here; they offer the Disassociated a chance at redemption and a chance to serve the State-- but not criminals. Never criminals. Justice is swift and merciless. The road to redemption and citizenship will be long and arduous-- but rewarding for your family and children, if you make the sacrifice. And it will be a sacrifice.
Kaalakiota? Expediency rules; they don't care who the Disassociated are, so long as using them serves the State. It might not be a habit, but it's not disregarded because :efficiency.: There is no talk of 'redemption,' though of course exceptional value is noticed.
SuVee? Of -course- they're using Disassociated. How else do you get black market connections? And get plausible deniability when something goes slightly sideways?
Ishu? An inclusive economy is a robust economy. Offering a chance to rejoin polite society is a good way to incentivize proper behavior and salvage good material, and, well-- it just happens to profit Ishu at the same time. What, you expected us to be a welfare State? Wrong side of the war zone, citizen.
How do these angles sound, Veik?
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The trick is simply that it isn't binary-- unemployed, thus weak, criminal and to be discarded, or employed, and thus a cog.
Just because I'm describing one means or method to be disassociated does not mean it's the only means or the only treatment. What I'm trying to describe are processes that appear to be natural consequences in very broad terms. Where did I say they actually were criminals? I said that they might be perceived as such by wider society, and that marginalization by society at large would make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Is there a process in the State, where if you fall down into the social cracks, there is really a way out?
As for the whole Zaibutsu thing, that seems to be a model followed mostly by Ishukone RP'ers from what I can see, so it's probably why there seems to be such a divergence in thought and opinion regarding the disassociated.
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Discussion of Confucian philosophy and the zaibatsu seems an effective shorthand for heiian, which I hear is a thing.
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About the communality and Caldari: In this thread, mostly economics has been discussed, but even for Caldari, just plain numbers aren't necessary the only scale on which a citizen-employee has been evaluated. Some people need to be retained to save face, preferably in such of a position that they can't do any further damage. Some people will probably be retained (even in somehow "bad" assignments) because it would simply not be a decent thing to do otherwise. And of course, the opposite, including possible wetwork or abduction to get rid of someone who needs to be removed.
And then, not all Disassociated are necessarily that bad off. A few people might find an ecological niche outside the society lead by the Big Eight. This group is further divided into multiple subgroups, including skilled migration workers (researchers, experts on rare fields etc.), the most successful of whom may work even with multiple megas and see thru the smoke and mirrors. Then there's State institutions. While the employees of neutral corps (such as the Navy) are probably legally citizens of their patron corp, it might be possible that such abominations as cross-block families might happen. And while the megas themselves migth deal with this rapidly, the reaction in neutral corps might vary. And then suddenly there's kids who might grow outside of the great big megacorporate family, or swap from mega to mega as their parents are given different assignments. And finally, there might be the worst of the worst, an independent corporation. Even a Disassociated person might secure small gigs, during which they are part of the megacorporation, and thus part of the society, but for an independent corp, all they've got is their contracts, while they may still need to provide everything a big corp does provide to their employees.
As a note, the Evelopedia article does also clearly say that the "unemployed" or "fallen off the society" do retain citizenship, thus probably exist in some registers, even if they practically don't exist. To be truly off the grid, the Disassociated would need to have never had a contract with a megacorp, so practically this would mean being second-generation Disassociated or an illegal immigrant.
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I'm confused. I thought non-entity and disassociated were entirely different?
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I think a major issue regarding the Disassociated/non-entity aspect of the State is that it's never been clear what the legal definition actually is. Is there a citizen of the State with certain rights afforded, and then a corporate citizen of the State with further rights given from their corporation?
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Discussion of Confucian philosophy and the zaibatsu seems an effective shorthand for heiian, which I hear is a thing.
I'm not sure what's so special about the zaibatsu. The post-war concept of stimulating domestic economic growth and industrial output through the use of laws to promote trade protectionism, currency regulation, subsidies, and favourable wages to stifle foreign competition and favour native companies wasn't just followed in Japan, it could be said to have also occurred in Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. Why only look at the history of Mitsubishi, and not BMW, Krupp or Samsung? Much the same philosophy is being followed in China with its own State owned companies too.
The only thing I can draw from it is if it's a discussion about how Caldari prefer self-sufficiency and economic autarchy?
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Maybe there are a lot of post WW2 elements in the State (ingame post Luminaire mindset). Also don't forget the defensive and isolationist policy, which is also very cold war like in countries that were not really part of any bloc.
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Maybe there are a lot of post WW2 elements in the State (ingame post Luminaire mindset). Also don't forget the defensive and isolationist policy, which is also very cold war like in countries that were not really part of any bloc.
I'd agree but my point was I never really grasped the whole Caldari Megacorp = Japanese Zaibatsu concept. There might be similarities, sure, but if we're looking for similarities then why not say the German corporate practices? German corporations and medium to small business appear to have had an underlying tradition of retaining their employees even through recession or economic downturns which means they always retain a talented pool of staff that are loyal to the company when things pick up again that could also speak to Caldari cultural concepts of communal self-reliance and self-sufficiency.
It's just one of those things I've observed I guess in that the Caldari seems to attract a lot of Japanophiles for some reason.
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Maybe there are a lot of post WW2 elements in the State (ingame post Luminaire mindset). Also don't forget the defensive and isolationist policy, which is also very cold war like in countries that were not really part of any bloc.
I'd agree but my point was I never really grasped the whole Caldari Megacorp = Japanese Zaibatsu concept. There might be similarities, sure, but if we're looking for similarities then why not say the German corporate practices? German corporations and medium to small business appear to have had an underlying tradition of retaining their employees even through recession or economic downturns which means they always retain a talented pool of staff that are loyal to the company when things pick up again that could also speak to Caldari cultural concepts of communal self-reliance and self-sufficiency.
It's just one of those things I've observed I guess in that the Caldari seems to attract a lot of Japanophiles for some reason.
RPGs seem to attract a lot of Japanophiles in general, to be fair. I think it's just part of our nerd culture. Most of us know more about anime than Brazilian troupe comedy, I suppose because Japan has always been so integral to game culture.
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Tbh it's maybe more about japaneophytes than true japanophiles. I'm not an expert in "Japan" of course but I have come to learn about it and appreciate various things, either its current society or its past, its culture, etc, and most of it does sound rather contradictory with Caldari culture, except maybe the Musashi bit about self sacrifice, then translated into corporate Japan and corporate self sacrifice we know these days.
But if we are to take a few specific bits of a RP culture that fit to an eve fictional culture without considering the 90% remaining that do not, then I can find similarities between feudal Japan and the Amarr Empire, or whatever... It's not really hard to find cumbersome/forced analogies, it's harder to find truly fitting analogies...
Since day 1 when I started Eve, the omnipresent analogies between Japan and the Caldari made me sigh a lot.
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Well to the topic at hand, wouldn't the Caldari treat the Disassociated/non-citizen/underclass in a typically Caldari fashion and not because they're space samurai whose code of ethics, morality, and justice is derived from romantic notions of bushido?
The reason I think the Disassociated are treated poorly are because of the first Caldari-Gallente war and the underlying notions of contributing to a greater good in the State. I'm not even sure what's so grimdark about a culture that values sacrifice and the greater good vilifying/persecuting those people within its society that are deemed as, "Non-contributors" or burdens upon it. It's not about right or wrong, good or evil, it's about the Caldari perspective and how they rationalize and justify their treatment of others in the State that are seen not to fit in.
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“Like Third Reich Germans mixed with Japanese industrialists and straightforward Finnish machinists,” Harðarson attempts to clarify, without success.
That's the line (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-18/multiplayer-game-eve-online-cultivates-a-most-devoted-following#p2) I first think of. Surely, it does mention Finnish, German, and Japanese elements all; but the Japanese element is industrial, which implies zaibatsu. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaibatsu)
And then of course there's the Teamaker Ceremony, which both combines tea making (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_ceremony) with ritual suicide, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku) which is a rather rare practice. Or that the Deteaas made bamboo flutes (http://community.eveonline.com/backstory/chronicles/cold-wind/), a minor detail. Or that ostracism and honor (http://community.eveonline.com/backstory/chronicles/methods-of-torture-the-caldari/) is an important element to Caldari culture, though those practices are by no means exclusive.
I mean, those are all easy little details? But really, the salaryman and the zaibatsu are the two easiest short-hands for describing the structure of Caldari business. So. Sure, we can absolutely find economic practices of a similar form elsewhere-- but if we attempt to excise the zaibatsu, how exactly do we get Harðarson's Japanese industrial influence on the same level as the WW2 German and the Finnish?
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“Like Third Reich Germans mixed with Japanese industrialists and straightforward Finnish machinists,” Harðarson attempts to clarify, without success.
That's the line (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-18/multiplayer-game-eve-online-cultivates-a-most-devoted-following#p2) I first think of. Surely, it does mention Finnish, German, and Japanese elements all; but the Japanese element is industrial, which implies zaibatsu. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaibatsu)
And then of course there's the Teamaker Ceremony, which both combines tea making (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_ceremony) with ritual suicide, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku) which is a rather rare practice. Or that the Deteaas made bamboo flutes (http://community.eveonline.com/backstory/chronicles/cold-wind/), a minor detail. Or that ostracism and honor (http://community.eveonline.com/backstory/chronicles/methods-of-torture-the-caldari/) is an important element to Caldari culture, though those practices are by no means exclusive.
I mean, those are all easy little details? But really, the salaryman and the zaibatsu are the two easiest short-hands for describing the structure of Caldari business. So. Sure, we can absolutely find economic practices of a similar form elsewhere-- but if we attempt to excise the zaibatsu, how exactly do we get Harðarson's Japanese industrial influence on the same level as the WW2 German and the Finnish?
Honestly, the first thing I thought of when someone described the Caldari was the Industrial Revolution, that period where people were working ridiculous hours at gut-crushing rates and were totally dependent on their corporations for food, shelter, and clothing. But they weren't slaves, of course, that would have been uncivilized. Those people could have quit whenever they wanted. And starved, and had no chance at income, and been blacklisted if they wanted better rights. So maybe the Disassociated are sort of the blacklisted former employees of that era? For good or ill, people who had been deemed unsuitable to work with others.
I always remembered the factory scenes from Metropolis, especially.
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That's the line (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-18/multiplayer-game-eve-online-cultivates-a-most-devoted-following#p2) I first think of. Surely, it does mention Finnish, German, and Japanese elements all; but the Japanese element is industrial, which implies zaibatsu. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaibatsu)
And then of course there's the Teamaker Ceremony, which both combines tea making (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_ceremony) with ritual suicide, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku) which is a rather rare practice. Or that the Deteaas made bamboo flutes (http://community.eveonline.com/backstory/chronicles/cold-wind/), a minor detail. Or that ostracism and honor (http://community.eveonline.com/backstory/chronicles/methods-of-torture-the-caldari/) is an important element to Caldari culture, though those practices are by no means exclusive.
I mean, those are all easy little details? But really, the salaryman and the zaibatsu are the two easiest short-hands for describing the structure of Caldari business. So. Sure, we can absolutely find economic practices of a similar form elsewhere-- but if we attempt to excise the zaibatsu, how exactly do we get Harðarson's Japanese industrial influence on the same level as the WW2 German and the Finnish?
"Harðarson attempts to clarify, without success."
Can you describe the entire history, culture, breadth and scope of any human society in just a single sentence? If you want to take those words as gospel, feel free, I take them as someone forced to try and elaborate upon a complex society and convey it with terminology designed to convey a general sense and feeling due to the brevity of the commentary.
The thing is the history of the Caldari State and the Caldari themselves are already available. The Caldari corporation didn't come to being out of German, Japanese or Finnish history, it came out of Caldari history. If we're talking about that history then I'd say the major points regarding Caldari corporatism are:
- Martial and feudal cultural values present during its industrial era which is described as being riven with internecine conflict by Warlords between each other just prior to contact with the Gallente.
- Post Cultural Deliverance Society Caldari where the social and political power of the Warlords is broken or at least diminished. The corporate model may have been where that power shifted, hell those same Warlords could have just incorporated their holdings and changed their titles to Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
- Discovery of the VH-451 stargate and the expansion outwards from Caldari Prime to form new colonies. The nascent Megacorporations were probably best positioned to have the capital and industrial assets to begin exploration and colonization outwards. Attitudes of self-reliance and self-sufficiency among the Caldari could have developed among those colonies as they were founded and grew.
- Caldari colonies and the Megacorporations that founded them become very closely tied together. Frictions develop with the Gallente who don't understand why the Caldari are identifying and giving their loyalties to the corporations they work for in the colonies and not creating democratic and liberal polities.
- Friction escalates between the Gallente and Caldari when the Federation's attempts to break the power of the Megacorporations is perceived as an infringement upon Caldari colonial rights and their independence since over the centuries prior they have become so intertwined politically, socially, and economically.
- Corporate loyalty and Caldari nationalism leads down the path to secession and the first Gallente-Caldari war.
I mean that's just a few points to me as to the history of the Caldari corporation to work on, why do I need to borrow from Japanese zaibatsus?
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Of course building a complete and convincing history independent of actual history is desirable in some regards; it gives greater creative freedom. At the same time, writers often tend to get, well, interesting ideas about probable paths of development, and go wild with harebrained notions that are overly simplistic or shaded by their own biases. Consider TonyG's reading of Caldari culture vs. the prior lore for an example.
In this case, drawing from a reasonable real-world relation (German militant nationalism; Finnish efficiency and hardiness (an entire division of salvaged Soviet gear? wha? Winter War? wha? Jesus! Well done, Finns!); the Japanese zaibatsu) gives an effective way of providing a sketch of the analogous structures, but is deficient in that it is likely to break down under intense scrutiny, as we hold stereotypes of real-world structures against fictional structures described by a myriad of individuals. This is to be expected. Hell, even your list of influences could be short-handed as the Warring States period, the opening of Japan due to outside intervention, the Meiji Restoration, leading to Japanese imperialism in the interwar period-- but, of course, it breaks down under scrutiny.
And this is where RP, player fiction and prime fiction come in. We flesh out the world, we try to reconcile the contradictions in the material or in the shorthands we operate with, but prime fiction is the closest we have to actual knowledge of the world. We can't contradict it-- well, we can, but it sort of defeats the purpose of roleplaying in EVE Online. The issue with PF is always knowing the intent of the writer; we can only infer from the text, and go from there.
Fortunately, Harðarson is one of CCP's founders, and is a creative director. While a single sentence isn't enough to draw much actual information from, it is absolutely enough to inform our reading of prime fiction.
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The disassociated make perfect sense to me both as a place to throw criminals and a tax write off to support the substance of. Additionally, come get tested ever year, Ishukone requires a Index score of 167, maybe your son can rise to become a forklift driver with a megacorp then later, ruler of the State
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[18:59:10] Katrina Oniseki > I once came across the personal logs of a SuVee prospector. He happened upon a small temperate planet rich in minerals and indigenous populations still in the early Iron Ages.
[19:00:04] Katrina Oniseki > Civilizations on the only inhabited continent had suffered countless cycles of war and strife, forever fighting each other and believing their own existance to be the greater, to be the more worthwhile.
[19:00:22] Katrina Oniseki > Completely oblivious to the greater happenings of the cluster above them.
[19:01:16] Katrina Oniseki > For so many years they thought they were alone, that their hated neighbors on that pitiful landmass were the only others. They thought their own wars, where thousands died in cold blood, were so important.
[19:01:57] Katrina Oniseki > I cannot fathom their shock when SuVee arrived to forcibly displace them for the significant mineral desposits found there.
[19:02:41] Katrina Oniseki > Great otherworldly ships hanging in the sky. Men covered in metal, speaking strange languages. Sticks that spit fire. The end of their society.
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Regarding the disassociated, I've always assumed very few of them actually live in central State locations - and the ones that do would probably work for non-Caldari corporations alongside expatriates.
Because Caldari authorities do not consider non-entities to have any rights or protections, they will displace or otherwise eradicate communities deemed to be a threat to the order. Some of the Practical-leaning corporations may employ non-entities on a very minute wage in industries that are illegal or otherwise questionable.
The note that they may be employed for "questionable" industries implies they are not widely employed as a whole.