Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!bloom-beacon!ora!ambar
From: hb@uvaarpa.virginia.edu (Hank Bovis)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Affirmative Action
Summary: Freedom is a matter of degree
Message-ID: <1033@uvaarpa.virginia.edu>
Date: 11 Oct 89 21:23:42 GMT
References: <1989Sep28.023614.10776@rpi.edu> <15685@duke.cs.duke.edu> <1989Sep30.185858.22432@rpi.edu> <945@uvaarpa.virginia.edu> <2163@dataio.Data-IO.COM>
Sender: ambar@ora.ora.com
Reply-To: hb@Virginia.EDU (Hank Bovis)
Organization: University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Lines: 31
Approved: ambar@ora.com

In article <2163@dataio.Data-IO.COM> bright@Data-IO.COM (Walter Bright) writes:

>I'd like to make an important distinction between governments and corporations.
>If you work in a corporation, you have the ultimate right to quit. With
>the government collective, you can't quit (see China, East Germany).

Neither the right to quit nor the freedom to choose are absolute.  It's
all a matter of degrees.  (Of freedom, that is. ;-))

*Some* people in East Germany have been able to leave.  (In fact, quite
a few more than the government would like, it seems.)  Likewise in
China.  It depends on how well connected you are and who your friends
are, and in this respect Communist bureaucracy is really very similar to
corporate bureaucracy.

>Corporations don't use physical violence to further their ends, governments
>do. I work for a corporation. If they require me to do something I don't
>want to, I will quit and they can't do a *thing* about it.

Perhaps you can quit, but if so, it is because your skills are in demand
and you have some place else to go.  If you worked for a coal company in
a company town, you might not have that much freedom.

And the same logic applies to potential emigres from Communist countries.
The ones who want to leave are the ones whose technical skills are more
valued in the West.  There are many unskilled laborers in East Germany
who are not so anxious to leave.  (ABC gave a report on this just last
week on World News Tonight.)

Hank Bovis
(hb@Virginia.EDU, hb@Virginia.BITNET)