this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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[–] bizzle@midwest.social 18 points 2 years ago (4 children)

That surely changed how I look at things, actually

[–] FnordPrefect@hexbear.net 26 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This reminds me of a book called The People's Republic of Wal-Mart. In particular this excerpt about when SEARS decided to run its internal operations as a competitive free market is pretty eye-opening

(TLDR stonks-down)

[–] SteamedHamberder@hexbear.net 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think Richard-D-Wolff had an episode about SEARS: essentially they had departments competing with each other with advertising as the reward. Power tools ended up as the cover for the Mother’s Day newspaper insert.

[–] EnsignRedshirt@hexbear.net 8 points 2 years ago

Sears aka "Internal contradictions speedrun (Any%)"

[–] CriticalOtaku@hexbear.net 21 points 2 years ago

"People's Republic of Walmart" is a decent work on this topic

[–] EnsignRedshirt@hexbear.net 11 points 2 years ago

Two folks have already suggested “People’s Republic of Wal-Mart”, which is defintiely what was on my mind when I wrote this post and is a much more fulsome analysis of this specific subject, but if this is interesting to you as an angle for viewing the world, I highly recommend the book “Thinking in Systems: A Primer” by Donella Meadows. It’s not an explicitly socialist text, but it’s a concise and very accessible introductory work on systems thinking, and it puts a lot of the key concepts in place to think about the world in these terms.

[–] Finger@hexbear.net 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Good on you for asking these questions.

[–] FunkyStuff@hexbear.net 7 points 2 years ago

More half measure, Walter.