If the argument is that consolidation of employers and landlords is worrying, then we can have a discussion.
If the argument is that the corporate police is gonna kidnap you, then you're just a conspiracy theorist with a victim complex.
The corporation had no loyalty and has no obligation to you beyond what was agreed upon when you got hired. A termination for any reason means your entire life is uprooted. In addition to finding a new employer, you are now looking for housing. That idea of vulnerability is terrifying to a lot of people and will cause further asymmetry in the employee-employer relationship.
I.e., if:
(1) living in the company town is contingent on being an employee,
(2) being accused of politically incorrect speech can end one's employment, and
(3) eviction is ultimately backed by state-sanctioned violence,
then I can see the logic. I'm just not aware of any examples if this actually happening.
OTOH, I have no idea if the plans for those company towns involved behavior standards for conduct in the residential areas, outside of working hours.
The overall setup sounds really dystopian, so hopefully this is the last we'll ever think about it.
Pullman is notable for its wage cuts of workers (while still charging the same for everything in the town they owned) which caused a major strike that got ugly: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Company#Company_town
Pripyat, in Soviet-Ukraine, a “nuclear town” was established and subsequently evacuated when the infamous meltdown occurred: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pripyat
In the US, specifically, a lot of company towns issued scrip instead of cash or allowed workers to charge to an account expenses they could not afford. This may be outlawed but I think this model can be sufficiently masked with technology that it can be implemented and even incentivized for workers to use company money. Further, the company town’s isolation will suggest workers stay inside. Now your whole social circle and standard of life is dictated by someone else’s bottom line.
That's the point. Google by and large treats its employees really well. There's no reason to think it would push this dystopian version of employee housing, instead of something a lot more tame. The only explanation I can think of is that some people just like thinking of themselves as the little guy against the world.
Many very-bad, dictatorship-type regimes have come into power with immense public support - a public that thought they would continue to be treated well.
I agree there's potentials for the company to grow mean & sour, to exploit the position of granter of a reasonably good life. Ideally a good life should also be available by other means. What really is damned in this condemnation is the rest of the world, which lacks in offerances & alternatives.
The idea is that this is a destination company. Your whole premise is that people get exploited. Maybe over time that's true, but you will never create a destination company by being a shitty fuck.
Will there be the Company Store too?
Really sounds like going back to the bad old days
I have no idea what the housing model proposed is. But everywhere else in the US that is mildly popular is ragingly expensive. If I can live in a great place affordably while making a solid paycheck for the future, that doesn't feel like a trap, that feels like a development course. Even if it doesn't last. The meanest thing we can say here is that the rest of the country can't compete, which again isn't the fault of those entities trying to make better.
Will there be a company store? I dunno. Is this a worthwhile dig or a trope, a regurgitation of past historic circumstance? We just spent a while talking about how companies will be desperate to lock employees in, golden handcuff them into never leaving... But now suddenly it's dark Zuckville & he's also nickel & dime scrooging over the employees? This no longer sounds like a viable Destination Company...
Will it be both too utopian and too dystopian all at once? Or is there one side of too much you'd wager for?
I absolutely think this could be shit & terrible. But this is a vacuous shitty useless historically-based drag that, but to me, fails any real analysis of the current situation, ignores the possibilities at hand, and just seeks to disabuse.
On the one hand, I makes sense to pause. On the other hand, making vibrant light urban spaces feels like something they could pull off & really build on. Become a destination company.