Arthur Zinault writes:
WORKERS IN CONTROL OR WORKERS UNDER CONTROL?
Which will it be?
by Brian Oliver Sheppard
(
bsheppard@bari.iww.org)
Clusters of small white domes stretch across the countryside, gleaming in rows that resemble massive, neatly laid eggs. There are over 4,300 of these "eggs," and each of them are about 40 feet tall. The impression from a distance is one of an otherworldly hatchery rather than a community of humans. But New Oroville is a city, and it does not have a mayor. Instead, it has a CEO.
The "cubicle domes," as one libertarian cyberculture journal referred to them, house human beings, shops, temples, and most importantly, places of work. The co-founders of the town call it an "information technology township," and it exists to house, train, and provide leisure for at least 4,000 high tech workers. The founders of the town are three former executives of Microsoft who left to form their own company, called Catalytic Software. They needed cheap labor, and they needed it in one place, where it could be regulated, structured, compartmentalized, and renewed indefinitely, as business needs demanded. That led to the creation of this 21st century experiment just outside Hyderabad, India. "New Oroville is our place," Catalytic CEO Swain Porter declared to Wired. "We set the rules. We enforce them. We're not going to have a lot of discontents."
