The Bezos backlash: Is 'big philanthropy' a charade?

> "Jeff Bezos can tout himself as a great philanthropist, yet it will not absolve him of responsibility if Amazon workers continue to be afraid to take toilet breaks and days off sick because they fear disciplinary action at work."

In capitalism/free markets, it is the company's responsibility to generate as much value for shareholders as possible. If paying workers more will not result in more value for shareholders, doing so could be seen in a negative light by shareholders.

Bezos is free to do with his own money as he sees fit, but not with his shareholders (which includes almost all employees BTW.) money.

However, governments are there to ensure that capitalist-motivated behaviour doesn't negatively affect the community, and should use its power to regulate the companies by such means as minimum wage, minimum benefits etc.

I really wonder how the "journalists" here fail to see where the problem lies ... but of course most Americans would say they don't want limits on how little time off they can get and how poor they choose to be ...

This meshes with the 'hipster antitrust' argument, that the consumer surplus measure is not the whole story. If low prices are so great for us, why is it that small communities are objectively so down-and-out even in the midst of unprecedentedly cheap stuff.

Don't you think that the reason may be much more related to why mail-order went down before ? In other words: Amazon exploited a tax-loophole that could not be easily closed : the interstate commerce tax clause.

But create a trillion dollar companies by "stealing" taxes (as Jeff Bezos did), and states notice, and there's one thing that unites Republicans and Democrats, Obamas Bushes and Trumps, and it's green. To put it another way, people managed to untangle all the knots and ... it happened. Lots of laws got changed, but the real breakthrough was here:

https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/21/states-will-be-able-to-cha...

Bezos essentially gave Americans a tax loophole for goods ordering and made it work, and took ~18% of what he gave them for his company (and about 4% for himself). He now has a trillion dollars. Americans have lots of stuff delivered to them.

But now, Amazon has the same problem mail-order has had for a very long time: it's just not cheap anymore, and so they cheat, underdeliver and overcharge, just like mail order has to do. It's trying to fix this, but the truth is that home delivery is just a lot more expensive than stores, and there is no fix.

And surprise ! Walmart suddenly stopped losing against Amazon. Weird, no ? Well, no, not that weird at all.

Of course Amazon is constantly criticized for being an example of what's wrong with capitalism. Reality: government created Amazon through tax law. I'm not saying that's all there is to it, but it's close.

But yeah this is a silicon valley forum, and the idea that the founders of the US, and a good lawyer and a supreme court decision from 1992 were the real power behind one of the great silicon valley tech companies is just not going to be a great explanation in many people's opinions. Amazon just isn't a great technical accomplishment. It's an incredible financial engineering accomplishment.

Of course, this makes it very ironic that people like Bernie Sanders criticize Amazon, as Mr. Sanders is part of the institution that made it possible in the first place. If Bezos didn't build Amazon, someone else would have figured it out and built it (it took Bezos >6 years). However, if the Federal government would have taxed Amazon the way it taxes everything else, there would have been no Amazon. Any other companies that were created would never have been anywhere near the size Amazon grew to.

Note that the rise of China, the gearbest, jd, banggood ... rise is the result of a similar tax fuckup, this time at the united nations postal union. Or: China only works because they get to offload the cost of shipping on the taxpayers. And now Trump is

However, I strongly disagree with Trump's approach. I would prefer to see the opposite happen: that US companies get brought on a level playing field with China. If you can ship from Delaware to New York for 1.6$/kg, what would happen ? It'd be then end of Chinese exports to America, but without Americans having to give up what they gained in the past 10 years. I think there should be a lesson for our government in here. Namely, that financing the post office was one of the best decisions ever made in government, and that we should look into having 50% or so of the cost of shipping paid by the (ideally Federal) taxpayer, not just when shipping from China. Why ? Look what it's done to the economy !

There are better methods to define who need that help rather than the super rich opinion. The Gates Foundation model goes in that direction, approaching urgent things first: child mortality, education access, vacine distribution, etc... Those topics are more urgent than space travel according to the general consensus. A good way to define those problems is to check which social programs are being supported for the countries in a specific region. In Latin America for example, poverty is one of those social problems, rather than internet access, for instance.

The counter-argument is that, if these super-wealthy individuals didn't feel the need to extract the maximum wealth from the community (the notion that it's their fiduciary duty to pay the least in wages or find loopholes to minimise tax exposure is a myth), then communities in the round would be better off.

Regardless of if you agree with his actions or not, it's pretty tone-deaf from a PR perspective - pretty much anyone could have seen the backlash coming. He doesn't seem to give a monkey's butt about public perception, but there's very little he can do positively for the community whilst there's still the notion he's trying to destroy it with his business interests. The money and help he's trying to provide will just work better and be more effective and efficient if there's active support for it from all sides. Everything that happens with that money now will be caveated and judged by his actions.

I'd argue he should wait until he retires from Amazon (a la Bill Gates) if he does want any efforts to resonate with people. Then again, for good or bad, I don't think he really cares. I just hope the money can be deployed effectively whilst attached to him, even if it should have been in the pockets of the community all along.