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

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

#91

Post by ti_ranger »

krapp wrote: post #57
cromwellian wrote: post #55

Lots of comments attacking Amazon for lowering wages but ignoring the fact that warehouse work in general is on borrowed time and going the way of horse and buggies ( https://youtu.be/RFV8IkY52iY ) At some point in the near future, these jobs won’t exist. Are the commentators suggesting they not be automated? Likewise long truck driver driving is going to eventually collapse. Any attempt to make Amazon pay a vastly h…

>Any attempt to make Amazon pay a vastly higher salary for packers will just accelerate the drive to full automation. No one is asking that Amazon pay a vastly higher salary to their low tier employees, only that they consider the cost of living for those employees and pay accordingly within a particular market. The means to afford food and housing should not be out of reach of a full time employee, even if their pos…

> No one is asking that Amazon pay a vastly higher salary to their low tier employees, only that they consider the cost of living for those employees and pay accordingly within a particular market.

If Amazon is paying too little compared to that "particular market", surely they wouldn't get enough applicants?

I guess you mean something else than "market" here ...

> The means to afford food and housing should not be out of reach of a full time employee, even if their position is likely to be automated in the future.

Then the government should set a (higher) minimum wage (and benefits), they way most other governments in the first (and third) world do.

A company's primary obligation is to their shareholders. A government's primary obligation should be to their constituents/voters/residents/citizens. Which one is failing their primary stakeholder the most here?

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

#92

Post by MrEfficiency »

onion2k wrote: post #16
stubish wrote: post #9

It seems you can't be charitable without someone telling you you should have given more or given to someone else. It's not a great way of encouraging charity. If it is not doing harm and making some lives better, the correct response is 'thank you for making the world a better place'. Even if you think it is self serving, we should encourage such self serving behavior.

It seems you can't be charitable without someone telling you you should have given more or given to someone else. Spending money on good causes is great. That's to be definitely something to be encouraged. Putting all of the decision making about which causes are 'good' in the hands of one individual, or a small group of very similar individuals, is very, very bad. That's how entire segments of society get ignored.

How small is this group?

I find myself solving problems with capitalism and simultaneously donating 5-10% of my net-income.

I also dont see life being any worse than 'before' for any classes. 'before' being 15 years ago.

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

#93

Post by mdex »

bluecalm wrote: post #65
itsmenotyou wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That people benefited from internet shopping and delivery is not a defense of a company treating it's workers badly or evading paying taxes. Let's not pretend amazon is the only company that might have delivered those efficiencies, they were just the most successful, the most ruthless.

You can't expect companies to fight for greater good and sacrifice their interests for the overall good. In fact it's against the law for them to do that. Amazon hires a lot of people and in many countries pay reasonably well. With taxes it does what the law allows. If you want to change those things start with changing the law, ending policies hurting the working class (limiting low skill migration would be the firs…

I completely agree. One legal change that needs to happen to preserve the free market: company with a habit of employees using social assistance should not get tax breaks (or any other help) from the government. The taxpayer should not be subsidizing the paycheck of Amazon employees. The burden is on Amazon to pay their employees a competitive wage, it's their problem not mine.

Otherwise they have no incentive to pay their employees a competitive wage.

Without competitive wages you have no free market, you just have a corporate welfare state, where the cost of paying workers is taken from the workers themselves thru taxation. That's basically what some UBI shills want. They want state taxation and welfare to replace the onus of corporations to pay competitive wages to employees.

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

#94

Post by philwelch »

wastedhours wrote: post #89
zekevermillion wrote: post #80

Amazon shares have a lot of value, and Bezos is sitting on a pile of them. What should Bezos do with that currency -- hoard it? spend it? This supermoney represents Bezos' capacity to incentivize his fellow humans to act in concert toward a goal that he can influence. If he hoards it, then it does nothing for society. Bezos doesn't need it for his personal enjoyment either. After he leases a couple jets, buys a few h…

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…

The economy isn’t a zero-sum game.

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

#95

Post by lwhi »

Radim wrote: post #68
fastball wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "let society take care of it", who exactly do you mean?

It's a cowardly way of saying "I want that guy's money, but am too weak to take it myself". The fundamental problem with such redistribution schemes is: Who gets to decide who's weak and who's the villain? Certainly each individual knows for themselves; typically a variation on "I'm weak; give me". But coming up with stable, fair valuations for social contribution is a hard problem. For example, we already know that…

No it isn't.

Limits placed on capitalism, through regulation, might be an example of letting society (the system) sort itself out.

If limits aren't introduced, the gap between rich and poor becomes too vast. It become futile for those who have little to even try to adjust their situation.

I do believe in capitalism, but left to its own devices, it becomes obscene.

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

#96

Post by Silhouette »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #61
Silhouette wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the trends continue over a period of several years, that may prove to be true. Anecdotally, I am far from alone among my friends and family in perceiving that Amazon's quality, reliability and customer service have degraded sharply in recent years. It's not just the counterfeits issue. Their basic product organisation is terrible these days, and it's often difficult to figure out if I'm ordering the correct editio…

Isn't everything you describe rather demonstrating the point though? A business that is large enough to generally not care any more. To not care about the fakes, the deliberately poor search that promotes crap every single time, the increasingly hostile policies, the increasingly hostile way things are offered. The promotion of horrible ideas like "global store" that will hold some indeterminate amount in anticipatio…

Amazon's time will come, but right now they, or perhaps just Bezos - who knows, don't believe it will.

Yes, I think that sums it up nicely. History is full of big businesses that were invulnerable and could get away with anything, until they weren't and couldn't. History is also full of big businesses whose senior management seemed to be the last people in the world to realise when one situation was slowly but steadily turning into the other, often because they were focussed on short term plans and quarterly reports and somehow failed to see the wood for the trees.

Boss: Look, revenues are way up! Q4 last year was huge! Best. Christmas. Season. Ever.

Consultant: That's true, and congratulations. But be careful, the majority of your recent growth looks like it comes from segments outside your core online store business.

Boss: I know. Isn't that great? Our retail marketplace services are making twice what they brought in just a couple of years ago!

Consultant: That's also true, but it does seem the customer experience of your online store has been adversely affected because the marketplace aspect is confusing them and causing problems with poor quality control and fake products, and that online store still brings in the largest part of your revenues.

Boss: Experience, exshmerience! Look at our quarterly numbers. Our main online store is still growing.

Consultant: Well, yes, the main online store is still growing. However, it's been close to saturation in a lot of markets for a while. Part of that revenue growth is because you've been relying less on undercutting the competition and started pushing prices up. But that leaves you more vulnerable to competition again.

Boss: Well, it looks like our customers love us and they'll keep coming back anyway.

Consultant: Perhaps, but consumer shopping habits often change slowly. Brand loyalty is slow to build, and that goes for your competitors too. But it's built by good customer experiences, and sometimes lost all too quickly after bad ones.

Boss: As I said, experience, exshmerience. Look, revenues are way up! Q4 last year was huge!

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

#97

Post by amelius »

lwhi wrote: post #95
Radim wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a cowardly way of saying "I want that guy's money, but am too weak to take it myself". The fundamental problem with such redistribution schemes is: Who gets to decide who's weak and who's the villain? Certainly each individual knows for themselves; typically a variation on "I'm weak; give me". But coming up with stable, fair valuations for social contribution is a hard problem. For example, we already know that…

No it isn't. Limits placed on capitalism, through regulation, might be an example of letting society (the system) sort itself out. If limits aren't introduced, the gap between rich and poor becomes too vast. It become futile for those who have little to even try to adjust their situation. I do believe in capitalism, but left to its own devices, it becomes obscene.

And a nice example of regulation: net neutrality.

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

#98

Post by philwelch »

stubish wrote: post #9

It seems you can't be charitable without someone telling you you should have given more or given to someone else. It's not a great way of encouraging charity. If it is not doing harm and making some lives better, the correct response is 'thank you for making the world a better place'. Even if you think it is self serving, we should encourage such self serving behavior.

The real problem is that some people don’t actually want the poor to the better off, they just want the rich to be worse off.

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

#99

Post by coldtea »

philwelch wrote: post #94
wastedhours wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The economy isn’t a zero-sum game.

If one closes their eyes to externalities (societal and environmental and political), then yes, it isn't.

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

#100

Post by danielmg »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #58
a008t wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly they have been better than the alternatives for customers - otherwise, they would not be successful. Employees also have a choice - Amazon is not a monopoly.

The customer's don't see the horrible conditions behind the scenes, all they see are cheap products. If you're a delivery driver, your job options are extremely limited. You can deliver fast food, or deliver for companies like Amazon. It's either that, or starve.

Or learn another skill?
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