Why does big always become evil?
In the grand scheme of evil, I'm not sure Amazon's firings ranks very highly.
Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers
51–60 of 205 posts
Re: Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers
#52Re: Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
In someways small companies have more potential to be evil, because they often fly "under the radar". "We shouldn’t fetishize mom and pop operations. They offer lower wages, skimpier benefits, and inferior labor protections." See: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/01/small-businesses-workers-...
Nobody "fetishizes" small business. This sounds like big corporation mouthpiece rhetoric. Big business is responsible for wealth concentration and irresponsible economics that hurt everyone. The alternative? Small business. It's easy to see why people might prefer a reality where small businesses continue to exist. Not everyone likes the Orwell novel we're writing.
"fetishize" is probably the wrong word, but people are certainly a lot more sympathetic towards small businesses. in my city, people are donating tens of thousands of dollars to local businesses that are closed due to coronavirus. can you imagine someone donating money to keep walmart afloat?
as an aside, I've read that jacobin article before and I find it to be a bit myopic. a large part of why small businesses offer comparatively shitty pay and benefits is because they can't really afford to do better. part of this is just inherent efficiencies of scale (generally a good thing), but it's also because the biggest players get to rewrite the rules to make it very difficult to compete with them. it's not unreasonable to think that a friendlier environment for small businesses might lead to better compensation for their employees.
Re: Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the people in charge are constrained to a narrow goal of bringing returns to shareholders
What kind of return? Long term or short term? Destroying a company through mismanagement is decried as evil too.
Theoretically but there are far more examples of people getting extremely rich than suffering consequences, especially in a period where deregulation means the odds are overwhelmingly in favor of punishment being a tiny fraction of the profits.
Re: Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers
#55Why does big always become evil?
This is just how capitalism works. It's about allocating capital in the most efficient way, and as far as Amazon is concerned workers are a dime a dozen. If workers complain, you can just fire them and hire someone else to do the job. This is especially true right now with the high unemployment rate. If workers really want to improve their situation they would all need to unionize. It would require a significant port…
It's not just propaganda. Many of us come from union backgrounds--either our parents, siblings, etc were blue collar workers or teachers or police. We've heard lots of stories of unions creating all kinds of nonsense inefficiencies and then when someone is being targeted by management, the union does little or nothing to protect them. My best friend taught in a low income school district, he was forced out because he wouldn't pass the basketball team when they wouldn't take tests or turn in homework; the union wouldn't protect him. My dad has a dozen such stories because he worked in factories since he left the family farm.
This doesn't mean unions can't work or that things would be better without them or that we shouldn't trend toward more unionization; it only means that there are real problems with unions and it's hard to trust pro-union people when they won't even acknowledge as much.
For me, I hear Europeans raving about their unions, so clearly unions can work, but if the pro-union side intends to get more political support, it needs to articulate what it is about American unions that aren't working very well and how they intend to address those issues. Chalking it up to "propaganda" comes off as patronizing and naive at best.
Re: Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers
#56Why does big always become evil?
Because it's only "evil" when an organization is large enough to invest in self protection mechanisms that dull the ability of other organizations to hold them accountable.
Most companies cut corners here and there, mess up something with compliance, accessibility or even break the law in small ways. But almost no companies can afford to defend themselves in court, pay settlements to make things go away, pay lobbyists/strategists to write laws etc...
Re: Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers
#57In my opinion, it won’t do anyone any good for him to quit “in solidarity with” the fired workers. If he wants the situation to improve, he should remain VP and use his power to help make things better. Now he‘ll probably just be replaced with someone who is less sympathetic to the workers.
Tim Bray was a well-known member of Amazon's technical staff. Him quitting will have a substantial impact. It will add weight to what others inside Amazon are pushing for and is a very visible reminder that if Amazon doesn't make some changes, the threat of engineers voting with their feet is a real one (one of the few things that could make Amazon adjust their culture IMO).
Re: Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers
#58Why does big always become evil?
"The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race."
Ted Kaczynski would roughly say that Big becomes evil because Big means standardization. If you have a large corporation you need to standardize processes in order to be efficient enough to justify your existence. This is directly at odds with individual dignity and autonomy.
Specifically see 111. onwards of Industrial Society and Its Future.
Re: Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers
#59If you are very idealistic I would recommend working for a smaller company that aligns with your values. It is naive to join a company like Amazon or Google and imagine it is some progressive utopia. These are mega corps, and in my imagination I see them like The Empire from Star Wars, and you will be a storm trooper on the death star - just one worker among many. You will be on the winning team, well compensated, an…
Working for a small company just moves the problem to a place that's more difficult to see. If Tim was a VP at a boutique cloud provider, inevitably, some of their customers treat their employees even worse than Amazon.
Re: Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers
#60Why does big always become evil?
> Why does big always become evil?
Diffusion of responsibility [1].
I hypothesise the frequency of deliberate evil is similar among companies big and small. What's more frequent with large companies is unchecked sporadic harm. Over time, that accumulates into uncoördinated patterns of behavior.
These patterns would get called out in a smaller company. Social mores almost force us to. But those mores get washed out in large, corporate environments, where well-meaning people can turn a cheek to callous and even evil behavior.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility