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Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers

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Re: Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers

#151

Post by runawaybottle »

Zaak wrote: post #108
kmbfjr wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My bet is that it was always evil, no one noticed because they were distracted by the amazing customer focus and service. Google may have touted the "do no evil" matra, but looking back, their plan was always to look over your shoulder. Nothing Google did was ever altruistic, and I think Amazon was and is the same way.

While Larry and Sergei were running Google, the company often (though not necessarily always) chose doing what was right over a more profitable wrong. A specific example was when they discovered the Chinese government was behind a major security breach targeting dissidents, they refused to continue to comply with Chinese censorship requirements. However, as the founders lost interest in the day-to-day operation of th…

It takes a village to raise a value based corporation. Many act like kids with no love, guidance.

Re: Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers

#152

Post by billfruit »

throwanem wrote: post #87
billfruit wrote: post #32

Earlier 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-...

It is extremely strange to see soi-disant socialists fail to recognize the difference between essential traits of small businesses, and qualities contingent upon a legal regime which socialists themselves argue should be changed in ways which would largely alleviate the problems they describe. Unbinding health care from employment makes it available to everyone, whether their employer can afford a group plan or not.…

But small capitalists are a bigger problem in someways than bigger capitalists, since the difficulties their workers face are harder to be brought into public attention, because of the small localised scale of them. Large businesses have to face regularly oversight and scurutiny on a much more wider scale.

So there is a strain of left-wing thought that see smaller businesses as a bigger evil that big businesses.

From the article:

"In reality, small business promotion is mostly a bad idea. Small businesses pay lower wages, provide worse benefits, are often exempt from important worker protections, and are incompatible with the way unionization works in the US."

Re: Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers

#153

Post by billfruit »

willis936 wrote: post #42
billfruit wrote: post #32

Earlier 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.

This article was from the Jacobin, perhaps the foremost Left-wing publication in the USA presently. Jacobin is essentially the Pravda in English.

Re: Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers

#154

Post by viklove »

throwlaplace wrote: post #125
lotsofpulp wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people are busy trying to free their children, spouse, and immediate family, even if it means sacrificing others’ freedom to do it.

>Most people are busy trying to free their children, spouse, and immediate family what you're basically saying is that most people are primarily concerned with their communities. that's true and it's not even unreasonable but what's also true is that the communities of most people in positions of power are not marginalized/precarious.

I think referring to your direct offspring as "the community" is a bit disingenuous.

Re: Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers

#155

Post by slowmovintarget »

bawana wrote: post #25

Why does big always become evil?

Businesses don't have morals, or principles, or feelings. They have efficiencies and optimizations. Most businesses check that with culture. Business culture, when done well, is a reapplication of feelings (usually), principles (ideally), and morals (rarely) back atop the operating mechanisms of the business.

The man or woman at the top usually sets the high bar for what culture pertains, and how stringently it is brought to the rest of the business.

The bigger the business, the closer to baseline (just a machine) the business tends to drift. If the culture is not a strong one, or starts from a mostly mechanistic stance, then drifting to what we would consider evil in a person is easy.

This has little to do with capitalism, and everything to do with people functioning in groups. Because it happens with every activity that has more than one individual acting to move it forward.

Sports teams can be excellently principled, even moral, because their leadership applies these as a way to strengthen the team. (It's also a small group.)

This applies to towns full of people, to social groups and clubs, to "movements" on social media. We see it everywhere.

It's just particularly painful in circumstances like this one.

Re: Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers

#156

Post by Ajedi32 »

throwanem wrote: post #130
Ajedi32 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not an argument, just an assertion. All you've done is restate the position the GP was questioning the reasoning behind: > Q: Why does it seem like big corps never get the benefit of the doubt? > A: Big corps don't get the benefit of the doubt because they are big. Anyone who disagrees is a moral coward.

Perhaps you have overlooked that the distinction I drew was one not of size, but of power.

I guess I just don't see how that's a meaningful distinction in this situation. Size and power are pretty obviously correlated. GP's question wasn't "Are large corporations powerful?" it was "Why aren't large (powerful) corporations given the benefit of the doubt?"

Re: Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers

#157

Post by throwlaplace »

viklove wrote: post #154
throwlaplace wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Most people are busy trying to free their children, spouse, and immediate family what you're basically saying is that most people are primarily concerned with their communities. that's true and it's not even unreasonable but what's also true is that the communities of most people in positions of power are not marginalized/precarious.

I think referring to your direct offspring as "the community" is a bit disingenuous.

i don't get your point. are the direct offspring of a wealthy person more at risk or less at risk than that wealthy person's community?

Re: Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers

#158

Post by viklove »

Pfhreak wrote: post #135
Udik wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the firings can be racist/sexist -- even if race or gender is not involved in the firing decision Uh? Can you elaborate?

Racism is the systemic discrimination against a race -- ie, there may be systems in place that cause a particular race to be disadvantaged, even if those systems aren't consciously put there by anyone. For example, post redlining, many cities still have economically depressed areas that correlate with race. The policies that caused the issue are largely gone, but the systems created by them remain. (Systems, in this…

Minor correction, racism does not have to be systemic in order to qualify as racism:

> prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior

Re: Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers

#159

Post by viklove »

throwlaplace wrote: post #157
viklove wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think referring to your direct offspring as "the community" is a bit disingenuous.

i don't get your point. are the direct offspring of a wealthy person more at risk or less at risk than that wealthy person's community?

I'm not suggesting either, just that hoarding resources for your immediate family does not sound as altruistic or venerable as hoarding resources for "your community."

Re: Amazon VP Resigns, Calls Company ‘Chickenshit’ for Firing Protesting Workers

#160

Post by throwanem »

billfruit wrote: post #152
throwanem wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is extremely strange to see soi-disant socialists fail to recognize the difference between essential traits of small businesses, and qualities contingent upon a legal regime which socialists themselves argue should be changed in ways which would largely alleviate the problems they describe. Unbinding health care from employment makes it available to everyone, whether their employer can afford a group plan or not.…

But small capitalists are a bigger problem in someways than bigger capitalists, since the difficulties their workers face are harder to be brought into public attention, because of the small localised scale of them. Large businesses have to face regularly oversight and scurutiny on a much more wider scale. So there is a strain of left-wing thought that see smaller businesses as a bigger evil that big businesses. From…

The point I'm making is that - even granting their claim, which I'm not sure I do - unionization doesn't have to work in the US tomorrow the same way it does today. Neither need benefits and worker protections.

Given that exactly these sorts of changes to the status quo are table stakes for socialist political movements including the one that's been trying to form around Bernie Sanders for half a decade or more by now, it is, again, strange to see an ostensibly socialist publication treat the status quo as immutable.

Poking around a little more, I get the sense from Jacobin's articles that they're written by the sort of, again soi-disant, socialist who can spend all day toying with highflown theories, but turns contemptuous on the instant when faced with the expectation to back up words with action, and thinks nothing of crossing a picket line when it'd be even slightly less personally convenient to do otherwise. In other words, I think they're a bunch of useless academic liberals who enjoy the cachet of calling themselves socialist but can't be bothered to do the work of earning the name.

Perhaps I'm doing Jacobin's writers an injustice, but seeing as I'm judging them by their writing, I don't think that I am.

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