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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

#161

Post by rexpop »

bawana wrote: post #25

Why does big always become evil?

This is a false premise. There is plenty of horrific abuse happening in small businesses, and at the local level. There are murders, rapes, and an endless stream of violations by management of their underlings. Evil exists at all scales.

However, the codification of certain motives–such as the alienating profit motive–encourages the otherwise less abusively included to collude in the ultimately exploitative program of their institution. The whole institution, then, resonates with this taint in outsiders' minds.

So, it's not that big always becomes evil, it's that "the bigger it is, the more likely you, u/bawana, will have heard of it."

Don't hesitate to read up on the ubiquity of "evil". I can get you started:

0. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/224552.Why_Does_He_Do_Th...

1. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17601.The_Will_to_Change

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

#162

Post by pxc »

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.

tl;dr:

critiques of small business aim to reject the following dilemma as false,

> The alternative [to monopolists and global megacorporations]? Small business.

rather than to promote big business.

In the USA, the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls any business with 500 employees or fewer a ‘small business’, and it's usually something like that which gets translated into policy. Not all that small, imo.

But absolutely people valorize small businesses in a way that elides the fact that what makes businesses exploitative is (contra this former Amazon VP) inherent in wage relations, and smaller employers are still operating under those relations. Because small businesses are romanticized and valorized as they are in their culture, the language of ‘promoting small businesses’ is often used to give cover for massive corporate giveaways on the part of the government. These are [common](https://inthesetimes.com/article/22412/outrageous-corporate-...) [lines](https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/07/can-business-of-any-s...) of [socialist (this piece has some of the exact language of the grandparent poster)](https://jacobinmag.com/2018/01/small-businesses-workers-wage...) [critique (see Morales on free trade here)](https://inthesetimes.com/article/22412/outrageous-corporate-...).

Generally, calls to treat ‘small business’ with greater scrutiny come from an anti-capitalist (or at least ‘capitalism-critical’, if you will) perspective, and are not motivated by some belief that monopolies or anti-competitive cabals are actually preferable to larger numbers of smaller, weaker, relatively competitive corporations. But there's a sense that the critique should go deeper than ‘big business bad, small business good’— which imo is pretty commonly distilled in a lot of mainstream political rhetoric— and raise questions of worker ownership, decommodification (e.g., of healthcare), the role of public enterprises, etc.

Advising skepticism toward the valor of small businesses also doesn't negate the fact that promoting small business _can_ be [beneficial or strategic for society as a whole](https://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/22385/coronavirus-wor...) in particular circumstances! But I sympathize with the grandparent poster's general sentiment; I feel like on the whole it's called for.

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

#163

Post by throwanem »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #156
throwanem wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?"

Phrasing the question in terms of size makes it easy to ignore the power differential, and ignoring the power differential is the only way that question seems to make sense.

The first rule of firearms safety is that the gun is always loaded, because any other assumption will far too easily betray you into deadly error. The first rule of electrical safety is that you always keep one hand behind your back, because it only takes a few milliseconds for a cross-body current to stop your heart. Economic power, similarly concentrated, is differently risky, but not less so. Some things - no matter how useful they may be when properly handled - are simply too dangerous to ever be trusted.

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

#164

Post by ethanwillis »

runawaybottle wrote: post #140
ethanwillis wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just capitalism. It's actually any society that is wholly reliant on subjugating individuals to produce goods and services for society.

People often gloss over the overwhelming theme in human history of work being extracted with ruthless optimization. The pyramids got built for free, so did America, that whole Serf system, kids used to work, Colonization, and I think there’s people half way across the world making things for a few cents an hour as we speak. If you want to know what’s happening, then just look at what already happened. War, technologi…

Yep! Didn't mean to imply that there's necessarily any significant period where this wasn't happening. The opposite actually.

When we organize into groups this is what happens.

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

#165

Post by rukittenme »

Pfhreak wrote: post #150
rukittenme wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's convinced himself that a contentious (re: Clarence Thomas and crew) legal precedent is actually a moral, philosophical, or logical position to hold. Disparate impact is a matter of practicality. It isn't how a person should base their life or interactions with other human beings.

I'm not sure what you are saying? I don't know what Clarence Thomas has to do with this, and "he" is incorrect as well if you are referring to me.

I am but more broadly the movement toward legalism and the ad-hoc justifications wrapped around it.

Cutting to the chase... You have been describing disparate impact as a philosophical principle in and of itself. Whereas, in reality, disparate impact exists as a matter of political expediency. Its not a doctrine that should be adopted. Its one that may be necessary to adopt when real intentions and real motives are concealed.

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

#166

Post by billfruit »

throwanem wrote: post #160
billfruit wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 no…

Well, would Marx have joined a picket line? I don't think that joining picket lines suffices as the main credential on speaking on socialism.

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

#167

Post by rjtavares »

Mirioron wrote: post #106
Pfhreak wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the firings disproportionately or systemically impact races or genders, the firings can be racist/sexist -- even if race or gender is not involved in the firing decision. Racism and discrimination are related but separate concepts.

This doesn't follow at all though. Racism and discrimination require intent. If race and sex have noting to do with the firing decision then it's not racist or sexist. It doesn't matter what the outcomes are. You can obviously make the case that if the stats are too biased to one side that there is racism/sexism involved in the decision, but that's a different matter. If you shut down a factory in China because it do…

Here's an article recommendation: How to make a racist AI without really trying

https://blog.conceptnet.io/posts/2017/how-to-make-a-racist-a...

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

#168

Post by throwanem »

billfruit wrote: post #166
throwanem wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 no…

Well, would Marx have joined a picket line? I don't think that joining picket lines suffices as the main credential on speaking on socialism.

I said 'cross', not 'join'. What I mean by it is, I don't get the sense these people, unless they knew someone was watching, would inconvenience themselves by refusing to give their custom to a business whose workers were striking.

Whether that qualifies as a "credential for speaking on socialism", I can't properly say. But I'm not inclined to listen to anyone speaking on socialism who I don't even trust to not cross a line.

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

#169

Post by hcarvalhoalves »

bawana wrote: post #25

Why does big always become evil?

I think larger companies attract and depend on “yes people” to function. If everybody questioned everything, nothing would get done due to the increased coordination cost. In turn, that’s the kind of organization capable of executing on hard/amoral decisions, whereas a smaller company would probably just implode as critical people disagree and leave.

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

#170

Post by throwaway894345 »

brenden2 wrote: post #126
throwaway894345 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yeah, the propaganda has been super effective.

I don’t understand your comment in the context of this thread.
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