Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States

>"I believe the human needs for growth and play are foundational to a happy society, and in modern society, those needs go massively unmet, and the working class is being squeezed and squeezed like never before (not to mention the workers in the global south who I would argue are exploited to an even greater extent [3])."

I believe the fundamental problem we are facing is one of over-correction with constant meddling. We simply are making more "humans" than we know what to do with or that the market can bear. Simplistically I'd say this devalues the value of our labour way more than we're comfortable occurring, but at the same time we're too uncomfortable to say that maybe we shouldn't be allowing our population to grow unchecked like this.

It's a multi-generational ponzi scheme that we are running in order to make this all work, and we're starting to see the gaps form. What we see makes us uncomfortable, but we can't describe why or form a concrete opinion against it. And goodness we definitely can't tell people that it's not their fundamental right to impose obligations on the rest of us to take care of the poor new souls they bring into this world without thinking it through.

> Is there an argument for not having Amazon as an employer in these towns?

> Why aren't they providing this alternative?

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy#Perfect_soluti...

Why are you opposed to this critique? You can offer critique without needing to provide alternatives. From your questions it sounds like you yourself are falling victim to the 'just world fallacy'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

If you have/had kids, would you be excited to hear the following story from them about their day? Probably not, yet this is exactly what's happened in marginalized communities.

From the article:

""A dozen students sat clustered at work tables inside an air-conditioned classroom, which was designed to emulate the inside of an Amazon facility. On one wall, Amazon’s giant logo grinned across a yellow and green banner. The words “CUSTOMER OBSESSION” and “DELIVER RESULTS” were painted against a corporate-style yellow backdrop. On a whiteboard, a teacher had written the words “Logistics Final Project,” and the lesson of the day was on Amazon’s “14 Leadership Principles.” Each teenager wore a company golf shirt emblazoned with the Amazon logo.

Students and staff members expressed pride in being associated with the company. Amazon partnered with the school as part of its five-year anniversary in the Inland Empire, donating $50,000 to start the pilot program, the giant sweepstakes-style Amazon check displayed prominently at the classroom entrance. The students had already taken field trips to tour the nearby Amazon warehouse."

A public high-school classroom designed to resemble an Amazon facility, with students wearing Amazon logos on their clothing as they memorize Amazon’s leadership principles (which, it is worth noting, also include “Ownership” and “Think Big,” injunctions that hold merit for readers of this magazine when imagining how we might solve the problems exemplified by Amazon). Such a relationship between the company and public goods like a high school is part of what it means to consider Amazon as “the major working-class space of suburban and exurban socialization.”

The behemoth is here, producing not only profit but people, too. That entails corporate indoctrination, social estrangement, and profound alienation from one’s labor, which is particularly meaningless as one breaks one’s body to get so many goods to people’s doors."

My wife worked at lowes for years, and they were serious about the ".5", even. they reported to the IRS that they'd sell us health insurance for $90/mo for a family plan; but then all they could actually sell to us was a $400/mo each plan; and we never did figure out that one... before her health deteriorated to the point she had to quit that job.

The problem is not the number of points but the sampling method. It should be properly randomize to be useful.

A lot of people in this thread are caught up with the term "company town". I agree this headline is poorly chosen. The article itself lacks depth.

For a better analysis of Amazon's entrenched relationship with the Inland Empire in California, check out Erika Hayasaki's writing for the NY Times Magazine: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/magazine/amazon-workers-e...