So we are back to the 19th century ? Will they have their own money only usable there and pay their local employees with it too ? /s
19th century?
This smells more of medieval style feudalism.
Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States
11–20 of 271 posts
Re: Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States
#12So we are back to the 19th century ? Will they have their own money only usable there and pay their local employees with it too ? /s
Company towns aren't that rare. Here's an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_City,_Pennsylvania
Though according to that article the actual Ford plants have been closed for years.
Re: Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States
#13The article seems to contain nothing that would qualify for the words "Company Town". It appears to boil down "look amazon is big, surely it means that it must be evil!".
Re: Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States
#14The article seems to contain nothing that would qualify for the words "Company Town". It appears to boil down "look amazon is big, surely it means that it must be evil!".
Of course, it's published on Jacobin.
Re: Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States
#15So we are back to the 19th century ? Will they have their own money only usable there and pay their local employees with it too ? /s
19th century? This smells more of medieval style feudalism.
From a peon^Wworker's point of view, there may not be much of a difference between a medieval fiefdom and a 19th century company town. The term "robber baron" is apt.
Re: Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States
#16So we are back to the 19th century ? Will they have their own money only usable there and pay their local employees with it too ? /s
19th century? This smells more of medieval style feudalism.
In the UK, there's a great example of a late-19C/early 20C "model village", called Bournville, created by the Cadbury family to house workers for its factory. It was quite visionary in its day, and remains highly desirable.
Re: Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States
#17The article seems to contain nothing that would qualify for the words "Company Town". It appears to boil down "look amazon is big, surely it means that it must be evil!".
> The article seems to contain nothing that would qualify for the words "Company Town". It appears to boil down "look amazon is big, surely it means that it must be evil!".
I guess this is the difference between a literal v. figurative interpretation of the title. The article itself is speaking to Amazon's efforts to sustain its hiring pipeline in the face of colossal churn, describing activities such as sponsoring secondary schools while installing their own branding as a condition of sponsorship.
> > 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.”
Further (and quite interesting) reading on the concept of a company town: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town
Re: Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States
#18So we are back to the 19th century ? Will they have their own money only usable there and pay their local employees with it too ? /s
They can use any money they want, but if they choose to use PrimeDollars (tm), they will earn a 5% discount and free shipping on all purchases!
Re: Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States
#19The article seems to contain nothing that would qualify for the words "Company Town". It appears to boil down "look amazon is big, surely it means that it must be evil!".
Even the phrase "company town" itself does not signify anything evil. In fact I'm wondering if such a place might be better than the usual government administered cities and towns.
Re: Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States
#20> the warehouse worker is neither seen nor heard by the customer; at least at Walmart, you go to a store and you see the workers — you know they exist.
This made me think of the movie 'The Island' where in one scene, somewhere in the beginning of the movie, they show us the work our protagonists do in their community. There are tubes coming out of the wall on one side of the room and out the other; tubes which have a flowing liquid inside which the protagonists and their friends are trained to perform an action on, which is essential for some kind of process.
Only later do we find out the awful purpose of these tubes.
There is an increasing level of alienation that is hard to describe to anyone who has been lucky enough to be a labor aristocrat for most of their lives. I honestly think everyone around us is capable of so much more. Our current system, through Intellectual Property types such as copyrights and trade secrets, has made it hard to ascend 'intellectual ladders' because the intellectual ladders used by those in power have kicked them away (after they were used by them). In other words: there is a lack of diversity of methods and approaches and opportunities due to the commodification and privatization of knowledge (i.e. technology and science overall). [1],[2]
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]).
It's also ironic that Amazon calls their production facilities 'Fulfillment Centers', because the most important people they do not create 'fulfillment' for are their workers... you know, the people who are actually creating all the value:
> If class is a social relation and the working class is made and remade daily, that formation is increasingly happening inside the massive structures that house Amazon’s warehouses, where workers face capital embodied in the whir of machinery and barking managers and the beeps of the scanner in their hands, prodding them to pick up the pace. It is happening in the parking lots outside, where people smoke and linger and chat and dread.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25753856
[2] https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/01/abolish-silicon-valley
[3] https://anti-imperialism.org/2012/09/18/understanding-and-ch...