We have to remember that when we talking about giant companies we are talking about giant institutions, of a form and culture that has not existed in human history. The closest parallels common throughout human history are armies. I think that our 20th century paradigms have failed to understand and shape these institutions, each with their own trappings. Labour unionism, which was deeply rooted in man labour culture…
Amazon Must Be Stopped
71–80 of 106 posts
Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped
#72Hmm, then we also need to stop Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Dropbox, TimeWarner Cable, military industrial complex, some big oil companies, a few hedge funds, a few banks, etc. Probably might as well call it quits with this whole capitalism thing. In all seriousness though why don't any of these articles ever address the underlying issue of why this stuff happens. If you have a certain kind of economic system then so…
If by "certain kind of economic system" you mean a heavily regulated pseudo free market system, then sure. But don't try to pretend, as I think you are, that regulation isn't the important bit there and that somehow the free market is the cause of these monopolies. The systems of regulation we have today are both not very effective and also generally hugely advantage consolidation, working against the often inherent…
Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped
#73It seems as though the author has a problem with capitalism and free markets in general. Yes, let's abolish capitalism, allow some central bureau to fix prices and use its power of violence over actors who don't comply. Oh wait... it was attempted 90 years ago and it didn't work out.
Just because Marx failed to provide a solution doesn't mean he was wrong about the problem. The underpaid workers at Amazon are just a symptom of the extreme consolidation of wealth that is slowly but steadily undermining the entire basis of the type of prosperous rising-tide-lifts-all-boats capitalism that was the foundation of America's 20th century growth. We're facing real problems in the near future that neither…
There's tons more I could say on that subject but let me skip ahead to what I think the problem is in the US today in regards to worker wages. I don't think it's a problem of some inherent evil in the free market. Rather I think it's a symptom of excess regulation and taxation (and other costs) and a poor educational system, among other factors. The cost and complexity of living these days is much higher than it used to be. There are so many bills, so many taxes, and so on. The bar for a "reasonable" living is much higher these days, and much harder to obtain, with more pressures from every direction on savings and discretionary income. More so, the increasing costs combined with increasing necessity of higher education has put a lot of young workers in a financial pinch, as did the latest housing crisis. People aren't getting the skills they need to build strong careers and to have greater negotiating power. People are being discouraged away from trade schools and funneled into liberal arts colleges. People are being saddled with huge debts in exchange for skills that don't go far in the marketplace, they're discouraged or prevented from saving, they're discouraged from creating their own work (unless they're in software, which is the rare exception) by starting their own companies. All of those things were on the table for previous generations. Without them we've ended up with a generation of workers who are desperate to find and keep a job, who must rely on working for a big corporation because they need that surety of a paycheck to pay their high costs of living and their debts. We like to imagine that all these regulations and taxes have no negative consequences because they were created with the best of intentions, though that's not the case.
But every element there is amenable to improvement, without resorting to marxist wealth redistribtion. I would posit that the consolidation of wealth we have been seeing is not the cause of the problem but rather the symptom of a larger underlying problem.
Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped
#74Oh, please. This piece is silly. Amazon's ebook "monopoly" is incredibly fragile. Either Apple or Google could squash it without breaking a sweat. Microsoft, Facebook and others could too, they'd just probably sweat a bit. None of them want to. That's not an accident. It's because Amazon isn't giving them an opening by abusing either customers or suppliers. Publishers can claim otherwise, but they're not putting thei…
The problem arises when a company abuses its monopoly position or, far more commonly, when an oligopoly engages in implicit collusion. As a general rule, such situations result in the suppression of competition, which leads to higher prices and a poorer product/service for the consumer.
Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
That worked fine before the modern global economy. Now? It's the death-knell for industry in your country. Without a global government agreement you simply can't bust up megacorps like you used to- they're effectively above the law.
Why does Google hide a bunch of search results in Europe if they are above the law? It seems to me that your statement is in error.
Corporations are amoral, and so conform to local laws only because it is economically efficient to do so, not out of ideological adherence to principles of justice.
Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does Google hide a bunch of search results in Europe if they are above the law? It seems to me that your statement is in error.
Google also avoid to pay almost all the taxes it should in EU without anyone capable to stop them. The same thing is done by the others megacorps
No one can stop them (Google)? Of course they can. It's up to countries to change their tax laws if they think they are not fit for the job.
Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does Google hide a bunch of search results in Europe if they are above the law? It seems to me that your statement is in error.
As I'm sure you're aware, there is some room between "completely law abiding" and "totally above the law", where corporations find themselves quite comfortable. Corporations are amoral, and so conform to local laws only because it is economically efficient to do so, not out of ideological adherence to principles of justice.
Great, so don't write "above the law". Hyperbole is annoying and distracts from real, important discussions about these kinds of things.
Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Evolution of human culture can either be recognized as a consciously directed emergent property or it can be consciously ignored and instead directed by the unification of unspoken (but existent) belief systems of the majority. Cultural evolution isn't magic. There are properties that can be recognized for what they are and what role they play in the development of culture. I think it is disingenuous to point out the…
I disagree. I don't think " human culture can be (honestly) recognized as a consciously directed emergent property, " any more than an individuals personality can be directed. We know some things. We control some things. We can't engineer a human personality. Same goes for human culture. We can't decide to model Iraqi culture on Italian culture. We can copy some institutions, the copying is indirect. The cards will f…
This means all those side thoughts you think you ignore. When you choose to listen to analysis over intuition, but you might not consider the effect of ignoring intuition in favor of analysis, or you may even deny the existence of intuition because analysis exists. Intuition can be uniform across a population and can direct the population. I am not trying to be Freudian here, unconscious is just a word for 'thoughts you keep to yourself'.
It's all the thoughts and actions that we take that we don't tell one another about, things we may not even be aware that we are doing (like independent thinking, thinking about what other people are thinking), that can create direction within a social system.
I am not saying "engineer a human personality". I am saying "engineer yourself", and consider what that means across a collection of people when they are all engineering themselves, and happen to mutually, mentally agree on some things, but do not express this directly to one another.
Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped
#79At least for ebooks it recently occurred to me that it will probably be difficult for any ebook vendor to establish a monopoly. After all, everybody can just offer ebooks on their web site.
Hatchette and any other publisher could stop selling their books to Amazon tomorrow. You could still buy them in paper from loads of physical stores, and you could still buy their ebooks from dozens of places, including little-known and difficult-to-find resellers like Apple and Google. But if they lost, say, 40% of sales, would we call Amazon a monopoly?
I don't know. My inclination is to be pretty conservative in applying heavy-handed regulatory remedies. That's a big hammer, and it's one I'd rather not use on a whim, and right now, I think it's still far too easy to compete with Amazon on its core business for this to be an option I'm ready for. But I'm not sure how hard it would be to convince me otherwise in the future.
Re: Amazon Must Be Stopped
#80Hmm, then we also need to stop Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Dropbox, TimeWarner Cable, military industrial complex, some big oil companies, a few hedge funds, a few banks, etc. Probably might as well call it quits with this whole capitalism thing. In all seriousness though why don't any of these articles ever address the underlying issue of why this stuff happens. If you have a certain kind of economic system then so…
On a related note about the economic system have a look at this: http://www.upworthy.com/9-out-of-10-americans-are-completely... This is what happens when wealth accumulates at the top of the pyramid. The video is talking about people, but those people are those behind the companies you mentioned (including Google, Facebook, hedge funds and oil companies). The problem with capitalism in my opinion, is that it's not t…
9 Out Of 10 Americans Are Completely Wrong About This Mind-Blowing Fact
Was Upworthy really the best source for this? The transcript is very nearly useless.Furthermore, 'true' captalism with a truly free market is quite unrealistic, since it would require all participants to be effectively omniscient and infinitely rational (and even then you would have to compare it to 'true' communism, where no one is ever selfish or lazy)