I worked for an Amazon fulfilment centre in Scotland, I don't want to say too much on the matter, as it'd be quite negative. It's suffice to say, this does not surprise me in the slightest.
Shouldn't the workers of Scotland, if they have the ear of their fellow countrymen, move to change the legal and social structure in which Amazon is only one of many members? What about the company that behaves cruely but isn't big enough to reach the news like Amazon does?
This is why I don't have faith in moral narratives.
Scotland is quite a bit more liberal than the rest of the UK; it does indeed see more of its future in the social democracies of northern Europe.
When it comes to regulation of the labour market, Scotland is decidedly less liberal than England.
My point was simply that this is an illiberal position. Liberal only means "economically statist" in America. Everywhere else in the world it still means classically liberal - i.e. in favour of free markets.
Again, I don't think I'm making this discussion any better by pointing this out, so I'm going to leave it there.
As an example, a Scot would never say "The government increased the minimum wage today, that was very liberal of them."
It's my hope that people in the USA will eventually go back to using the word "liberal" in the classic sense. But then, I keep hoping people in the USA will adopt the metric system, and I am always disappointed.
And whether Scotland becomes independent, my point remains -- you can ask why Amazon pays minimum wage, or you can ask why minimum wage is so low.
Depending on Amazon to be moral is as inadequate a solution as hoping for noblesse oblige. It's more interesting to discuss the <mechanics> of why Amazon class entities will pay higher wages.
Or people can morally shame <one> Amazon event, just like people who disagreed with Peter Thiel's influence in the sex tape case instinctually shame <one> Peter Thiel event. Whether you're asking for Amazon or Peter Thiel to "do the right thing", you're asking for noblesse oblige.
This kind of moral shaming does not scale, it depends on flash outrage, and companies that play the long game in media will beat this kind of ad-hoc moral shaming.
I also wanted to discuss not merely government structure, but also social structure, to imply that multiple parties need to fail for classes of workers to be exploited. The net of your society is the reason why Amazon is permitted to exploit an individual, and that includes churches, advocacy organizations, unions, etc.
I thought that discussion of both hard and soft structures is the better way to go, or we can hope that outrage continues to shows up at the right time and the right place.
Should we discuss whether you have the moral right to water, or should we discuss the formal plans to erect an infrastructure of water?
The latter doesn't require you to do any serious moral labor (deliberation and consensus work). You need only want. Do we both want something? Then we already have a basis for discussion. The question of whether you want workers to be paid more is far easier to answer than the question of whether moral consensus on workers wages can be achieved in your lifespan.
Also, how many moral frameworks for achieving moral consensus are you aware of? There are certainly frameworks for achieving empirical consensus on policy effectiveness.
The person has a house and could already commute from far out, they chose not to.