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Comment by thrwn_frthr_awy | Hacker News Reader

And if a city needs more money for infrastructure/schools/parks/whatever the citizens value, then that is what taxes are for. At least with taxes you aren't fleeced by private corporation along with way.

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> At least with taxes you aren't fleeced by private corporation along with way.

Care to tell that to Amazon or Wal-Mart?

Being upset they reinvested their own money into the company shouldn't be a downside.

I'm sorry. I don't think I understand this comment. Can you clarify?

It's just a potshot at amazon and walmart. Their misdeeds are totally tangential to whether or not a city does the upstanding thing (raises taxes with approval or tightens its belt if it can't get approval) or the unethical thing (extracting more money from residents and people who pass through in the form of fees for services and fines for petty violations of civil law).

I think they're referring to the reported costs of social programs used by WalMart and Amazon workers because they average pay is so low.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-...

https://newrepublic.com/article/146540/amazon-thriving-thank...

The implicit premise of such arguments is that every WalMart (etc.) worker receiving benefits; would be employed at a party disqualifying them from public benefits if not for their present employer.

This is quite implausible, of course, which is why it's never explicitly argued, but the entire criticism falls apart without that assumption.

Why does every employer pay poverty wages and what can one of the biggest (or biggest) private employers in America do about it?

It's interesting you take the position that Walmart is helpless to pay its workers more, as if they were some mom and pop operation.

It’s interesting you take the position that Walmart should irrationally pay more when their current workforce is clearly fine with the arrangement.

I've always found it to be an odd displacement of responsibility. If somebody doesn't have the resources they need to live, it's our collective ethical responsibility to provide a resource floor. Walmart et al don't magically gain ethical responsibility for providing this floor just because they purchase someone's labor, in the same way that buying a dresser from someone off of Craigslist doesn't make you responsible for making the seller has enough income overall. It's difficult for me to see this view as anything but a desperate ploy to abdicate direct responsibility for taking care of the neediest and foist it off on some perceived other

I think it's more of a remnant of a primary-employer-as-patron model of thinking that still permeates much of modern society as something of an echo of feudal social relations than a “desperare ploy” to do anything, but otherwise I agree with your characterization of it as a displacement of social responsibility onto a private actor that is both poorly positioned to carry it out (in that any greater effort of them to do so to their employees would probably reduce the number of employees and increase the total unmet social burden) and lacking incentive to do so.

> I think it's more of a remnant of a primary-employer-as-patron model of thinking that still permeates much of modern society as something of an echo of feudal social relations

As always, I'm never sure which side of Hanlon's Razor to fall on, since the level of stupidity and the level of malice required for either explanation are off the charts

> Why does every employer pay poverty wages

Most employers of relatively unskilled labor pay poverty wages because they can get the labor they are seeking at that price, and they haven't identified ways to get sufficiently better returns paying more to justify higher pay.

> and what can one of the biggest (or biggest) private employers in America do about it?

Why should they?

I'd rather just tax capital earnings as income, tax high-end income more, and fund a UBI than expect employers to act irrationally as public benefit agencies.

Sure. Let's consider a company that claims to reinvest in itself and ends up with a lower tax liability as a result. Every big company does this, but I'll admit that I like to pick on Amazon and Wal-Mart.

I think being able to reinvest profits into your own company is a great thing to be able to do. But I don't believe it's ethical to pay people little in order to reinvest in your own company and certainly not without the input of the workers affected. When Amazon's own workers are unable to do the very same thing -- reinvesting their own profits into themselves -- then Amazon's workers are certainly fleeced by a private corporation along the way.

Low wages are just the starting point here; any member of a community which is receiving less than a living wage also needs support from the community. Sometimes that support comes from friends and family or churches. Often it comes directly from your tax money.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing to send my tax money to help people though. I'm absolutely saying that I shouldn't have to. Large corporations reap millions and billions from their own employees. Why, exactly, is it fair that they should profit at the expense of the actual real humans doing their work?

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I appreciate it.

I think I understand what you are saying, but let me make sure. Are you saying you think corporate tax should be funding people in need and not personal tax (whether it property, sales, income, etc.)? To be honest, in my original comment I didn't really think about where the tax should come from, but I think I do agree with you. I do think something like a universal income could allow corporations more freedom as they'd be freed from the burden of feeding, clothing, housing, and healing an entire nation.

Why should the tax source be distinct? In my state of Texas, for example, there is no personal income; there is sales tax but that's more for corporate accounting than personal accounting. That leaves corporate taxes (and unreliably, fines) to pay for the state's budget. So then companies which engage in practices to minimize their tax risk avoid paying even that.

While I think a universal income is a laudable goal, I do not think our economy is automated enough to support it.

You don't think corporations should share the burden of feeding, clothing, housing, and healing the nation in which it reaps its profits?

> In my state of Texas, for example, there is no personal income

I see. I live in an heavy income tax state, so I think that is why my mind went there initially.

> You don't think corporations should share the burden of feeding, clothing, housing, and healing the nation in which it reaps its profits?

Oh I do, I just don't want those things connected to employment. I am not comfortable with the current coupling of health care and employment, but corporations paying adequate taxes to fund these services offered to all I'm all for.

Thanks for the reasonable conversation, by the way. This thread has helped me learned more and think about different viewpoints on this topic.

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