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Comment by asdkhadsj | Hacker News Reader

I hate this. The implication that companies should have any moral behavior here just enables immoral behavior.

There is no dick move here. The only reason you call it that is because we have a society (America) built to give almost no support system to workers if they lose their jobs. The company isn't in the wrong for failing to pay users. Our societal structure is. Our lack of social safety nets, and communally focused behavior is.

We set up a system prone to Americans getting screwed, and then are annoyed when companies screw them? This is our mess. We need to fix it, and not try to pretend companies should be moral. Doing so will only allow them to be immoral and hurt workers.

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I completely agree with what you said. One important consideration is how companies like Uber have contributed to a lack of support for workers who are laid off. Uber in particular has failed to pay billions of dollars into states' unemployment insurance funds.

https://www.kqed.org/news/11812496/uber-and-lyft-arent-payin...

Large companies have outsized impact on influence public policy, using bribery aka lobbying. Collectively, billions are spent yearly to influence lawmakers.

The idea that large companies "just exist" in this system and abide by its rules strikes me as naive. In many cases, companies are making the policies themselves through lobbying efforts. They also influence governing agencies that are supposed to police them. It's called regulatory capture and it's a well established phenomenon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

So back to this:

> We set up a system prone to Americans getting screwed, and then are annoyed when companies screw them

When the companies are the ones advocating for policies that screw workers and stop lawmakers from creating proper protections, yes, annoyance is a mild way of putting it.

> bribery aka lobbying

Nope. Lobbying is simply petitioning the government to do things. It can be used for good or evil. All that privacy legislation people like is a result of lobbying by pro-privacy organizations, for example.

Also a naive take. The idea that lobbyist contribute campaign donations and then magically get policy out of it is plainly obvious for anyone to see. In theory, yes. In practice, lobbying is institutionalized bribery for those with money to influence the government. Sure, anyone can "lobby" the government but the reality is that money walks and talks. If privacy groups got what they wanted, it's because they too donated to said elected officials.

Like I mean, come on: https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-recipients

You could argue that the primary purpose of government over the last few centuries has been to support corporations. Many of the instigators of the American revolution were merchants who didn't want to compete with low prices from British importers.

I agree with you, but that's sort of a side topic to my main complaint. The objection I had was applying moral standards to a company.

> Large companies have outsized impact on influence public policy, using bribery aka lobbying. Collectively, billions are spent yearly to influence lawmakers.

Agreed entirely. But the objection wasn't about the root cause for the society system we have. My complaint was about using a moral argument as to why a company should spend their money to provide a social safety net for its workers.

Trusting companies to do the right thing is, at the root, why we are where we are. Companies lobbied for freedoms and the public agreed with it, in the sense that we largely ignored it. We can't be angry at companies for not acting moral. They're working within the freedoms that we allowed them.

But again, I'm not arguing the root cause or anything. Just merely saying that if our only tool in this "fight" is a moral finger wagging, oh boy oh boy will we be in for a quick loss.

> Companies lobbied for freedoms and the public agreed with it...They're working within the freedoms that we allowed them.

This is the part of the argument I'm contesting. I'm not convinced that the public went along with it because companies put forth a well reasoned argument. It's not that we agreed to it, more so that they rigged the system in their favor, despite the opinions of the people.

I think if you poll most Americans, they wouldn't agree that Wal Mart can pay minimum wage and also have employees on food stamps. Or that CEOs should get paid x50 the average worker salary. Or that Amazon should be able to fire employees for trying to unionize. Or that coal mines can dump toxic waste in rivers.

There's actually a huge list of things companies do that are against what many Americans believe, and yet they still get their way. That's my point. The power balance is truly in the favor of the corporate elite. I'm really not sure how much we're letting them do anything, and how much they're just rigging the system the way they want it.

> I think if you poll most Americans,

Well that's my contention, that the opinion of Americans only matters as far as they're willing to act.

Americans are pushovers, and if they're not willing to do anything other than share their opinions, what good are their opinions?

It would be like if a Union refused to strike, how much "power" would they actually have? The power of a Union is in the coordinated action of the people, not of the coordinated opinion. Likewise, if Americans refuse to act on this, why would they be listened to?

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