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Comment by avnfish | Hacker News Reader

Say what you want about Amazon as a company, Jeff was a world-class operator and (relatively) drama free for 27 years.

I'm still holding out for a 'big reveal' on his vision for the 2nd half of his career - hopefully more than just an egotistical space race. The world is depending on him given his outsized influence and wealth.

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“World class operator” while employees pee in bottles on the warehouse floor to meet quotas. That’s not a world class operator, that’s a world class tyrant.

People act like peeing in bottles is so bad. I really don't get it. Have you never peed in a bottle? Like they have access to toilets for #2 which is great.

Ask anyone doing carpet cleaning or another home based trade. Where do you think they pee and poo? They dont do it in the clients home. They go in a bottle or into a bucket in the back of their van.

I’m focusing on peeing in a bottle because I think it’s particularly dehumanizing and humiliating part of amazon’s horrible labour practices.

And for the record, if you’re doing a job in my house, you can use my toilet. Whatever social stigmas there are around contractors and cleaners using the house toilet - those are the same classist and toxic forces that let people justify dehumanizing work.

> Ask anyone doing carpet cleaning or another home based trade. Where do you think they pee and poo?

Any time I have contractors working at my house, they use my bathroom like a human being.

What dystopian hellhole are you advocating for here?

I think (and hope) OP was being sarcastic

Depends on who you ask, I guess. A large portion of our class has certainly moved to idolizing the owner/leader, rather than cheering for the laborer. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

"It's going to get worse before it gets better"

Things seem to be just getting worse and worse. When does it get better, huh? I'm still waiting.

Well, again that depends on your political stance. Some argue for reform, others for revolution, and yet others argue for some type of technological progress that could "solve things."

I think history shows that being passive seldom gives you any rewards, when looking at people grouped by ethnicity, class, gender, etc. No matter what you think of the worker's movements, they did produce unions that did bring huge benefits like vacation, paid parental leave, etc. Especially in Europe. This is an example of being "active" as a group towards another group, and then reaping some benefits from that.

I think we have seen a huge decline in activity from workers as a group, and an equal push of activity from big companies. Couple that with hugely increased globalization etc, and you soon get large factories where people piss in jugs while hoping to not get caught emptying their bladder without registering for taking a break, and it is going to get worse until some group actively decides to do something about this.

We shouldn’t be depending on people that ruthlessly exploit others to gain their wealth. We should be shunning them.

> Say what you want about Amazon as a company, Jeff was a world-class operator

If you're admitting critique of Amazon, you're admitting critique of Jeff Bezos. He could try to make it a great company for all stakeholders, instead we got abnoxious near monopoly that pushed out smaller retailers and lowered standards in all kinds of ways. Employees get shitty working conditions laced with work-harder propaganda, buyers have to use a shitty website with real products mixed with shitty fake products with faked reviews.

> The world is depending on him given his outsized influence and wealth.

Bernie Sanders had a great response in a town forum where the panelist was trying to get him to acknowledge how grateful we should be for billionaires and their helping hand during the pandemic. What he said was, he thinks it is great that they (billionaires) are doing charity work, but the fact is, for a nation as rich as the United States, being thankful for billionaire hand outs is ridiculous.

We (developed nations) honestly shouldn't be in a situation where we rely on billionaires to prosper and be excited about it.

I guess he’s “drama free” in the same sense that Putin’s drama free. Not much room for drama when your average worker is too scared to speak up and anyone attempting to push back on inhumane conditions finds themselves fired before they even mange to speak to more than a dozen coworkers.

This is the problem of capitalism. The unrealistic reliance on benevolent billionaires to do what's best for society, and not what's in their own best interest to the detriment of society.

I see this less as an intrinsic problem with capitalism, and more of a failure for our government to do its job, protect citizens and enforce healthy boundaries in society. Instead we have sweetheart deals and tax breaks.

I think it is intrinsic. Capital is just code for "power and control", the more money and capital you gain, the more persuasive power you have on everyone, including the government that should be regulating your behavior to the benefit of the people, and not specific corporate interests.

Nope, capital just means money.

Maybe it brings power and control, maybe it doesn’t. The two are not intrinsically linked.

There are people far more poor, and far more powerful than me in our current system.

In a system where you need money to survive, you inherently gain more power and more control with the more money you have.

Maybe these people have more "social capital" than you, but that doesn't go far if you can't survive.

The desperation economy is designed to keep a lot of monkeys dancing for peanuts.

On this, we agree.

There is not a "problem of capitalism" at all. There is no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water. Capitalism if by far the best tool the world has ever seen for lifting massive amounts of people out of poverty and giving people the most amount of freedom. PERIOD. All other forms of government are more tyrannical and more corrupt than capitalism, without exception. You can absolutely have capitalism and a higher/better functioning government. Fist stop spending INSANE amounts of the budget on the military and "defense", instead spend it on helping your own people. Second, institute a VAT and an UBI. Third, actually support capitalism by updating and enforcing anti-trust laws. Problem solved.

I don't think I was prescribing throwing it all out, but implementing UBI or needing heavy antitrust laws to enforce behavior suggests capitalism alone is not a solution by itself, it must be heavily regulated, and maybe supplemented with socialist/welfare policies. The problem is that capitalism often leads to regulatory capture, so we're left with crony capitalism.

> Fist stop spending INSANE amounts of the budget on the military and "defense", instead spend it on helping your own people.

Take a step back here. Why do you think a government ends up spending insane amounts of the budget on the military? Where do you think that money goes?

What you're seeing is the result of giant capitalist corporations producing weapons, logistics, etc. that have enough power to parasitize the government.

You can argue that it's a failure of government that it is able to be captured, or a failure of capitalism (or corporatism) that it does so. I don't find either argument particularly illuminating.

I think a better way to look at it is that we live in a capitalism+democratic system and that combined system clearly has some significant structural flaws. If we don't look at our government and private sector systems holistically and fix those flaws relatively soon, we won't have to, because they will have made the world uninhabitable for most humans.

>Why do you think a government ends up spending insane amounts of the budget on the military?

Honestly? To maintain the value of our currency. The threat of Countries (looking at you Saudi Arabia) bailing on the so called "petro dollar" have caused our leaders to make terrible choices (like bombing the hell out of Yemen for decades). We are so scared of what would happen to our currency if the petro dollar went away we are basically a mercenary force to foreign countries.

> What you're seeing is the result of giant capitalist corporations producing weapons, logistics, etc. that have enough power to parasitize the government.

This is the symptom, not the disease. The problem isn't "giant capitalists" are producing weapons, it is that a market even exits for them.

>I think a better way to look at it is that we live in a capitalism+democratic system and that combined system clearly has some significant structural flaws. If we don't look at our government and private sector systems holistically and fix those flaws relatively soon, we won't have to, because they will have made the world uninhabitable for most humans.

I agree wit you on this.

You might be Interested in re reading about the 2018 congressional report on costs. There are a few HN articles on the topic. Here is an article to get started.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/201...

>You can argue that it's a failure of government that it is able to be captured, or a failure of capitalism (or corporatism) that it does so. I don't find either argument particularly illuminating.

I couldn't agree with more and as a libertarian leaning centrist I wish I could blast this into every voter's mind.

As long as we have a corporate capture of the government, increased intervention and micromanagement of private markets will only exacerbate the problem (via regulatory capture, too big to fail, command economy, ect). There is no workable alternative to capitalism, but there is clear alternative to corrupt government.

Every problem with the system has a simple market solution which could be implemented with a government less susceptible to corporate influence.

Military budget too large > pass lower spending bills

Healthcare too expensive > allow Medicare to set prices based on health benefit.

Climate change > require goods & corporations to include costs of carbon remediation

As long as corporations exist, they will have incentives misaligned with the general public. Aligning corporate interest with that of society is impossible, so the only solution is to firewall government

You're conflating capitalism with systems of governance. As such, it is extremely difficult to untangle your argument. Can we please get a re-do?

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