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Comment by patrickaljord | Hacker News Reader

> Your stance is based purely on the opinion that there are more than enough jobs for everyone, and everyone has a choice.

Not at all. I wrote that the alternative would be living on welfare with no prospects and no opportunities to learn skills. Amazon is offering a real job instead.

> Do you think Foxconn are great for the same reasons?

Yes, they are. They offer wages way higher than the medium salary in China. Why do you think everybody wants to work for them? Nobody is being forced to work there. The alternative would be having no jobs at all. Socialists want to impose very high minimum wages, but the reality is that very high minimum wages imposed by law just creates more unemployment and more misery, the very thing socialists are supposed to oppose but keep creating everywhere they get power.

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I would wager you have no idea what it means to be in a situation where the employer has all the cards and they will offer you a wage that is just high enough to keep you alive so you can come in the next day.

Amazon is a great business but a shitty employer. Not to mention it's almost impossible for a unskilled worker to learn some skills that would make him a more valuable employee. They are reluctant to even hire them permanently not to mention giving them a chance to progress.

It's easy to say that in your position, you have options, not everybody does and may or may not have anything to do with the skill that person has.

I come from a place where it's impossible to get a decent wage whatever your skill level the only way to survive is to do shady stuff or open your own business which more likely then not will have to do some shady accounting in order to survive.

it's almost impossible for a unskilled worker to learn some skills that would make him a more valuable employee.

Any job experience is a step up from none. By keeping your eyes and ears open you can learn a lot and if you can demonstrate that by having a coherent conversation about warehouse operations or shipping logistics with another employer you might find yourself with better job prospects eventually.

Which place is that? How does shady accounting help the business/owner survive? By evading taxes?

Obliviously. When taxes are unreasonable that's your only option.

And such conditions are created by coercive and socialist governments, not companies like Amazon.

That's where you're wrong. There's one thing that amazon and socialist governments have in common.

They don't give a st about the people.

The government doesn't need to be socialist either it can be a perfectly democratic government that doesn't do anything for its citizens interest and the result would be the same.

Agree with you - they don't give a st about people. But a major difference is that with Amazon (or any company) you have a choice - don't shop with them, don't work for them, convince others to do the same, document their bad-behavior etc.

With a government, there is no alternative choice. And typically socialist governments tend to swing towards totalitarianism as well, depriving their citizens of many other rights and freedoms.

"Nobody is being forced to work there"

That might not be entirely in accord with actual facts. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/technology/foxconn-said-to... http://kotaku.com/report-college-students-forced-to-make-pla... http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/15/forced-student-labor-i...

I wrote that the alternative would be living on welfare with no prospects and no opportunities to learn skills.

Sounds pretty good.

Amazon is offering a real job instead.

As compared to what, a fake job? What does "real" add in this context, except dragging in a needless comparison to posturing sentences like "a real man never calls an ambulance". "Real" translating to hard work for low pay?

Libertarians, the Dr. Seuss crowd of the economic world.

Wacky and wisdom-filled?

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