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Amazon doesn't offer jobs to help people. It offers jobs because it sees an opportunity to make money. Homeless people are probably cheaper than other workers,

by biomene 11y ago

Amazon doesn't offer jobs to help people. It offers jobs because it sees an opportunity to make money. Homeless people are probably cheaper than other workers, and are probably just as productive, thanks to Amazon's discipline enforcing measures.[1] --- [1] This article has a pretty decent write-up of what it's like to work for Amazon: https://angryworkersworld.wordpress.com/2015/12/20/welcome-to-the-jungle-working-and-struggling-in-amazon-warehouses/ https://angryworkersworld.wordpress.com/2015/12/20/welcome-t...

cbd1984 11y ago
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." — Adam Smith Of course, he also said: "No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged."
- roymurdock 11y ago
  Sorry, I meant to upvote you but the mobile layout foiled me once again.
FussyZeus 11y ago
But it is work, to those who would otherwise not have any. It's very easy to say "you shouldn't work there, that job is terrible" when you're not the one spending nights in a park.
- biomene 11y ago
  I think that what you are saying is that these people are so miserable that they have no other choice but to take the rare jobs that they are offered, no matter how terrible. If so, I totally agree with you. I would just like to take a moment to wonder at the shitness of our world where the best we can do for those who have been deprived of everything is to ask them to break their backs so the extravagantly wealthy can make a bit more money.
  - FussyZeus 11y ago
    > I think that what you are saying is that these people are so miserable that they have no other choice but to take the rare jobs that they are offered, no matter how terrible. If so, I totally agree with you. I would say they're in such need as they would take any job offered them, misery notwithstanding, but you're 80% with me yes. > I would just like to take a moment to wonder at the shitness of our world where the best we can do for those who have been deprived of everything is to ask them to break their backs so the extravagantly wealthy can make a bit more money. I kind of agree with you here. I don't think Bezos is up in his office masturbating vigorously to camera footage of homeless people walking into Amazon warehouses to work. He's not hiring them because he wants to make money, in all likelihood most of them will need a fair bit more training than regular blue collar workers who are between jobs or people looking to earn some extra money, and I'm also willing to bet that a homeless person would be fairly less reliable in terms of showing up for their shifts on time if only for the fact that they literally have nothing including a car. Amazon probably does want to help, and they want to enough that they're willing to overlook the problems that come with hiring homeless people. Now we can argue all day about how Amazon could afford to put those people in 5 star hotels for the entire Christmas season and it probably wouldn't hurt them, but that's not the point. They're a company, not a charity. They don't need to hire these people at all if they don't want to (and if they didn't, no one would even be arguing about this in the first place) so forgive me if I'm not willing to throw them under the bus for at least trying to help.
    - biomene 11y ago
      > so forgive me if I'm not willing to throw them under the bus for at least trying to help It's not Amazon I want to throw under the bus. They did what any rational player would do in their situation. What I want to throw under the bus is the situation itself, aka, how we organise our world.
  - Pyxl101 11y ago
    > ask them to break their backs so the extravagantly wealthy can make a bit more money That's a very hostile way to describe working a warehouse job. Offering someone a job is not asking them to break their back. Working for an employer has nothing to do with the extravagantly wealthy. All companies need employees, and companies are valuable because they serve their customers. You could equally say "break their back so random Internet consumers get their products", or "Burger King / WalMart employees break their backs so you get a cheap cheeseburger / grocery product". Working a job tends to make people better off, and offering someone a job they didn't have before is giving them a new option. We can wish for a world where even better jobs were available, but wishing doesn't make it so. It's strictly better for the homeless to have one more job opportunity, than one fewer. You can wish there were even better opportunities, but are you prepared to provide them yourself? Or is this your position: "I'm not going to do anything about it myself, but I'm going to criticize those who do something positive, even if it's just providing a low value opportunity. Someone should provide a better opportunity than that, but I won't be the one to do it." By demonizing companies that offer jobs to poor people or the homeless, you're committing the fallacy called the Copenhagen Interpreation of Ethics. http://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/ http://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethi...
true_religion 11y ago
What it were proved that Amazon was offering jobs to the homeless at the exact same rate and conditions that it offered to all its seasonal workers, thereby not treating the homeless any worse than others. Then what? To me it would indicate that the motivation behind proposing jobs for homeless, which is usually a barrier to other employers, would be a benevolent one. They basically said they will not bias against employment based on your housing situation. All things being equal, this is a good thing.
- biomene 11y ago
  > What it were proved that Amazon was offering jobs to the homeless at the exact same rate and conditions that it offered to all its seasonal workers, thereby not treating the homeless any worse than others The reason Amazon hires any worker, homeless or not, is to extract a profit from their work. It's entirely possible that it offers the exact same conditions as other workers, but to describe it as benevolence is naive at best. Amazon has a huge surge in orders during the christmas period, and it struggles to find enough workers to keep up with demand. This article makes it clear that this was a scheme aimed at coping with the seasonal surge. It has nothing to do with Amazon wanting to see homeless people better off.
  - tomp 11y ago
    > The reason Amazon hires any worker, homeless or not, is to extract a profit from their work. This arguments are getting ridiculous. Why is it always the employers exploiting the employees? Why not the other way round? The way I see it, if the people could generate more value self-employed, they would do it! The only reason they take jobs is because they can, gasp, exploit the employer by producing more value than they would otherwise, and getting paid more! In a free society, exploitation goes both ways!
    - derefr 11y ago
      > The way I see it, if the people could generate more value self-employed, they would do it! Nah. The "Losers" in MacLeod's hierarchy are explicitly choosing to leave extractable value on the table (this being the thing they're "losing") in exchange for being allowed to slack. Most people do not have the willpower to be entrepreneurs; in fact, much the opposite—most people want a job that requires as little willpower of them as possible.

by biomene 11y ago

cbd1984 11y ago

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." — Adam Smith Of course, he also said: "No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged."

roymurdock 11y ago
Sorry, I meant to upvote you but the mobile layout foiled me once again.

FussyZeus 11y ago

But it is work, to those who would otherwise not have any. It's very easy to say "you shouldn't work there, that job is terrible" when you're not the one spending nights in a park.

biomene 11y ago
I think that what you are saying is that these people are so miserable that they have no other choice but to take the rare jobs that they are offered, no matter how terrible. If so, I totally agree with you. I would just like to take a moment to wonder at the shitness of our world where the best we can do for those who have been deprived of everything is to ask them to break their backs so the extravagantly wealthy can make a bit more money.
- FussyZeus 11y ago
  > I think that what you are saying is that these people are so miserable that they have no other choice but to take the rare jobs that they are offered, no matter how terrible. If so, I totally agree with you. I would say they're in such need as they would take any job offered them, misery notwithstanding, but you're 80% with me yes. > I would just like to take a moment to wonder at the shitness of our world where the best we can do for those who have been deprived of everything is to ask them to break their backs so the extravagantly wealthy can make a bit more money. I kind of agree with you here. I don't think Bezos is up in his office masturbating vigorously to camera footage of homeless people walking into Amazon warehouses to work. He's not hiring them because he wants to make money, in all likelihood most of them will need a fair bit more training than regular blue collar workers who are between jobs or people looking to earn some extra money, and I'm also willing to bet that a homeless person would be fairly less reliable in terms of showing up for their shifts on time if only for the fact that they literally have nothing including a car. Amazon probably does want to help, and they want to enough that they're willing to overlook the problems that come with hiring homeless people. Now we can argue all day about how Amazon could afford to put those people in 5 star hotels for the entire Christmas season and it probably wouldn't hurt them, but that's not the point. They're a company, not a charity. They don't need to hire these people at all if they don't want to (and if they didn't, no one would even be arguing about this in the first place) so forgive me if I'm not willing to throw them under the bus for at least trying to help.
  - biomene 11y ago
    > so forgive me if I'm not willing to throw them under the bus for at least trying to help It's not Amazon I want to throw under the bus. They did what any rational player would do in their situation. What I want to throw under the bus is the situation itself, aka, how we organise our world.
- Pyxl101 11y ago
  > ask them to break their backs so the extravagantly wealthy can make a bit more money That's a very hostile way to describe working a warehouse job. Offering someone a job is not asking them to break their back. Working for an employer has nothing to do with the extravagantly wealthy. All companies need employees, and companies are valuable because they serve their customers. You could equally say "break their back so random Internet consumers get their products", or "Burger King / WalMart employees break their backs so you get a cheap cheeseburger / grocery product". Working a job tends to make people better off, and offering someone a job they didn't have before is giving them a new option. We can wish for a world where even better jobs were available, but wishing doesn't make it so. It's strictly better for the homeless to have one more job opportunity, than one fewer. You can wish there were even better opportunities, but are you prepared to provide them yourself? Or is this your position: "I'm not going to do anything about it myself, but I'm going to criticize those who do something positive, even if it's just providing a low value opportunity. Someone should provide a better opportunity than that, but I won't be the one to do it." By demonizing companies that offer jobs to poor people or the homeless, you're committing the fallacy called the Copenhagen Interpreation of Ethics. http://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/ http://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethi...

true_religion 11y ago

What it were proved that Amazon was offering jobs to the homeless at the exact same rate and conditions that it offered to all its seasonal workers, thereby not treating the homeless any worse than others. Then what? To me it would indicate that the motivation behind proposing jobs for homeless, which is usually a barrier to other employers, would be a benevolent one. They basically said they will not bias against employment based on your housing situation. All things being equal, this is a good thing.

biomene 11y ago
> What it were proved that Amazon was offering jobs to the homeless at the exact same rate and conditions that it offered to all its seasonal workers, thereby not treating the homeless any worse than others The reason Amazon hires any worker, homeless or not, is to extract a profit from their work. It's entirely possible that it offers the exact same conditions as other workers, but to describe it as benevolence is naive at best. Amazon has a huge surge in orders during the christmas period, and it struggles to find enough workers to keep up with demand. This article makes it clear that this was a scheme aimed at coping with the seasonal surge. It has nothing to do with Amazon wanting to see homeless people better off.
- tomp 11y ago
  > The reason Amazon hires any worker, homeless or not, is to extract a profit from their work. This arguments are getting ridiculous. Why is it always the employers exploiting the employees? Why not the other way round? The way I see it, if the people could generate more value self-employed, they would do it! The only reason they take jobs is because they can, gasp, exploit the employer by producing more value than they would otherwise, and getting paid more! In a free society, exploitation goes both ways!
  - derefr 11y ago
    > The way I see it, if the people could generate more value self-employed, they would do it! Nah. The "Losers" in MacLeod's hierarchy are explicitly choosing to leave extractable value on the table (this being the thing they're "losing") in exchange for being allowed to slack. Most people do not have the willpower to be entrepreneurs; in fact, much the opposite—most people want a job that requires as little willpower of them as possible.