4 ms·

How about he spend it on paying his workers a living wage?

by schrototo 9y ago

drharby 9y ago
Because thats his perogative?
- saudioger 9y ago
  prerogative, and yeah - if you're the richest person on the planet it would be nice if the employees that got you there weren't living paycheck to paycheck.
  - chii 9y ago
    but he may not be so rich if his workers didn't live paycheck to paycheck...
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  I don't understand why you think this is a good argument. There are plenty of things people are allowed to do that they really shouldn't.
  - drharby 9y ago
    Its not a justification, it is a matter of fact that his decision making is not dependent on the masses' value system outside the realm of law. Thats what anti trust laws are for. I perceive any such talk that he should spend his money a certain way as propaganda.
    - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
      So your argument is "anything you can legally get away with is morally acceptable"?
      - drharby 9y ago
        There is NO ARGUMENT. An argument posits that there is a factual inconsistency that needs to be clarified through dialogue. What you are proposing is a debate. I AM NOT DEBATING - I am stating the fact that in American society the people have political vehicles to enforce cultural morality as codified through law. And i continue this dialogue because it is important for people to recognize that using morality as a metric is arbitrary when discussion such matters necause at the end of the day morality varies from pers9n to person and culture to culture
        PhasmaFelis 9y ago
        That's...not how debate works. You can't just declare that you're not debating while continuing to debate, at least not when we're debating matters of opinion like moral responsibilities.
        drharby 9y ago
        You are clearly filtering my messages. I have zero desire pursuing this alleged dialogue. All i am trying to communicate is that he can do what ever he wants.
        PhasmaFelis 9y ago
        > I have zero desire pursuing this alleged dialogue. And yet you keep doing it.
saudioger 9y ago
He'd rather get off planet than deal with the needs of all you plebes.
- lucb1e 9y ago
  To explain my downvote: not contributing to the conversation.
sneak 9y ago
He pays the workers the lowest wages they will consent to work for, just like all employers. Don’t blame employers for the iron law of wages.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- asdsa5325 9y ago
  It's not an iron law. Plenty of employers spend more money, in order to increase retention and productivity. Believe it or not, there are many employers who actually care and see their employees as human.
  - sneak 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_wages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_wages They are not mutex. You can actually care about your employees, see them as human, and pay them an amount that you both mutually consent to, which is what Amazon is doing.
    - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
      > You can actually care about your employees, see them as human Amazon doesn't. That's the point. You are wildly oversimplifying the iron law of wages. It does not say "it is morally acceptable for employers to treat employees as badly as they can possibly get away with."
      - CryptoPunk 9y ago
        No one is entitled to a job. They are willing to do the work asked of them in exchange for the pay they receive. They are not victims and Amazon is not mistreating them. More generally, this idea that paying more is better for the world is misguided and over-simplistic. You can often reduce suffering in the world more by paying 100 very poor people sweat shop wages than 10 middle class people developed world wages, and that is the kind of choice you have to make when deciding how to spend your capital. We cannot simply increase the wealth at our disposal and pay all 100 people high wages. Scarcity of resources is a reality we have to be mature enough to contend with, and that means looking at more than just the direct and immediate effects, and factoring in opportunity costs, to weigh the trade-offs.
legitster 9y ago
I mean, if he is spending the money on space-tech, he is putting it back into someone's wages. So would it be better if he put it back in the pockets of the 500,000 workers who are already contributing to the economy (and they are already making slightly above market rate for their labor), or would you rather him invest in these new jobs?
comboy 9y ago
Oh come on. When we talk about him, personally, that's his wealth. He can give it to charity, use it to improve the world or burn it on pleasures. It's his money that society agreed to give him - it's society that owes him. I know the system has many flaws, FED etc. but this in general is how money works. You give something, and in exchange you get right to receive something. When we talk about Amazon he decided to optimize for customer, not employee satisfaction. I'm not a fan of what Amazon is doing currently (as an e-commerce) but when you sum amount of welfare it provided over the whole humanity, it seems quite possible that it is a very positive number - I'm assuming unhappiness of employees counts negatively towards it. Apart from the whole economical aspect, creating work places and opportunities for other companies to create them, just looking at cheaper prices, let's say employee A earns $500 less than he could. And that per one employee we have 10,000 customers in similar living situation that saved $20. The net result for people in this life situation is $200,000 - $500. And then there's difficult problem of general optimization function if you want to do whatever best you can for the humanity. Given GCRs associated with all of us living on the same rock, if you think about humanity as a whole and its future, it may turn out that space exploration has extremely high priority and it would be EV+ even if we would have to scarify lives of most of those currently alive.
- jacknews 9y ago
  Legally, yes it's his wealth. Who's actually built the company though, him alone? It really should belong to eveyone who's helped built it.

How about he spend it on paying his workers a living wage?

drharby 9y ago

Because thats his perogative?

saudioger 9y ago
prerogative, and yeah - if you're the richest person on the planet it would be nice if the employees that got you there weren't living paycheck to paycheck.
- chii 9y ago
  but he may not be so rich if his workers didn't live paycheck to paycheck...
PhasmaFelis 9y ago
I don't understand why you think this is a good argument. There are plenty of things people are allowed to do that they really shouldn't.
- drharby 9y ago
  Its not a justification, it is a matter of fact that his decision making is not dependent on the masses' value system outside the realm of law. Thats what anti trust laws are for. I perceive any such talk that he should spend his money a certain way as propaganda.
  - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
    So your argument is "anything you can legally get away with is morally acceptable"?
    - drharby 9y ago
      There is NO ARGUMENT. An argument posits that there is a factual inconsistency that needs to be clarified through dialogue. What you are proposing is a debate. I AM NOT DEBATING - I am stating the fact that in American society the people have political vehicles to enforce cultural morality as codified through law. And i continue this dialogue because it is important for people to recognize that using morality as a metric is arbitrary when discussion such matters necause at the end of the day morality varies from pers9n to person and culture to culture
      - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
        That's...not how debate works. You can't just declare that you're not debating while continuing to debate, at least not when we're debating matters of opinion like moral responsibilities.
        drharby 9y ago
        You are clearly filtering my messages. I have zero desire pursuing this alleged dialogue. All i am trying to communicate is that he can do what ever he wants.
        PhasmaFelis 9y ago
        > I have zero desire pursuing this alleged dialogue. And yet you keep doing it.

saudioger 9y ago

He'd rather get off planet than deal with the needs of all you plebes.

lucb1e 9y ago
To explain my downvote: not contributing to the conversation.

sneak 9y ago

He pays the workers the lowest wages they will consent to work for, just like all employers. Don’t blame employers for the iron law of wages.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
asdsa5325 9y ago
It's not an iron law. Plenty of employers spend more money, in order to increase retention and productivity. Believe it or not, there are many employers who actually care and see their employees as human.
- sneak 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_wages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_wages They are not mutex. You can actually care about your employees, see them as human, and pay them an amount that you both mutually consent to, which is what Amazon is doing.
  - PhasmaFelis 9y ago
    > You can actually care about your employees, see them as human Amazon doesn't. That's the point. You are wildly oversimplifying the iron law of wages. It does not say "it is morally acceptable for employers to treat employees as badly as they can possibly get away with."
    - CryptoPunk 9y ago
      No one is entitled to a job. They are willing to do the work asked of them in exchange for the pay they receive. They are not victims and Amazon is not mistreating them. More generally, this idea that paying more is better for the world is misguided and over-simplistic. You can often reduce suffering in the world more by paying 100 very poor people sweat shop wages than 10 middle class people developed world wages, and that is the kind of choice you have to make when deciding how to spend your capital. We cannot simply increase the wealth at our disposal and pay all 100 people high wages. Scarcity of resources is a reality we have to be mature enough to contend with, and that means looking at more than just the direct and immediate effects, and factoring in opportunity costs, to weigh the trade-offs.

legitster 9y ago

I mean, if he is spending the money on space-tech, he is putting it back into someone's wages. So would it be better if he put it back in the pockets of the 500,000 workers who are already contributing to the economy (and they are already making slightly above market rate for their labor), or would you rather him invest in these new jobs?

comboy 9y ago

Oh come on. When we talk about him, personally, that's his wealth. He can give it to charity, use it to improve the world or burn it on pleasures. It's his money that society agreed to give him - it's society that owes him. I know the system has many flaws, FED etc. but this in general is how money works. You give something, and in exchange you get right to receive something. When we talk about Amazon he decided to optimize for customer, not employee satisfaction. I'm not a fan of what Amazon is doing currently (as an e-commerce) but when you sum amount of welfare it provided over the whole humanity, it seems quite possible that it is a very positive number - I'm assuming unhappiness of employees counts negatively towards it. Apart from the whole economical aspect, creating work places and opportunities for other companies to create them, just looking at cheaper prices, let's say employee A earns $500 less than he could. And that per one employee we have 10,000 customers in similar living situation that saved $20. The net result for people in this life situation is $200,000 - $500. And then there's difficult problem of general optimization function if you want to do whatever best you can for the humanity. Given GCRs associated with all of us living on the same rock, if you think about humanity as a whole and its future, it may turn out that space exploration has extremely high priority and it would be EV+ even if we would have to scarify lives of most of those currently alive.

jacknews 9y ago
Legally, yes it's his wealth. Who's actually built the company though, him alone? It really should belong to eveyone who's helped built it.