5 ms·

If I cheat on my wife, can I point to somebody else who's also cheating on their wife and that exempts me from criticism? Does somebody have to be doing a compl

by chc 8y ago

If I cheat on my wife, can I point to somebody else who's also cheating on their wife and that exempts me from criticism? Does somebody have to be doing a completely unique bad thing in order for people to be able to criticize them? People criticize Amazon and Walmart more than other companies because Amazon and Walmart are bigger than those other companies. That seems like an entirely fair reason for them to get more attention.

moftz 8y ago
And if you cheat on your wife, it's not like she's going to divorce you that day and be married the next. Not everyone can just pickup and go to the other fulfillment warehouse next door. Amazon has their warehouses in a lot of small towns and I'm sure many of them were not doing so great before they showed up. People like having a job, they don't like having to shop around in a place where there might not be too many opportunities.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > People like having a job, they don't like having to shop around in a place where there might not be too many opportunities. But that's the point, isn't it? They put the warehouse there because it's where the cheap labor is. If you shame them into not paying less than $15/hour then the next warehouse they open might as well be in a place where $15/hour is the prevailing wage, or it was $14.75 with low unemployment and their presence only bumps it up to $15, meanwhile everyone in the small town they originally would have built in goes to the unemployment line.
  - chc 8y ago
    It's weird to me how we tend to talk about whether worker protections are harmful in hypothetical terms, when we can actually look at history and see that society improved as more protections for workers were implemented, and inequality has gotten worse has gotten worse as worker protections have waned. I love a good philosophical exercise as much as anyone else, but the real world has shown us the answer sheet for this question.
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      When times are good, people agitate for "worker protections" and get them because the economy is doing well enough to absorb the cost. Then when the economy declines, capital successfully lobbies to relax the rules to keep the country's industry competitive. The result is that good times correlate with more labor laws, but the causation goes the other way.
      - chc 8y ago
        Are you suggesting the New Deal came about because the 1930s were so prosperous? I don't think that is a very common view of the Great Depression.
        AnthonyMouse 8y ago
        The New Deal was primarily a jobs program, not a rise in worker protection, and the things that pass for worker protection are really quite anti-progressive or subtle covers for various corruption. For example, social security pays benefits based on past income rather than a fixed or need-based payment, and the social security tax is a flat rate with an income cap, making it one of the most regressive taxes short of a poll tax. Meanwhile the amount of political corruption and mafia involvement in labor unions in the era of the Wagner Act makes it highly suspicious that their original purpose or effect was actually labor protection. And to the extent that there were new actual labor laws, they were often largely symbolic or ineffectual. For example, the original federal minimum wage only applied to jobs in interstate commerce, which at the time actually meant interstate commerce. By contrast, many of the actually-meaningful state-level minimum wage laws were passed during the boom times in the 1920s. Most of the meaningful labor and safety regulations we have came out of the economically prosperous period of the 1950s and 60s, e.g. that's when the federal minimum wage was extended to other workers, and then extended further in the economically prosperous period in the 1990s.
      - lovich 8y ago
        Worker protections have been going down in our longest bull run ever. Just recently the Supreme Court ruled that forced arbitration was legal and we are at some of the highest profits and productivity ever. Those protections weren't going up during the boom cycles in the 90s either. I'm not sure your hypothesis fits reality
ctvo 8y ago
If as a society we agree that companies have a moral responsibility / obligation to pay their employees a wage that provided X, Y, Z your analogy would make a lot more sense. In America at least, we do not have agreement.
- throwaway2048 8y ago
  Says you.

by chc 8y ago

moftz 8y ago

And if you cheat on your wife, it's not like she's going to divorce you that day and be married the next. Not everyone can just pickup and go to the other fulfillment warehouse next door. Amazon has their warehouses in a lot of small towns and I'm sure many of them were not doing so great before they showed up. People like having a job, they don't like having to shop around in a place where there might not be too many opportunities.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> People like having a job, they don't like having to shop around in a place where there might not be too many opportunities. But that's the point, isn't it? They put the warehouse there because it's where the cheap labor is. If you shame them into not paying less than $15/hour then the next warehouse they open might as well be in a place where $15/hour is the prevailing wage, or it was $14.75 with low unemployment and their presence only bumps it up to $15, meanwhile everyone in the small town they originally would have built in goes to the unemployment line.
- chc 8y ago
  It's weird to me how we tend to talk about whether worker protections are harmful in hypothetical terms, when we can actually look at history and see that society improved as more protections for workers were implemented, and inequality has gotten worse has gotten worse as worker protections have waned. I love a good philosophical exercise as much as anyone else, but the real world has shown us the answer sheet for this question.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    When times are good, people agitate for "worker protections" and get them because the economy is doing well enough to absorb the cost. Then when the economy declines, capital successfully lobbies to relax the rules to keep the country's industry competitive. The result is that good times correlate with more labor laws, but the causation goes the other way.
    - chc 8y ago
      Are you suggesting the New Deal came about because the 1930s were so prosperous? I don't think that is a very common view of the Great Depression.
      - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
        The New Deal was primarily a jobs program, not a rise in worker protection, and the things that pass for worker protection are really quite anti-progressive or subtle covers for various corruption. For example, social security pays benefits based on past income rather than a fixed or need-based payment, and the social security tax is a flat rate with an income cap, making it one of the most regressive taxes short of a poll tax. Meanwhile the amount of political corruption and mafia involvement in labor unions in the era of the Wagner Act makes it highly suspicious that their original purpose or effect was actually labor protection. And to the extent that there were new actual labor laws, they were often largely symbolic or ineffectual. For example, the original federal minimum wage only applied to jobs in interstate commerce, which at the time actually meant interstate commerce. By contrast, many of the actually-meaningful state-level minimum wage laws were passed during the boom times in the 1920s. Most of the meaningful labor and safety regulations we have came out of the economically prosperous period of the 1950s and 60s, e.g. that's when the federal minimum wage was extended to other workers, and then extended further in the economically prosperous period in the 1990s.
    - lovich 8y ago
      Worker protections have been going down in our longest bull run ever. Just recently the Supreme Court ruled that forced arbitration was legal and we are at some of the highest profits and productivity ever. Those protections weren't going up during the boom cycles in the 90s either. I'm not sure your hypothesis fits reality

ctvo 8y ago

If as a society we agree that companies have a moral responsibility / obligation to pay their employees a wage that provided X, Y, Z your analogy would make a lot more sense. In America at least, we do not have agreement.

throwaway2048 8y ago
Says you.