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> It's extraordinarily difficult to have an Amazon without a Bezos, or a Microsoft without a Gates, or a Walmart without a Walton. This presupposes that any of

> It's extraordinarily difficult to have an Amazon without a Bezos, or a Microsoft without a Gates, or a Walmart without a Walton. This presupposes that any of these are desirable.

ThrustVectoring 8y ago
For what it's worth, more affordable consumer goods are way more important to the everyday blue-collar folks who tend to not be the readership of this forum. If you're making six figures, you care a lot less about a thirty cents a pound price difference of ground beef, and can afford to care about the concentration and centralization of the retail industry.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
  I'm not talking about the desirability of large corporations generally, but about those three particular examples. There are large companies like Costco (though obviously Costco is not targetting blue-collar people as much as say Walmart) that deliver cheaper goods via economies of scale but are organised rather differently from Walmart or Amazon.
  - ThrustVectoring 8y ago
    How do you propose interfering with Walmart's ability to compete aggressively on price without interfering with Costco's?
    - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
      That's pretty easy. Require Walmart to give decent employee benefits. Costco already does that, so that wouldn't hurt them.
mberning 8y ago
The world would be an overall much poorer and more brutish place without all of the businesses that have ever drawn feelings of consternation from the public.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
  Again, I'm not talking about all of the businesses that have ever etc. But there are certainly corporations whose non-existence would have made the world a much richer and brighter place.
  - mberning 8y ago
    If you are contending that Walmart having never existed would be a net benefit for humanity I think you would have a very hard time proving that. I am not defending their business practices, merely pointing out that it would be extremely hard to fully account for.
    - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
      > If you are contending that Walmart having never existed would be a net benefit for humanity I think you would have a very hard time proving that. I don't really think I have to. It seems like a self-illustrating proof. Walmart drives small businesses out of business by artificially lowering prices for short amounts of time until they've driven competitors out of business. They play dirty tricks employing people at weekly hours that don't require benefits, and so tax-payers end up subsidizing Walmart by being on the hook for the health benefits of many of Walmart's employees. It's welfare for billionaires.
  - ThrustVectoring 8y ago
    These sorts of comments feel to me like they're part of a concerning trend for middle-class and upper-middle-class folks to fail to empathize with the needs of the working-class and below. "The world would be richer and brighter if Walmart never existed" is a value statement on the relative importance of ethical business practices versus being able to buy a pack of ramen noodles for 19 cents versus 40. And the really dangerous part of this trend is when it gets codified into law. It's most obvious in zoning, where often times the kind of quality concessions that are necessary for building cheap housing that is barely acceptable is made illegal. Zoning that excludes single-room occupancy units, minimum road setbacks, lot width minimums, bedroom size minimums, etc - all things necessary for making things that poor people can afford, but a lack of empathy and awareness of affordability side of these tradeoffs makes a naive upper-middle-class person support grossly classist policies.

> It's extraordinarily difficult to have an Amazon without a Bezos, or a Microsoft without a Gates, or a Walmart without a Walton. This presupposes that any of these are desirable.

ThrustVectoring 8y ago

For what it's worth, more affordable consumer goods are way more important to the everyday blue-collar folks who tend to not be the readership of this forum. If you're making six figures, you care a lot less about a thirty cents a pound price difference of ground beef, and can afford to care about the concentration and centralization of the retail industry.

_emacsomancer_ 8y ago
I'm not talking about the desirability of large corporations generally, but about those three particular examples. There are large companies like Costco (though obviously Costco is not targetting blue-collar people as much as say Walmart) that deliver cheaper goods via economies of scale but are organised rather differently from Walmart or Amazon.
- ThrustVectoring 8y ago
  How do you propose interfering with Walmart's ability to compete aggressively on price without interfering with Costco's?
  - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
    That's pretty easy. Require Walmart to give decent employee benefits. Costco already does that, so that wouldn't hurt them.

mberning 8y ago

The world would be an overall much poorer and more brutish place without all of the businesses that have ever drawn feelings of consternation from the public.

_emacsomancer_ 8y ago
Again, I'm not talking about all of the businesses that have ever etc. But there are certainly corporations whose non-existence would have made the world a much richer and brighter place.
- mberning 8y ago
  If you are contending that Walmart having never existed would be a net benefit for humanity I think you would have a very hard time proving that. I am not defending their business practices, merely pointing out that it would be extremely hard to fully account for.
  - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
    > If you are contending that Walmart having never existed would be a net benefit for humanity I think you would have a very hard time proving that. I don't really think I have to. It seems like a self-illustrating proof. Walmart drives small businesses out of business by artificially lowering prices for short amounts of time until they've driven competitors out of business. They play dirty tricks employing people at weekly hours that don't require benefits, and so tax-payers end up subsidizing Walmart by being on the hook for the health benefits of many of Walmart's employees. It's welfare for billionaires.
- ThrustVectoring 8y ago
  These sorts of comments feel to me like they're part of a concerning trend for middle-class and upper-middle-class folks to fail to empathize with the needs of the working-class and below. "The world would be richer and brighter if Walmart never existed" is a value statement on the relative importance of ethical business practices versus being able to buy a pack of ramen noodles for 19 cents versus 40. And the really dangerous part of this trend is when it gets codified into law. It's most obvious in zoning, where often times the kind of quality concessions that are necessary for building cheap housing that is barely acceptable is made illegal. Zoning that excludes single-room occupancy units, minimum road setbacks, lot width minimums, bedroom size minimums, etc - all things necessary for making things that poor people can afford, but a lack of empathy and awareness of affordability side of these tradeoffs makes a naive upper-middle-class person support grossly classist policies.