4 ms·

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.
  - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
    I was actually thinking more about Microsoft than Walmart with that statement. But you're treating this as if I'm saying 'any big corporation which sells foodstuffs and other basic goods is a blight upon society', as if it's an aesthetic argument because I don't like the looks of Walmart. Walmart is a tax-payer-subsidized megacorporation which pours vast resources into the hands of the Walton family. If we're going to have such a thing, we might as well cut out the middle-man and just have a government-run chain of groceries. It's somewhat ridiculous that my money (via taxes) effectively ends up in the pockets of billionaires even if I never shop at their establishments. (Same goes for Microsoft.) So my statements have nothing to do with classist policies, that Walmart offends my aesthetic sensibilities and so therefore should be removed. I'm saying it drains resources off in the wrong ways. And it's not just about people buying things at Walmart, it's also about people working at Walmart. So you're going off on a tangent about something I'm not at all talking about.

_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.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
  I was actually thinking more about Microsoft than Walmart with that statement. But you're treating this as if I'm saying 'any big corporation which sells foodstuffs and other basic goods is a blight upon society', as if it's an aesthetic argument because I don't like the looks of Walmart. Walmart is a tax-payer-subsidized megacorporation which pours vast resources into the hands of the Walton family. If we're going to have such a thing, we might as well cut out the middle-man and just have a government-run chain of groceries. It's somewhat ridiculous that my money (via taxes) effectively ends up in the pockets of billionaires even if I never shop at their establishments. (Same goes for Microsoft.) So my statements have nothing to do with classist policies, that Walmart offends my aesthetic sensibilities and so therefore should be removed. I'm saying it drains resources off in the wrong ways. And it's not just about people buying things at Walmart, it's also about people working at Walmart. So you're going off on a tangent about something I'm not at all talking about.