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> It’s not a coincidence that Amazon was born in this country. More than any other place on Earth, new companies can start, grow, and thrive here in the U.S. Ou

by umvi 6y ago

> It’s not a coincidence that Amazon was born in this country. More than any other place on Earth, new companies can start, grow, and thrive here in the U.S. Our country embraces resourcefulness and self-reliance, and it embraces builders who start from scratch. We nurture entrepreneurs and start-ups with stable rule of law, the finest university system in the world, the freedom of democracy, and a deeply accepted culture of risk-taking I don't disagree, but in my opinion, many of these things are actively under attack. We used to have stable rule of law, but since the protests I'm not so sure now. We used to value self-reliance and risk taking, but a growing chunk of America now wants a more risk-averse government-reliant (in the form of guaranteed pensions, etc) European style society.

rayiner 6y ago
> We used to value self-reliance and risk taking, but a growing chunk of America now wants a more risk-averse government-reliant (in the form of guaranteed pensions, etc) European style society. I’d be happy if that’s all they wanted. Some people want to “dismantl[e] White Supremacy, Patriarchy, Capitalism, Imperialism and the role the state plays in supporting them.” And instead of saying “hey, one of those things is not like the other” I now drive past a street in DC every day named after an organization that has this quote on their DC chapter’s front page. (Technically, it’s an honorary name, but DC streets have proper street signs for those.) Meanwhile, the Smithsonian is publishing materials condemning “objective, rational linear thinking” and “progress” and “competition.” I get that these are fringe academic ideas that fringe people have injected into an otherwise really important conversation. But I’m pretty alarmed about the degree to which mainstream sources are implicitly sanctioning these kinds of assertions. Silicon Valley as we know it can’t exist within this intellectual framework.
- tehjoker 6y ago
  They're all deeply interconnected. Read a book. All of those systems involve hierarchies that are more or less flexible. Capitalism has been highly productive as an economic system, but it still is deeply undemocratic and could safely be called tyrannical as it has few if any democratic features below the level of the wealthy shareholders. EDIT: In the case of many of our tech giant friends, the trend in the mid-2000s to late 2010s was to create different tiers of stock so that the founders would have near absolute authority over the company. This is like a private monarchy and is even more authoritarian than the previous generation of companies. EDIT2: The funny thing is, because we distrusted the financial system so thoroughly in the early 2000s, cutting out the influence of institutional finance was seen as liberating while in actuality we were merely constructing an even more hierarchical and conservative system.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    > They're all deeply interconnected. Read a book. I don’t really enjoy fiction books.
    - tehjoker 6y ago
      Enjoy liberal group think.
    - lefrenchy 6y ago
      Information and perspectives that challenge your view on the world aren’t fiction. They force you to reckon with the blindspots created by your experience in the world.
- triceratops 6y ago
  I love capitalism. It's the best of all the available systems, because it's the most conducive to personal liberty. But let's not pretend it doesn't have a long, shared history with imperialism. India, the jewel in the British crown, was originally conquered by a private corporation. Ditto for Indonesia and the Dutch. Capitalism's other greatest hits include the transatlantic slave trade, Belgian rubber farms in Congo, blood diamonds, and modern factory farming. Sure it was great for Europeans to have cheap sugar from the Caribbean, and the traders and planters became very prosperous. But at what cost? Capitalism needs laws, regulations, and guardrails. Capitalism didn't voluntarily renounce slavery, or child labor. It didn't provide worker safety protections or overtime or other important labor protections. It would never have done, left to its own devices. It required "intrusive government regulation" and activism.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    > I love capitalism. It's the best of all the available systems, because it's the most conducive to personal liberty. But let's not pretend it doesn't have a long, shared history with imperialism. It doesn’t! What we understand as “capitalism” (free market economies based on voluntary transactions) is incompatible with imperialism. Britain used its military power to ensure that India would sell commodities to Britain while buying finished goods back from Britain. That’s not capitalism. We had a perfectly good word for it when I was in K-12: mercantilism. We have different words for mercantilism and capitalism because they’re different. You know they’re different because people decry the WTO as a destructive capitalist vehicle for facilitating exactly the thing (free trade) that mercantilism prohibited. Words matter! Definitions matter! There are things you can fairly pin on unregulated capitalism. For example, the requirement that transactions be voluntary doesn’t rule out child labor (in many but not all cases), below minimum wage labor, or labor in unsafe workplaces, insofar as all are voluntary. But it does rule out slavery, which isn’t a voluntary transaction. It also rules out mercantilism, which isn’t based on voluntary free trade, and Belgian rubber farms, which weren’t based on free exchange either of labor or of resources. Sure, you can redefine “capitalism” to make “something other than what people today understand as capitalism” but you can play stupid semantic games like that with anything.
    - 6y ago
- ottomanbob 6y ago
  The road to hell is named with good intentions.
- tptacek 6y ago
  Why are you alarmed by this, when all the available evidence suggests that the mainstream of America is receptive to the obvious parts of these ideas ("stop killing unarmed black people") and not at all receptive to the rest ("seize the means of production")? Look at who won the nomination.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    I mean that’s fair. To calm myself down I listen to Keisha Lance Bottoms talk about public private partnerships. But, I do need that talking down because: 1) I don’t trust academics and I think they have outsized influence on culture. I think, for example, academics destroyed the original understanding of the Establishment Clause, and thereby hastened the decline of organized religion as one of the institutions of civil society. I think that is a bad thing. I worry about what’s next on the chopping block. For example, while I don’t think the government is going to seize the means of production, I worry “life, liberty, and property” doesn’t have the cachet it used to. Many people don’t really believe the constitution protects economic rights. 2) Related to (1), I’m worried some well-meaning teacher will tell my brown daughter that “rational linear thinking” is “white culture.” (That would result in a lawsuit.) 3) I know few people my age and economic/educational class who actually wanted Biden to win. The “wonk” set seems to be much more amenable to these fringe ideas. And because we’ve sanctioned an unconstitutional administrative state where unelected wonks wield great power, I worry. 4) There is a disconnect between what I consider mainstream sources out of historical inertia, and maybe what they are now. I have a hard time reading the NYT these days. But I also recognize that, due to massive declines in readership, the NYT is more of a niche source than it used to be. But who still reads it? See (3).
    - tptacek 6y ago
      By all the accounts I've read, what we're looking at right now is nothing even close to the Long Hot Summer. You'd have to know where to look to find evidence of protests in Chicago. It's tough to metabolize not knowing anyone who wanted Biden to win, because he won the primary overwhelmingly; compare the map in Michigan in 2016 to 2020. Biden won Washtenaw County! Single-payer health care polls well in the abstract, but failed as an actual ballot measure in Colorado and Vermont; people support all sorts of things in the abstract, but in reality don't support radical change. I have the same contempt you do for the "rational linear thinking" thing and haven't shut up about it for weeks. But then, the Black History Museum took down the poster; it looks like it survived as long as it did because nobody was paying attention to it. Both The New York Times and the Washington Post ran reviews tearing down _White Fragility_; when people actually read the book, rather than nodding their head to the title (it's a great title! admit it!), the scales from their eyes. If anything, I think the most reasonable concern is that we won't change enough. The police violence and accountability problem is very real and very serious.
lefrenchy 6y ago
> We used to have stable rule of law, but since the protests I'm not so sure now. The protests are not dismantling the rule of law. There is a small subset where there is destruction and violence. Many people are expressing their constitutional rights. Some are actually having them violated by the state. > We used to value self-reliance and risk taking, but a growing chunk of America now wants a more risk-averse government-reliant (in the form of guaranteed pensions, etc) European style society. I don’t think people have admonished self-reliance or risk. The reality is many people fall through the cracks, and we should tend to their most basic needs the best we can to reduce suffering and allow people to keep being able to contribute to society, rather than leave them alienated and unable to get back on their feet. We’re the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, and have massive wealth inequality. Large corporations and donors are able to control politicians. People are losing their jobs by the millions, and by proxy lose their healthcare (in the middle of a global pandemic). Workers productivity has gone up, but wages have not followed. It’s not about entirely destroying American society as we know it, but rather providing for our fellow Americans people claim to care so patriotically about.
- fossuser 6y ago
  The federal forces entering the cities are concerning. When I think of rule of law issues I think of the AG freeing friends of the president (Stone, Flynn) and punishing enemies (Cohen). I think of the Trump administration choosing Microsoft over Amazon for the Jedi contract for political reasons. Also the lies about Berman 'stepping down', firing Comey and attempting to fire/discredit Mueller, the characterization of the report with a misleading summary, current investigations into the origins of the report, targeting political enemies, seeking international assistance in taking out political rivals etc. Rule of law definitely seems to have weakened under Barr. Anyway, this is a really well written opening statement. I know Amazon is known for having a great culture of writing internally, but it's always nice to see it in public. I wish tech companies wrote more about themselves in public, what they get from the press is a disservice - it's a lot more interesting to hear directly from the companies. I'd be curious what he thinks about the counterfeit items given the 'customer-centric' view. One of the main reasons I didn't by Amazon stock earlier was I thought that would be a problem. In hindsight I realized even though it is a problem, there isn't really a better non-amazon alternative in most cases and I ended up buying stock anyway. If I was there, I'd figure out how to fix that issue - some way to hold sellers to a higher quality bar.
joshuamorton 6y ago
> We used to value self-reliance and risk taking, but a growing chunk of America now wants a more risk-averse government-reliant (in the form of guaranteed pensions, etc) European style society. As I see it, a government that ensures basic necessities will allow more people to take more risks. As it is, the privilege to take risks is limited to a select few in the upper and upper-middle classes, and those below don't have the chance to take a risk without it ruining their life.
- germinalphrase 6y ago
  Indeed. The freedom to fail without sending one’s self/family into destitution supports a culture of risk taking.
  - umvi 6y ago
    Yet highly socialist countries never seem to have a culture of risk taking/startups/disruption/innovation/etc. I'd love to be proven wrong with an example.
    - germinalphrase 6y ago
      I’m not advocating for the United States to become “highly socialist”.
- umvi 6y ago
  If that's the case, why aren't more Amazons emerging from Europe where more basic necessities are being met and therefore more people could be taking risks? Couldn't it also be that having the government take care of people actually reduces their desire to take risks and move up socio economic ladder? In Germany, for example you don't see a lot of middle class people moving into upper class like you do in America.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    You don't see a middle class people moving into the upper class here either. Social mobility is higher in Europe than in the US, and economic mobility is higher in Europe as well, excluding the UK. For your first question, Europe has stronger protections for workers than the US, so Amazon would need to pay it's employees more and have more of them. This in general results in less centralized profiting. Bezos would make less but his median employee would make more, meaning as I said before, more social mobility for lower and middle class people like Amazon factory workers, at the cost of not having as many billionaires.

by umvi 6y ago

rayiner 6y ago

> We used to value self-reliance and risk taking, but a growing chunk of America now wants a more risk-averse government-reliant (in the form of guaranteed pensions, etc) European style society. I’d be happy if that’s all they wanted. Some people want to “dismantl[e] White Supremacy, Patriarchy, Capitalism, Imperialism and the role the state plays in supporting them.” And instead of saying “hey, one of those things is not like the other” I now drive past a street in DC every day named after an organization that has this quote on their DC chapter’s front page. (Technically, it’s an honorary name, but DC streets have proper street signs for those.) Meanwhile, the Smithsonian is publishing materials condemning “objective, rational linear thinking” and “progress” and “competition.” I get that these are fringe academic ideas that fringe people have injected into an otherwise really important conversation. But I’m pretty alarmed about the degree to which mainstream sources are implicitly sanctioning these kinds of assertions. Silicon Valley as we know it can’t exist within this intellectual framework.

tehjoker 6y ago
They're all deeply interconnected. Read a book. All of those systems involve hierarchies that are more or less flexible. Capitalism has been highly productive as an economic system, but it still is deeply undemocratic and could safely be called tyrannical as it has few if any democratic features below the level of the wealthy shareholders. EDIT: In the case of many of our tech giant friends, the trend in the mid-2000s to late 2010s was to create different tiers of stock so that the founders would have near absolute authority over the company. This is like a private monarchy and is even more authoritarian than the previous generation of companies. EDIT2: The funny thing is, because we distrusted the financial system so thoroughly in the early 2000s, cutting out the influence of institutional finance was seen as liberating while in actuality we were merely constructing an even more hierarchical and conservative system.
- rayiner 6y ago
  > They're all deeply interconnected. Read a book. I don’t really enjoy fiction books.
  - tehjoker 6y ago
    Enjoy liberal group think.
  - lefrenchy 6y ago
    Information and perspectives that challenge your view on the world aren’t fiction. They force you to reckon with the blindspots created by your experience in the world.
triceratops 6y ago
I love capitalism. It's the best of all the available systems, because it's the most conducive to personal liberty. But let's not pretend it doesn't have a long, shared history with imperialism. India, the jewel in the British crown, was originally conquered by a private corporation. Ditto for Indonesia and the Dutch. Capitalism's other greatest hits include the transatlantic slave trade, Belgian rubber farms in Congo, blood diamonds, and modern factory farming. Sure it was great for Europeans to have cheap sugar from the Caribbean, and the traders and planters became very prosperous. But at what cost? Capitalism needs laws, regulations, and guardrails. Capitalism didn't voluntarily renounce slavery, or child labor. It didn't provide worker safety protections or overtime or other important labor protections. It would never have done, left to its own devices. It required "intrusive government regulation" and activism.
- rayiner 6y ago
  > I love capitalism. It's the best of all the available systems, because it's the most conducive to personal liberty. But let's not pretend it doesn't have a long, shared history with imperialism. It doesn’t! What we understand as “capitalism” (free market economies based on voluntary transactions) is incompatible with imperialism. Britain used its military power to ensure that India would sell commodities to Britain while buying finished goods back from Britain. That’s not capitalism. We had a perfectly good word for it when I was in K-12: mercantilism. We have different words for mercantilism and capitalism because they’re different. You know they’re different because people decry the WTO as a destructive capitalist vehicle for facilitating exactly the thing (free trade) that mercantilism prohibited. Words matter! Definitions matter! There are things you can fairly pin on unregulated capitalism. For example, the requirement that transactions be voluntary doesn’t rule out child labor (in many but not all cases), below minimum wage labor, or labor in unsafe workplaces, insofar as all are voluntary. But it does rule out slavery, which isn’t a voluntary transaction. It also rules out mercantilism, which isn’t based on voluntary free trade, and Belgian rubber farms, which weren’t based on free exchange either of labor or of resources. Sure, you can redefine “capitalism” to make “something other than what people today understand as capitalism” but you can play stupid semantic games like that with anything.
  - 6y ago
ottomanbob 6y ago
The road to hell is named with good intentions.
tptacek 6y ago
Why are you alarmed by this, when all the available evidence suggests that the mainstream of America is receptive to the obvious parts of these ideas ("stop killing unarmed black people") and not at all receptive to the rest ("seize the means of production")? Look at who won the nomination.
- rayiner 6y ago
  I mean that’s fair. To calm myself down I listen to Keisha Lance Bottoms talk about public private partnerships. But, I do need that talking down because: 1) I don’t trust academics and I think they have outsized influence on culture. I think, for example, academics destroyed the original understanding of the Establishment Clause, and thereby hastened the decline of organized religion as one of the institutions of civil society. I think that is a bad thing. I worry about what’s next on the chopping block. For example, while I don’t think the government is going to seize the means of production, I worry “life, liberty, and property” doesn’t have the cachet it used to. Many people don’t really believe the constitution protects economic rights. 2) Related to (1), I’m worried some well-meaning teacher will tell my brown daughter that “rational linear thinking” is “white culture.” (That would result in a lawsuit.) 3) I know few people my age and economic/educational class who actually wanted Biden to win. The “wonk” set seems to be much more amenable to these fringe ideas. And because we’ve sanctioned an unconstitutional administrative state where unelected wonks wield great power, I worry. 4) There is a disconnect between what I consider mainstream sources out of historical inertia, and maybe what they are now. I have a hard time reading the NYT these days. But I also recognize that, due to massive declines in readership, the NYT is more of a niche source than it used to be. But who still reads it? See (3).
  - tptacek 6y ago
    By all the accounts I've read, what we're looking at right now is nothing even close to the Long Hot Summer. You'd have to know where to look to find evidence of protests in Chicago. It's tough to metabolize not knowing anyone who wanted Biden to win, because he won the primary overwhelmingly; compare the map in Michigan in 2016 to 2020. Biden won Washtenaw County! Single-payer health care polls well in the abstract, but failed as an actual ballot measure in Colorado and Vermont; people support all sorts of things in the abstract, but in reality don't support radical change. I have the same contempt you do for the "rational linear thinking" thing and haven't shut up about it for weeks. But then, the Black History Museum took down the poster; it looks like it survived as long as it did because nobody was paying attention to it. Both The New York Times and the Washington Post ran reviews tearing down _White Fragility_; when people actually read the book, rather than nodding their head to the title (it's a great title! admit it!), the scales from their eyes. If anything, I think the most reasonable concern is that we won't change enough. The police violence and accountability problem is very real and very serious.

lefrenchy 6y ago

> We used to have stable rule of law, but since the protests I'm not so sure now. The protests are not dismantling the rule of law. There is a small subset where there is destruction and violence. Many people are expressing their constitutional rights. Some are actually having them violated by the state. > We used to value self-reliance and risk taking, but a growing chunk of America now wants a more risk-averse government-reliant (in the form of guaranteed pensions, etc) European style society. I don’t think people have admonished self-reliance or risk. The reality is many people fall through the cracks, and we should tend to their most basic needs the best we can to reduce suffering and allow people to keep being able to contribute to society, rather than leave them alienated and unable to get back on their feet. We’re the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, and have massive wealth inequality. Large corporations and donors are able to control politicians. People are losing their jobs by the millions, and by proxy lose their healthcare (in the middle of a global pandemic). Workers productivity has gone up, but wages have not followed. It’s not about entirely destroying American society as we know it, but rather providing for our fellow Americans people claim to care so patriotically about.

fossuser 6y ago
The federal forces entering the cities are concerning. When I think of rule of law issues I think of the AG freeing friends of the president (Stone, Flynn) and punishing enemies (Cohen). I think of the Trump administration choosing Microsoft over Amazon for the Jedi contract for political reasons. Also the lies about Berman 'stepping down', firing Comey and attempting to fire/discredit Mueller, the characterization of the report with a misleading summary, current investigations into the origins of the report, targeting political enemies, seeking international assistance in taking out political rivals etc. Rule of law definitely seems to have weakened under Barr. Anyway, this is a really well written opening statement. I know Amazon is known for having a great culture of writing internally, but it's always nice to see it in public. I wish tech companies wrote more about themselves in public, what they get from the press is a disservice - it's a lot more interesting to hear directly from the companies. I'd be curious what he thinks about the counterfeit items given the 'customer-centric' view. One of the main reasons I didn't by Amazon stock earlier was I thought that would be a problem. In hindsight I realized even though it is a problem, there isn't really a better non-amazon alternative in most cases and I ended up buying stock anyway. If I was there, I'd figure out how to fix that issue - some way to hold sellers to a higher quality bar.

joshuamorton 6y ago

> We used to value self-reliance and risk taking, but a growing chunk of America now wants a more risk-averse government-reliant (in the form of guaranteed pensions, etc) European style society. As I see it, a government that ensures basic necessities will allow more people to take more risks. As it is, the privilege to take risks is limited to a select few in the upper and upper-middle classes, and those below don't have the chance to take a risk without it ruining their life.

germinalphrase 6y ago
Indeed. The freedom to fail without sending one’s self/family into destitution supports a culture of risk taking.
- umvi 6y ago
  Yet highly socialist countries never seem to have a culture of risk taking/startups/disruption/innovation/etc. I'd love to be proven wrong with an example.
  - germinalphrase 6y ago
    I’m not advocating for the United States to become “highly socialist”.
umvi 6y ago
If that's the case, why aren't more Amazons emerging from Europe where more basic necessities are being met and therefore more people could be taking risks? Couldn't it also be that having the government take care of people actually reduces their desire to take risks and move up socio economic ladder? In Germany, for example you don't see a lot of middle class people moving into upper class like you do in America.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  You don't see a middle class people moving into the upper class here either. Social mobility is higher in Europe than in the US, and economic mobility is higher in Europe as well, excluding the UK. For your first question, Europe has stronger protections for workers than the US, so Amazon would need to pay it's employees more and have more of them. This in general results in less centralized profiting. Bezos would make less but his median employee would make more, meaning as I said before, more social mobility for lower and middle class people like Amazon factory workers, at the cost of not having as many billionaires.