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> It is the most successful social welfare system ever implemented, saving billions and billions of dollars for everyday Americans without costing taxpayers a d

> It is the most successful social welfare system ever implemented, saving billions and billions of dollars for everyday Americans without costing taxpayers a dime. It is a testament to the power of compounding interest, to the power of a focused plan executed violently for decades. A social welfare plan? Are you for real? Both Walmart and Amazon are pioneers of modern union busting practices. They screw workers over as much as they can get away with to squeeze out the maximum amount of labour. Instead of writing this you could as well spit in the face of working class people. The premise of this article so willfully ignorant of material reality, that it is impossible to take this serious.

paganel 6y ago
> saving billions and billions of dollars for everyday Americans without costing taxpayers a dime I have a feeling that these savings mostly benefit middle-class Americans.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  of course as the middle-class is vanishing the correspondence is perhaps not as valid as before, but everyday Americans would once have been understood as a reference to middle-class Americans.
  - xapata 6y ago
    When you have a random variable with log-normal distribution, such as income or wealth, unless the fundamental mechanism is changed to be additive (normal) instead of multiplicative (log-normal), you'll end up with the bulk of people at the low end of that curve. The existence of a large middle class was an anomaly.
parasubvert 6y ago
It’s completely naive and overwrought, however I think it’s quite arguable that Walmart and Amazon have done a lot for society in terms of passing down cost savings and customer satisfaction. This is why they have been successful. This is at the price of how they treat their labor, which is a political failure of the USA. This isn’t too different from much of modern capitalism: globalized cheap labor with poor conditions and limited collective bargaining power makes your phone, textiles, and appliances.
- stainforth 6y ago
  I see corporatism as passing down costs and not savings. What costs have gone down over time? The highest expenditures I think for most people are housing, healthcare, education? What percentages have they been driven down by our system? Food? According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices for food were 769.75% higher in 2020 versus 1962 (founding of Walmart).
Closi 6y ago
I think he is referring to some studies that suggested Walmart's presence lowered the living costs of low income families by $1k-$2k due to the availability of lower priced food and goods compared to the smaller shops available prior to Walmart's rise. I don't think he is referring to the workers, and I agree calling it a welfare system is a bit silly and an overreach, but he is trying to say that it had an impact on household expenditure.
- sho 6y ago
  > Walmart's presence lowered the living costs of low income families by $1k-$2k These studies are useless in isolation. If the super-optimisation of production and supply chains (less factory workers, drivers, other lower skilled labour) and moving production to lower cost economies (far, far less factory jobs) also reduced the average income, then the benefits are far less clear, and may disappear altogether. Nothing happens in a vacuum. If the people who are supposedly benefiting from these low prices are the same people who lost their jobs to the MNCs in the first place, I doubt they're feeling all that grateful.
  - optimuspaul 6y ago
    But the people negatively affected are few compared to those positively affected. note: I don't actually buy into this idea that these so called positives are worth the cost. I believe we would be better off and happier if we still had the small businesses that were displaced.
    - sho 6y ago
      But are they? How many main street retail jobs has walmart killed? A million? Ten? Look, you might be right. Maybe the pain is indeed worth the gain. My point is - it's not even being considered.
snikeris 6y ago
I was once a happy employee of Sam's Club, which is owned by Walmart. They paid more than other jobs available to me, I was provided a 15 minute break every two hours, good times. I didn't feel like anyone was spitting in my face when I read the article.
- duhi88 6y ago
  They could have afforded to pay you more, but they chose not to. You may or may not have been an outlier in the distribution of wages, but overall wages have not increased with productivity.
  - mountainb 6y ago
    You could also borrow money or work a double shift to hire out more people or to just donate the extra money to charity or the government. Why are you posting on HN instead of working harder for the people? Why aren't you earning more so you can spend more on hiring people?
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    This is literally true for anyone who has savings above subsistence. We could all afford to pay people more or we would have no surplus in our bank account.
  - NikolaeVarius 6y ago
    Can I have all your money that is above subsistence?
- specialist 6y ago
  FWIW, Starbucks copied its profit sharing (and other ideas) from Sam Walton. Walton's bio pop biz book was widely read (early 90s). Starbucks was considered very progressive for the time (by us "carpet walkers", what the blue collar workers called us office workers). Lot's of happy worker bees. But at some point, Walmart took a hard turn to the right. And to my own shame, I didn't understand how anti-labor Starbucks was at the time. There was always grumblings and heresay. It was easy to dismiss as sour grapes and cranks. Then Schultz became a candidate for President and all the knives came out. Moving forward, I just want what's fair. I don't understand how it's okay for the top of the heap to become billionaires while the minions are making starvation wages. It doesn't have to be 50/50 even split of the spoils. But upgrading from 1/99 to 10/90 or even 20/80 would materially improve the lives of millions of people.
the_reformation 6y ago
Here's a good debate on whether Walmart is net positive or negative for America's working class: https://www.independent.org/events/transcript.asp?id=125 https://www.independent.org/events/transcript.asp?id=125
onion2k 6y ago
without costing taxpayers a dime That's not quite true. In 2018 Amazon paid an effective tax rate of -1% ... they claimed a $129m rebate on profits of $11.2bn. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/15/amazon-tax-bill-2018-no-taxes-despite-billions-profit https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/15/amazon-ta...
- redwoolf 6y ago
  Not to mention extra wear and tear to roads from their delivery trucks, the air traffic controllers handling their planes, etc.
  - TigeriusKirk 6y ago
    They pay the appropriate fees and taxes for road and airport use.
    - redwoolf 6y ago
      While this is true, it makes the claim that Amazon doesn't cost tax payers anything false.
- markemer 6y ago
  Don’t forget when the workers at Walmart need to go on Medicaid and other government programs we’re subsidizing their profits.
moksly 6y ago
I mean, you can spin it the way the author does. But those maximised supply chains are also really good at killing small business, and historically, small business has been a lot more important to free western societies than major companies with perfect supply chains. So you could also spin it as corporate slavery for all the people living paycheck to paycheck that are unable to ever break that cycle because it’s impossible to build something that would compete with Amazon. You can really spin the Amazon story whichever way you want. Over all, monopolies tend to be a net negative for society though.
switch11 6y ago
Agreed 100% -> Both Walmart and Amazon are pioneers of modern union busting practices. They screw workers over as much as they can get away with to squeeze out the maximum amount of labour. Instead of writing this you could as well spit in the face of working class people. History of taking advantage of people and the country A) not paying sales tax B) USPS subsidy C) union busting and exploiting their workers

paganel 6y ago

> saving billions and billions of dollars for everyday Americans without costing taxpayers a dime I have a feeling that these savings mostly benefit middle-class Americans.

bryanrasmussen 6y ago
of course as the middle-class is vanishing the correspondence is perhaps not as valid as before, but everyday Americans would once have been understood as a reference to middle-class Americans.
- xapata 6y ago
  When you have a random variable with log-normal distribution, such as income or wealth, unless the fundamental mechanism is changed to be additive (normal) instead of multiplicative (log-normal), you'll end up with the bulk of people at the low end of that curve. The existence of a large middle class was an anomaly.

parasubvert 6y ago

It’s completely naive and overwrought, however I think it’s quite arguable that Walmart and Amazon have done a lot for society in terms of passing down cost savings and customer satisfaction. This is why they have been successful. This is at the price of how they treat their labor, which is a political failure of the USA. This isn’t too different from much of modern capitalism: globalized cheap labor with poor conditions and limited collective bargaining power makes your phone, textiles, and appliances.

stainforth 6y ago
I see corporatism as passing down costs and not savings. What costs have gone down over time? The highest expenditures I think for most people are housing, healthcare, education? What percentages have they been driven down by our system? Food? According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices for food were 769.75% higher in 2020 versus 1962 (founding of Walmart).

Closi 6y ago

I think he is referring to some studies that suggested Walmart's presence lowered the living costs of low income families by $1k-$2k due to the availability of lower priced food and goods compared to the smaller shops available prior to Walmart's rise. I don't think he is referring to the workers, and I agree calling it a welfare system is a bit silly and an overreach, but he is trying to say that it had an impact on household expenditure.

sho 6y ago
> Walmart's presence lowered the living costs of low income families by $1k-$2k These studies are useless in isolation. If the super-optimisation of production and supply chains (less factory workers, drivers, other lower skilled labour) and moving production to lower cost economies (far, far less factory jobs) also reduced the average income, then the benefits are far less clear, and may disappear altogether. Nothing happens in a vacuum. If the people who are supposedly benefiting from these low prices are the same people who lost their jobs to the MNCs in the first place, I doubt they're feeling all that grateful.
- optimuspaul 6y ago
  But the people negatively affected are few compared to those positively affected. note: I don't actually buy into this idea that these so called positives are worth the cost. I believe we would be better off and happier if we still had the small businesses that were displaced.
  - sho 6y ago
    But are they? How many main street retail jobs has walmart killed? A million? Ten? Look, you might be right. Maybe the pain is indeed worth the gain. My point is - it's not even being considered.

snikeris 6y ago

I was once a happy employee of Sam's Club, which is owned by Walmart. They paid more than other jobs available to me, I was provided a 15 minute break every two hours, good times. I didn't feel like anyone was spitting in my face when I read the article.

duhi88 6y ago
They could have afforded to pay you more, but they chose not to. You may or may not have been an outlier in the distribution of wages, but overall wages have not increased with productivity.
- mountainb 6y ago
  You could also borrow money or work a double shift to hire out more people or to just donate the extra money to charity or the government. Why are you posting on HN instead of working harder for the people? Why aren't you earning more so you can spend more on hiring people?
- renewiltord 6y ago
  This is literally true for anyone who has savings above subsistence. We could all afford to pay people more or we would have no surplus in our bank account.
- NikolaeVarius 6y ago
  Can I have all your money that is above subsistence?
specialist 6y ago
FWIW, Starbucks copied its profit sharing (and other ideas) from Sam Walton. Walton's bio pop biz book was widely read (early 90s). Starbucks was considered very progressive for the time (by us "carpet walkers", what the blue collar workers called us office workers). Lot's of happy worker bees. But at some point, Walmart took a hard turn to the right. And to my own shame, I didn't understand how anti-labor Starbucks was at the time. There was always grumblings and heresay. It was easy to dismiss as sour grapes and cranks. Then Schultz became a candidate for President and all the knives came out. Moving forward, I just want what's fair. I don't understand how it's okay for the top of the heap to become billionaires while the minions are making starvation wages. It doesn't have to be 50/50 even split of the spoils. But upgrading from 1/99 to 10/90 or even 20/80 would materially improve the lives of millions of people.

the_reformation 6y ago

Here's a good debate on whether Walmart is net positive or negative for America's working class: https://www.independent.org/events/transcript.asp?id=125 https://www.independent.org/events/transcript.asp?id=125

onion2k 6y ago

without costing taxpayers a dime That's not quite true. In 2018 Amazon paid an effective tax rate of -1% ... they claimed a $129m rebate on profits of $11.2bn. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/15/amazon-tax-bill-2018-no-taxes-despite-billions-profit https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/15/amazon-ta...

redwoolf 6y ago
Not to mention extra wear and tear to roads from their delivery trucks, the air traffic controllers handling their planes, etc.
- TigeriusKirk 6y ago
  They pay the appropriate fees and taxes for road and airport use.
  - redwoolf 6y ago
    While this is true, it makes the claim that Amazon doesn't cost tax payers anything false.
markemer 6y ago
Don’t forget when the workers at Walmart need to go on Medicaid and other government programs we’re subsidizing their profits.

moksly 6y ago

I mean, you can spin it the way the author does. But those maximised supply chains are also really good at killing small business, and historically, small business has been a lot more important to free western societies than major companies with perfect supply chains. So you could also spin it as corporate slavery for all the people living paycheck to paycheck that are unable to ever break that cycle because it’s impossible to build something that would compete with Amazon. You can really spin the Amazon story whichever way you want. Over all, monopolies tend to be a net negative for society though.

switch11 6y ago

Agreed 100% -> Both Walmart and Amazon are pioneers of modern union busting practices. They screw workers over as much as they can get away with to squeeze out the maximum amount of labour. Instead of writing this you could as well spit in the face of working class people. History of taking advantage of people and the country A) not paying sales tax B) USPS subsidy C) union busting and exploiting their workers