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For any future world's wealthiest, is having a non contentious relationship with employees a reasonable endeavor? The fact that this is about money while the pe

For any future world's wealthiest, is having a non contentious relationship with employees a reasonable endeavor? The fact that this is about money while the person in charge has the most money of anyone living doesn't seem to be a desirable or targeted position given their fine tuned logistical approach to the world.

ponker 6y ago
Bill Gates had a non contentious relationship with employees. The key is to only create white collar jobs.
- toyg 6y ago
  Not quite. Larry Ellison created white-collar jobs, but still the Oracle workforce unionized and mobilized in several EU countries. White-collars are traditionally less likely to fight only because they tend to enjoy better mobility and have better incentives to stay silent (even if they don't maximize their earning potential, their social standing typically compensates). If you mistreat them enough, they will react like anyone else.
  - posix_me_less 6y ago
    Is there any reporting on how Oracle mistreated its employees? Can the unionization be taken as proof that they did get too far?
    - toyg 6y ago
      If i remember correctly, it was a reaction to rounds of layoffs-by-spreadsheet.
  - ponker 6y ago
    Of course you can create white collar jobs and have your employees hate you. My claim was only that it's impossible to have your employees NOT hate you if you are the richest man in the world and they're doing blue collar labor for you. If you create only jobs where people are earning six figures in front of a desk and living comfortable lives, they might envy but don't begrudge you $100 billion. But if you're asking someone to do tough physical labor for $15 or $20 an hour while you make a billion dollars a day or whatever, no way they won't try to knock you off that pedestal.
dejavuagain 6y ago
The monetary system violates natural law. Humans will never be happy in herds grazing money. One person will eat it all.
lotsofpulp 6y ago
People will purchase from Walmart.com for 5 cents cheaper. Also, the person in charge owns equity that when multiplied by the most recent share sale price equals a valuation that might be the biggest number in the world for a publicly traded company. But that isn’t the same as money, and if it were to be liquidated, the share price would not be worth nearly as much, which it partly is because Bezos owns much of it.
- Kye 6y ago
  The problem is he has all those shares instead of the people responsible for producing that wealth. Wealth is fine in the abstract, but not when he has so much while the people who enable it suffer for the inability to fund basic needs.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    The value of those shares is partially derived from Bezos having those shares. The purchasers of outstanding shares are predicting Bezos’ interest in furthering Amazon’s business interest will result in some probability of success in gaining market share. And if you were to increase the supply of Bezos’ shares and sell them all in the open market, then the price would probably drop because the supply of shares for sale is greatly increasing, and because Bezos may not have the same motivations.
    - Kye 6y ago
      You seem to be operating on the assumption that I don't know how stock valuations work. I promise I do. My argument was moral, not economic. I don't actually care about Amazon's stock value. I care that Amazon does not pay its workers enough to have a reasonable standard of living. If it's to be a bridge job to something better, the argument usually made for why retail/fast food pays poorly, they should make enough to actually do that. They do not.
      - lotsofpulp 6y ago
        > If it's to be a bridge job to something better, the argument usually made for why retail/fast food pays poorly, they should make enough to actually do that The reason retail/fast food pay poorly is because there’s a lot of supply for people willing to do retail/fast food compared to the demand. And also because people aren’t going to pay $50 for some French fries, at that point they would start making food themselves, but that’s the same as “insufficient demand to pay someone enough that it would cause $50 French fries”. I don’t see the purpose of a moral argument when it’s a fact retail businesses earn low single digit profit margins. Walmart can’t pay more even if it wanted to, they would have to raise their prices and then people shop at Target. It looks like it makes a lot of money, but to doesn’t split over all of its employees, and same with every other large retail operation. There’s a couple large ones serving the upper middle class market like Costco and Apple and Nordstrom and Trader Joe’s that might pay a little more, but they are unique and it wouldn’t scale for the whole population. Here’s another example. Two people buy some land, and build two different hotels. Person A pays labor near to as low as people are willing to accept, and Person B pays more. Let’s say person A pays $15 per hour and person B pays $25 per hour. 10 years later, it’s renovation time. Person A has saved more money for renovations so they can make their hotel nicer than person B. Now, customers will prefer to pay person A more than person B, and they will be able to earn more revenue. Now person A has more capital to purchase land. They can get bigger loans because their operating income is higher, afford to pay for more land in a more prime location, and build a new hotel. They can expand and take more market share from person B. You can see where the is is going. Therefore, I don’t see the purpose of discussing the moral imperative for a single business to pay a material amount above market price. Consumers will, by and large, not reward the morally correct businesses. They might pay a $60 premium to Costco, but that’s about it.
tehjoker 6y ago
The communist manifesto has a lot to say on this point.

ponker 6y ago

Bill Gates had a non contentious relationship with employees. The key is to only create white collar jobs.

toyg 6y ago
Not quite. Larry Ellison created white-collar jobs, but still the Oracle workforce unionized and mobilized in several EU countries. White-collars are traditionally less likely to fight only because they tend to enjoy better mobility and have better incentives to stay silent (even if they don't maximize their earning potential, their social standing typically compensates). If you mistreat them enough, they will react like anyone else.
- posix_me_less 6y ago
  Is there any reporting on how Oracle mistreated its employees? Can the unionization be taken as proof that they did get too far?
  - toyg 6y ago
    If i remember correctly, it was a reaction to rounds of layoffs-by-spreadsheet.
- ponker 6y ago
  Of course you can create white collar jobs and have your employees hate you. My claim was only that it's impossible to have your employees NOT hate you if you are the richest man in the world and they're doing blue collar labor for you. If you create only jobs where people are earning six figures in front of a desk and living comfortable lives, they might envy but don't begrudge you $100 billion. But if you're asking someone to do tough physical labor for $15 or $20 an hour while you make a billion dollars a day or whatever, no way they won't try to knock you off that pedestal.

dejavuagain 6y ago

The monetary system violates natural law. Humans will never be happy in herds grazing money. One person will eat it all.

lotsofpulp 6y ago

People will purchase from Walmart.com for 5 cents cheaper. Also, the person in charge owns equity that when multiplied by the most recent share sale price equals a valuation that might be the biggest number in the world for a publicly traded company. But that isn’t the same as money, and if it were to be liquidated, the share price would not be worth nearly as much, which it partly is because Bezos owns much of it.

Kye 6y ago
The problem is he has all those shares instead of the people responsible for producing that wealth. Wealth is fine in the abstract, but not when he has so much while the people who enable it suffer for the inability to fund basic needs.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  The value of those shares is partially derived from Bezos having those shares. The purchasers of outstanding shares are predicting Bezos’ interest in furthering Amazon’s business interest will result in some probability of success in gaining market share. And if you were to increase the supply of Bezos’ shares and sell them all in the open market, then the price would probably drop because the supply of shares for sale is greatly increasing, and because Bezos may not have the same motivations.
  - Kye 6y ago
    You seem to be operating on the assumption that I don't know how stock valuations work. I promise I do. My argument was moral, not economic. I don't actually care about Amazon's stock value. I care that Amazon does not pay its workers enough to have a reasonable standard of living. If it's to be a bridge job to something better, the argument usually made for why retail/fast food pays poorly, they should make enough to actually do that. They do not.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      > If it's to be a bridge job to something better, the argument usually made for why retail/fast food pays poorly, they should make enough to actually do that The reason retail/fast food pay poorly is because there’s a lot of supply for people willing to do retail/fast food compared to the demand. And also because people aren’t going to pay $50 for some French fries, at that point they would start making food themselves, but that’s the same as “insufficient demand to pay someone enough that it would cause $50 French fries”. I don’t see the purpose of a moral argument when it’s a fact retail businesses earn low single digit profit margins. Walmart can’t pay more even if it wanted to, they would have to raise their prices and then people shop at Target. It looks like it makes a lot of money, but to doesn’t split over all of its employees, and same with every other large retail operation. There’s a couple large ones serving the upper middle class market like Costco and Apple and Nordstrom and Trader Joe’s that might pay a little more, but they are unique and it wouldn’t scale for the whole population. Here’s another example. Two people buy some land, and build two different hotels. Person A pays labor near to as low as people are willing to accept, and Person B pays more. Let’s say person A pays $15 per hour and person B pays $25 per hour. 10 years later, it’s renovation time. Person A has saved more money for renovations so they can make their hotel nicer than person B. Now, customers will prefer to pay person A more than person B, and they will be able to earn more revenue. Now person A has more capital to purchase land. They can get bigger loans because their operating income is higher, afford to pay for more land in a more prime location, and build a new hotel. They can expand and take more market share from person B. You can see where the is is going. Therefore, I don’t see the purpose of discussing the moral imperative for a single business to pay a material amount above market price. Consumers will, by and large, not reward the morally correct businesses. They might pay a $60 premium to Costco, but that’s about it.

tehjoker 6y ago

The communist manifesto has a lot to say on this point.