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>>. It's a place where jobs are hard to come by, so maybe Amazon offers something the desperate, the poor, and the struggling something they can't get elsewhere

>>. It's a place where jobs are hard to come by, so maybe Amazon offers something the desperate, the poor, and the struggling something they can't get elsewhere. If you make it illegal to provide bad jobs, those jobs will not be substituted one-for-one for good jobs. That's not how an economy works. You're only hurting low-skilled workers by mandating higher minimum work standards. Responding to below: Yes, every so-called labor protection for adults, except protection against contract fraud, should be abolished, for exactly that reason. Even child labor laws only became practical when per capita GDP reached a level where prohibiting child labor wouldn't lead to an increase in people dying from privation. Child labor is also very different than most types of labor, in involving parties who cannot in many cases provide informed consent, so laws relating to it can be justified in a society based on voluntary interaction.

jakelazaroff 6y ago
You can make this argument about literally any labor protection. “You’re only hurting people desperate for work by mandating safety requirements.” “You’re only hurting poor families by banning child labor.”
tacitusarc 6y ago
This is a very tidy theoretical argument, but in practice you don't build a warehouse in a rural area along a shipping route then just abandon it when the community unionizes. Companies stick around for as long as they can possibly make a return on that investment, even if it means paying the people at the top less or decreasing margin to comply with union demands. And yeah, unions can go too far, but Amazon warehouses seem like a great place for them. Also, as long as the state is right to work so union participation is voluntary, what's the problem with it?
- Simulacra 6y ago
  Walmart closed stores in Canada that unionized. Why wouldn't Amazon close a warehouse? Seems easier to close a warehouse than an entire brick and mortar store. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/10/business/worldbusiness/walmart-to-close-store-in-canada-with-a-union.html https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/10/business/worldbusiness/wa... Union participation is very tricky. It's supposed to be voluntary, but there is evidence that those who don't join the union are denied employment, and advancement. The problem with unions is that they're never really voluntary. I would hate to see the unions of old that used violence to force people to join; or for a more recent example, card check initiatives to make the vote be non confidential.
danShumway 6y ago
> If you make it illegal to provide bad jobs, those jobs will not be substituted one-for-one for good jobs. That's not how an economy works. I think this betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how markets work. If you are a smart business, you don't charge what's "fair", you don't start by saying "I'm going to pay $X to my workers, so let's see how many I can hire with that money." Those are bad ways to run a business. You hire the number of workers you need to run your business at the price the market will bear. This is something that gets drilled into you if you take any entrepreneurship classes: things cost what the market will bear, there is no concept of "fairness" that entrepreneurs should be thinking about. You pay as little as you can to make something, and you charge as much as you can for it, and those are largely independent variables from each other. The idea that Amazon is going to stop hiring workers if they get more pee breaks... that's just not how markets work. If Amazon could afford to let those workers go, it would have done it already. If it doesn't need those workers and it's hiring them anyway, then it's just a badly managed company. Similarly, if you get rid of labor laws and reduce the minimum wage for Amazon's workers, it's not going to hire twice as many people just because it has the money. It'll increase its profit margins, because it's a business being run by smart people who understand how supply/demand works. You're talking about the market like supply and demand form a constant ratio with each other. They don't. It's not just wrong because reality is more complicated and in practice the simplistic models don't always bare out (although reality is more complicated and these simplistic models rarely capture how everything will work out), it's also wrong because it's fundamentally bad market theory on a simple level. Nobody starts a business deciding that they're going to pay a constant amount of money that gets divided equally among all of their workers. At least, they don't think that way if they want to stay in business for very long.
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  > Similarly, if you get rid of labor laws and reduce the minimum wage for Amazon's workers, it's not going to hire twice as many people just because it has the money. It'll increase its profit margins, because it's a business being run by smart people who understand how supply/demand works. No, they will lower prices and keep margins constant. This prevents competitors from moving in. Similarly, increased benefits from collective bargaining will result in higher prices for amazon goods and services, and more automation.

jakelazaroff 6y ago

You can make this argument about literally any labor protection. “You’re only hurting people desperate for work by mandating safety requirements.” “You’re only hurting poor families by banning child labor.”

tacitusarc 6y ago

This is a very tidy theoretical argument, but in practice you don't build a warehouse in a rural area along a shipping route then just abandon it when the community unionizes. Companies stick around for as long as they can possibly make a return on that investment, even if it means paying the people at the top less or decreasing margin to comply with union demands. And yeah, unions can go too far, but Amazon warehouses seem like a great place for them. Also, as long as the state is right to work so union participation is voluntary, what's the problem with it?

Simulacra 6y ago
Walmart closed stores in Canada that unionized. Why wouldn't Amazon close a warehouse? Seems easier to close a warehouse than an entire brick and mortar store. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/10/business/worldbusiness/walmart-to-close-store-in-canada-with-a-union.html https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/10/business/worldbusiness/wa... Union participation is very tricky. It's supposed to be voluntary, but there is evidence that those who don't join the union are denied employment, and advancement. The problem with unions is that they're never really voluntary. I would hate to see the unions of old that used violence to force people to join; or for a more recent example, card check initiatives to make the vote be non confidential.

danShumway 6y ago

> If you make it illegal to provide bad jobs, those jobs will not be substituted one-for-one for good jobs. That's not how an economy works. I think this betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how markets work. If you are a smart business, you don't charge what's "fair", you don't start by saying "I'm going to pay $X to my workers, so let's see how many I can hire with that money." Those are bad ways to run a business. You hire the number of workers you need to run your business at the price the market will bear. This is something that gets drilled into you if you take any entrepreneurship classes: things cost what the market will bear, there is no concept of "fairness" that entrepreneurs should be thinking about. You pay as little as you can to make something, and you charge as much as you can for it, and those are largely independent variables from each other. The idea that Amazon is going to stop hiring workers if they get more pee breaks... that's just not how markets work. If Amazon could afford to let those workers go, it would have done it already. If it doesn't need those workers and it's hiring them anyway, then it's just a badly managed company. Similarly, if you get rid of labor laws and reduce the minimum wage for Amazon's workers, it's not going to hire twice as many people just because it has the money. It'll increase its profit margins, because it's a business being run by smart people who understand how supply/demand works. You're talking about the market like supply and demand form a constant ratio with each other. They don't. It's not just wrong because reality is more complicated and in practice the simplistic models don't always bare out (although reality is more complicated and these simplistic models rarely capture how everything will work out), it's also wrong because it's fundamentally bad market theory on a simple level. Nobody starts a business deciding that they're going to pay a constant amount of money that gets divided equally among all of their workers. At least, they don't think that way if they want to stay in business for very long.

chordalkeyboard 6y ago
> Similarly, if you get rid of labor laws and reduce the minimum wage for Amazon's workers, it's not going to hire twice as many people just because it has the money. It'll increase its profit margins, because it's a business being run by smart people who understand how supply/demand works. No, they will lower prices and keep margins constant. This prevents competitors from moving in. Similarly, increased benefits from collective bargaining will result in higher prices for amazon goods and services, and more automation.