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> The government subsidizing their pay is a good thing The government is really subsidising the money into Jeff Bezos's accounts. The skills aren't considered

> The government subsidizing their pay is a good thing The government is really subsidising the money into Jeff Bezos's accounts. The skills aren't considered worth $25/h because they are not paid according to the value they are providing, which is evident by the grotesque profits that Amazon is making. Amazon arguably has monopoly power over this type of job, which means there isn't competition for the workers, and they aren't paid correctly. That should be corrected, rather than subsidised.

elindbe3 6y ago
Who's to say that those jobs are providing the value though? You'd have to do a much deeper analysis than looking at Amazon's profit margins given the fact that they have all sorts of automation their employees didn't pay for.
- throwaway2245 6y ago
  There's no objective measure of value and the amount the workers are paid is more a function of their (very little) power: if those types of workers vanished, Amazon would not have any value.
  - elindbe3 6y ago
    Well I'm glad we're in agreement there's no objective measure of value of these workers. > if those types of workers vanished, Amazon would not have any value. I disagree, in a world with only higher wage workers, a business like Amazon's would be even more important since they have such a focus on automation. Look at what happened during COVID. A lot of low wage work was shut down and who took their place in the economy? A few large companies.
- wombatmobile 6y ago
  > You'd have to do a much deeper analysis than looking at Amazon's profit margins given the fact that they have all sorts of automation their employees didn't pay for. If I understand correctly, you are saying that the value delivered by the robots that perform the automation has nothing to do with Amazon's minimum wage workers. That value can go straight into Jeff Bezos's bank account, and justice will be served, because he is the lawful owner of the robots. He created the company that earned the profits that were reinvested in the R&D that developed and paid for those robots, so he deserves the profits from them. If you look a little closer, you'll see that every dollar of those profits over time came from the actual work that each minimum wage worker put in for every hour they worked. What they got back was $12 per hour, or $15 per hour even, but what they contributed to Amazon was more like $25 per hour, or $50 per hour, or $200 per hour - it depends on the profit margin of the goods they were transceiving. The economic system you are familiar with awards all those profits to the owner of the capital, and even demands of him less tax for earnings than it does of the hourly labourer. The minimum wage workers get a fixed amount per hour, whilst the owner of capital gets a variable amount per hour. That doesn't make it right, or fair, or just. To be fair and just, all of those thousands of minimum wage workers over the last 20 years would have received equity that was proportional to the share of the effort they contributed to build the business. But the workers received no equity. At least, the unskilled workers received no equity. Equity was only offer to workers higher up. Why? That's the system. Why is that the system? It would take a longer discussion than we are having here, in a broader context to really shine a light on it. We can have that discussion whenever you like. In the meantime, don't assume all the value came from Jeff Bezos's sweaty hands. The truth is not as clean as that.
creddit 6y ago
Amazon's "grotesque" profits come from AWS. Probably not many $15/hr workers contributing there. Also, Amazon does not have anything near a monopoly on warehouse work. Are you kidding with that?
KingMachiavelli 6y ago
> Amazon arguably has monopoly power over this type of job, which means there isn't competition for the workers, and they aren't paid correctly. How is that true? The pool of workers that Amazon employs for warehouse jobs is unskilled which Amazon certainly does not have a monopoly on. Walmart & McDonalds are in this category and are two of the largest employers in the world.

elindbe3 6y ago

Who's to say that those jobs are providing the value though? You'd have to do a much deeper analysis than looking at Amazon's profit margins given the fact that they have all sorts of automation their employees didn't pay for.

throwaway2245 6y ago
There's no objective measure of value and the amount the workers are paid is more a function of their (very little) power: if those types of workers vanished, Amazon would not have any value.
- elindbe3 6y ago
  Well I'm glad we're in agreement there's no objective measure of value of these workers. > if those types of workers vanished, Amazon would not have any value. I disagree, in a world with only higher wage workers, a business like Amazon's would be even more important since they have such a focus on automation. Look at what happened during COVID. A lot of low wage work was shut down and who took their place in the economy? A few large companies.
wombatmobile 6y ago
> You'd have to do a much deeper analysis than looking at Amazon's profit margins given the fact that they have all sorts of automation their employees didn't pay for. If I understand correctly, you are saying that the value delivered by the robots that perform the automation has nothing to do with Amazon's minimum wage workers. That value can go straight into Jeff Bezos's bank account, and justice will be served, because he is the lawful owner of the robots. He created the company that earned the profits that were reinvested in the R&D that developed and paid for those robots, so he deserves the profits from them. If you look a little closer, you'll see that every dollar of those profits over time came from the actual work that each minimum wage worker put in for every hour they worked. What they got back was $12 per hour, or $15 per hour even, but what they contributed to Amazon was more like $25 per hour, or $50 per hour, or $200 per hour - it depends on the profit margin of the goods they were transceiving. The economic system you are familiar with awards all those profits to the owner of the capital, and even demands of him less tax for earnings than it does of the hourly labourer. The minimum wage workers get a fixed amount per hour, whilst the owner of capital gets a variable amount per hour. That doesn't make it right, or fair, or just. To be fair and just, all of those thousands of minimum wage workers over the last 20 years would have received equity that was proportional to the share of the effort they contributed to build the business. But the workers received no equity. At least, the unskilled workers received no equity. Equity was only offer to workers higher up. Why? That's the system. Why is that the system? It would take a longer discussion than we are having here, in a broader context to really shine a light on it. We can have that discussion whenever you like. In the meantime, don't assume all the value came from Jeff Bezos's sweaty hands. The truth is not as clean as that.

creddit 6y ago

Amazon's "grotesque" profits come from AWS. Probably not many $15/hr workers contributing there. Also, Amazon does not have anything near a monopoly on warehouse work. Are you kidding with that?

KingMachiavelli 6y ago

> Amazon arguably has monopoly power over this type of job, which means there isn't competition for the workers, and they aren't paid correctly. How is that true? The pool of workers that Amazon employs for warehouse jobs is unskilled which Amazon certainly does not have a monopoly on. Walmart & McDonalds are in this category and are two of the largest employers in the world.