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Do people agree that corporations should respect the customs and values of the local people when operating their business there? If yes, then Amazon is not "bo
by RyEgswuCsn 4y ago
Do people agree that corporations should respect the customs and values of the local people when operating their business there?
If yes, then Amazon is not "bowing", and it is The Guardian who is playing word games here. If not, then it would seem to imply that we are OK with western powers using their capital (instead of gunboats) to impose their ideology on other cultures in the world.
Now, one may argue that the customs and values of some countries are incompatible with those of the West and may even be considered "backward" to the point that western companies should completely withdraw from those markets because providing services to such markets equates to empowering those backward social values. That can be a fair assessment, but just remember not to blame them for "banning western companies" in the future.
- MomoXenosaga 4y agoNo, only the law. UAE customs and values on LGBTQ will collapse naturally by the outside pressure of superior Western culture.
- baisq 4y agoYeah, let's see that superiority when the US supremacy breaks down. Because the only way that the Western culture has prevailed this century is through bloodshed.
- digitalsushi 4y agoThere must be some western culture that has been successful because it is what humans naturally gravitate towards.
- azth 4y agoLogical fallacy, just because humans naturally gravitate towards something does not make it right. Humans gravitate toward feeling good (drugs), and we see how that turns out for example.
- xcambar 4y agoFunny how one might think that what is prevalent worldwide in this era looks like a natural trend. To a goldfish in an aquarium, it is also very natural that food appears from above, as per magic.
- baisq 4y agoThis is a very narrow view of the issue. There have been lots of different successful cultures throughout history and they were different in significant ways. Western culture is the one that you are currently living through. The rest of cultures of the past probably also thought they were the best and would last forever.
- digitalsushi 4y agoIt took me 7 hours to realize that my parent reply is lexically ambiguous and poorly written. I own it, I am full of covid and operating as well as everyone told me: My intention was to indicate at least a fraction: There must be /some/ western culture that has been successful because it [that portion] is what humans naturally gravitate towards. My accident was to imply that western culture has been wholly successful: There must be some-western-culture that has been successful because it [all of it] is what humans naturally gravitate towards. Sorry to any readers in the future, I deserve the replies I got today in this context.
- JKCalhoun 4y agoWe seem in fact to gravitate to tribalism if my (admittedly shallow) grasp of history is worth anything.
- JackFr 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_history
- s1artibartfast 4y agoMuslim culture is probably the most successful culture if you are looking at growth over the last 1000 years or so.
- tcmart14 4y agoThe issue is, you can go back to any form of governance and social hierarchy throughout history and find groups of people defending it as what humans "naturally want." People have done this with feudalism and whatever came before.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> remember not to blame them for "banning western companies" in the future American companies are banned from paying foreign bribes. They’re not given a free pass with suporting genocide or terrorism, regardless of where it happens, even if that’s the law or custom somewhere else. If we place domestic profits over sex trafficking or death penalties for gay people, so long as it’s there not here, then fine, let’s live with that sociopathy. It’s an abysmal moral space to occupy, but I also can’t argue with putting food on one’s table.
- zmgsabst 4y agoI’d just like them to pick a lane: - sociopathic corporation, profits above people… and stop pushing rainbow symbols all month domestically - actually find your backbone and push rainbows globally I think customers should refuse to tolerate the abuser mentality of corporations screaming at people who already agree about “gay rights” while refusing to actually stand up for them globally.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> customers should refuse to tolerate the abuser mentality of corporations Boycotts work when they’re deep, acute and with agreement on the solution that will lift it. Boycotts won’t do anything here. This requires legislation.
- zmgsabst 4y agoI was thinking shareholder lawsuits against, eg, Disney or Amazon who appear to have lost a substantial amount of market value while focusing on “woke” over success.
- toolz 4y agoIt's quite a stretch to go from banning LGBT searches to death penalties for those same people. The west bans information all the time that it deems dangerous, our value system is just different. I would argue our value system is vastly superior, but I would never demand someone take my values as their own.
- imachine1980_ 4y agoI think the take here is different, accept other culture is different to discriminate against some person, i'm again anti Islamic comments, also i'm not in favor of discrimination of LGBT+ people, jews,black, rusian etc. the question is here is we are in favor of corporation who value more market penetration than ethics standards, i'm against the neoliberal idea that corporation aren't ideological organization, i feel this premise in itself is ideological,and is use to push out criticism of their actions.
- boopmaster 4y agoLet me google that for you. Wait, some search results were removed due to DMCA claims. All the stones I had to throw at this are apparently censored here in the good ole USA.
- hef19898 4y agoPersonally, I think corporations have to respect the laws in all the markets they are operating in, no exceptions. If those laws are contradictory, well international corps are pretty good in using any loop holes, so they gonna figure it out. And if laws in some markets contradict basic values of a company, well, you can always not operate in said market. I'd love if companies would do that. That companies don't is a major way non-sanctioned totalitarian regimes can circumvent western democratic values. In a way the world was easier during the cold war, good and bad was clearly distinguished, human rights didn't matter in the public opinion as log it was "our" guys doing the violations and things like LGBTQ, minority and women rights were a mere fringe phenomenon in West anyway. I like today's environment better.
- naniwaduni 4y ago"circumvent" makes it sound like they're not taking the straight-line path and ignoring western democratic values and getting away with it
- hef19898 4y agoThey are doing both, aren't they?
- yakubin 4y ago> Do people agree that corporations should respect the customs and values of the local people when operating their business there? They may do that, but then playing a champion of the opposing values when it's convenient (pride month in the western world) is hypocrisy and it should be pointed out. If they didn't have an LGBTQ-based PR campaign in the West, then this move wouldn't merit a mention. Alas, it does.
- 31835843 4y ago> If not, then it would seem to imply that we are OK with western powers using their capital (instead of gunboats) to impose their ideology on other cultures in the world. “impose their ideology” is a disingenuous frame for this situation. They are censoring search results. As in, the customer, who Amazon makes money off by showing them what they want, is not being shown items that relate to what they searched for. That’s not a pop-up that says “Muhammad was bisexual.” In any case, cultural relativism is a liberal cop-out. American companies should use their capital to promote American values.
- josephg 4y ago> American companies should use their capital to promote American values Like how Facebook bans all nudity, even in countries where nudity is much less of a big deal (eg Germany)? Or apple has a blanket ban on “adult” apps in their App Store, because in America violence is ok but sex is bad? I hear what you’re saying, but as an Australian, exported American cultural values can be pretty odious too. I don’t have any simple answers though.
- 31835843 4y agoI wouldn’t consider those “American values,” except in the sense that those companies are trying to protect their interests by having a platform that appeals to a wide variety of people. Which, come to think of it, is itself a distinct value: compromise of free expression for money. You have a good point here.
- JackFr 4y agoBut Americans celebrate tolerance and diversity of ideas, that is unless you actually disagree with us.
- 31835843 4y agoTolerance and diversity are not absolute.
- 4y ago
- djohnston 4y agoMy feeling is that if you're going out of your way to promote an ideology/cultural value domestically (Happy Pride Month!, flags everywhere, etc), then yes you need to stick to your guns and not bow to the opposite influence. If you're strictly in the business of making money, then by all means conduct your business but stfu about it.
- naniwaduni 4y agoThe trick is that they're not promoting an ideology/cultural value domestically; they're bowing to local influence everywhere, including domestically. i.e. we should not take corporate Pride as sincere support, but as an indicator of the zeitgeist.
- djohnston 4y agoAgreed, but then it's just valueless noise and I wish they'd stfu about it XD
- joedissmeyer 4y ago"...The trick is that they're not promoting an ideology/cultural value domestically; they're bowing to local influence everywhere, including domestically." I think that this is the main issue. It is my opinion that this problem stems from the business and finance minded dogma of pushing efficiency, regardless of the long-term damage done to a brand/product/service, simply because in the short term it is _cheaper_ to do so. The long term damage is traded for short term gains.... kicking the bucket down the road if you will but doing long term damage to the business or institution overall. In this particular context, lets take the example of Disney cutting/splicing/editing certain scenes from their films and shows in order to gain release approval in China. Instead of having one film product with a certain edit in the US, then another for China, then another for India, and so on, it is just _cheaper_ to have a single version edit of the film to release "everywhere". So in order to do this Disney has to appease a variety of censors and overview boards and make all changes in order to make a single film product where every governmental review board is happy. The pros is that you have a single version of the film thus making overall production costs cheaper. However the main con is that you may have specific ideological influence added to the product where it should or shouldn't be, or the tone or message of the film product might fundamentally change which breaks the premise/lesson, or the story is watered down essentially making the product meaningless, or the entertainment product might not be entertaining! The only real benefit in this case is that Disney still gets to release the film in as many markets as possible (thus meeting the rule of numbers for possible profit) but the customer starts to feel less connected to the brand so they start to lose interest and eventually abandon it. There are better examples of course. This is just one.
- bmitc 4y agoI think it's a spectrum. When adjusting to local culture in a more colloquial manner, e.g., like what McDonald's and KFC do with their food in places like China, I think that is fine. However, when it comes to supporting and enabling ideology and policies that directly conflict with the values of the country that company is headquartered in and actually most of the developed world, then I think it's a national security issue. Because then, customers in the host country and the company itself are directly funding the conflicting ideology. People not liking to eat cheese or beef or rice porridge is different than human rights issues. In general, I am not a fan of pushing or maintaining an ideology over another when it comes to economic and other such policies, but when it comes to human rights violations, I don't think that's something that should be bowed to.
- azth 4y agoWho dictates "human rights"?
- bmitc 4y agoMost human rights seem pretty universal to me and really not that hard to determine, but at the end, it's the country that hosts the company, isn't it?
- azth 4y agoThat's a hand wavy answer that won't hold up to scrutiny. In some cultures, human sacrifice was permitted and seen as normal and acceptable. I think you would consider that a violation of human rights, but based on what? I agree that companies should be forced to abide by the local laws and norms.
- bmitc 4y agoI think the keyword there is “some”. Extreme edge cases matter in things like mathematics, but they rarely make a compelling argument for fringe socioeconomic policies or viewpoints or enumerating human rights. For my own sentiment, referenced as hand wavy, it is not that hard to let people do what they want with their own life as long as it does not hurt or infringe upon others’ rights. Is that really that difficult of a rubric to follow? For the original question, I already answered that explicitly.
- hulitu 4y ago> Do people agree that corporations should respect the customs and values of the local people when operating their business there? No, definitely no. Corporations (especially american ones) know better. Corporations don't respect customs they respect growing value. /s
- FerociousTimes 4y ago> Do people agree that corporations should respect the customs and values of the local people when operating their business there? Not local customs and values but local laws and regulations in their respective jurisdiction because even in these seemingly mono-cultural places, there's still variety and diversity when it comes to traditions and conventions.
- meatsauce 4y agoNo, we, the alphabet mafia, demand total fealty ...or else.
- beej71 4y agoAmazon doesn't respect any customs or values of any culture. They've done the calculus here that they will make more money by doing this than by not doing it.