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> Re: Walmart, the other option is to just cut the aid. People won't work if they are not able to sustain themselves (calorically) on the pay. The best way to a

> Re: Walmart, the other option is to just cut the aid. People won't work if they are not able to sustain themselves (calorically) on the pay. The best way to avoid these antipatterns is to stop enabling them. This is a truly horrifying, compassionless comment. You're literally suggesting starving people. Sure, cutting these programs means eventually Walmart changes their business model. But the people who suffer during that transition aren't Walmart shareholders, who experience what, a temporary 30% loss in their share price? The people who suffer are the workers; Walmart has replaced thousands of smaller local stores which used to provide jobs, so the workers cannot necessarily find other work. Walmart has plenty of runway to play a game of chicken here: oh, you want to cut aid? Let's see if that idea lasts one or two election cycles. In the mean time workers, as you say, are "unable to sustain themselves (calorically)", i.e. starving, because their options are either continue working for Walmart for not enough pay to eat, or quit, and get no pay to eat. I mean, I agree this would cause a mass quitting at Walmart and the hundreds of other companies that employ the same strategies, but where do those workers start working? Companies as a whole can just afford to refuse to raise pay for a while in most cases and try other business models in the meantime. Even if other companies are started which outcompete Walmart by paying their workers a living wage, it will take decades for those companies to grow to the same size and provide as many jobs.

thegrimmest 2y ago
We don't have to make these changes all at once. I agree doing so would be somewhat disruptive. We can roll back the aid over a period of say 5 or 10 years, giving workers (and companies) time to figure out what to do. I agree it may not be tenable in a representative democracy, but my point is that means the democracy is too powerful and encroaches on fundamental liberty. Government should not have the power to redistribute assets in pursuit of the "general welfare", and indeed it did not until US v. Butler (1936) gave the government sweeping power to do basically anything.
- kerkeslager 2y ago
  > We don't have to make these changes all at once. I agree doing so would be somewhat disruptive. We can roll back the aid over a period of say 5 or 10 years, giving workers (and companies) time to figure out what to do. We don't need to give companies time to figure out what to do. We already know their solution, because it's the same playbook they've always used: change no business practices, and spend a fraction of that cost on lobbying (bribes) and propagandizing for the change to be reversed. A tiered rollout just gives them more runway to do this. And more time when workers suffer. Instead of trying to predict what will happen based on your ivory tower economic theory, try predicting what will happen based on what has happened, i.e., reality. Your opinion continues to be a horrifying, compassionless take: you openly admit it would "be somewhat disruptive", but the suffering of workers is a sacrifice you are willing to make for your pet ideology. More to the point: why would we even want to give companies time to figure out what to do? They have had plenty of time to do the right thing and they chose to do the wrong thing. I'm not for punitive justice, but I'm also not particularly concerned if the solution to the problem harms those who knowingly and intentionally caused the problem. > I agree it may not be tenable in a representative democracy, but my point is that means the democracy is too powerful and encroaches on fundamental liberty. Government should not have the power to redistribute assets in pursuit of the "general welfare", and indeed it did not until US v. Butler (1936) gave the government sweeping power to do basically anything. Fundamental liberty applies to humans, not corporations. Corporations do not have fundamental rights, period. And just as fundamentally, when government does not limit the power of corporations, corporations step into the power void, gain too much power, and take away people's rights and liberties. Being for corporate liberty is being against human liberty, it's as simple as that. Yes, I understand that the SCOTUS ruled that corporations are people: the SCOTUS is wrong. Yes, I understand that corporations are made up of people. But the actions of corporations are chosen by a small, small fraction of those people, and benefit that same small fraction of people. That small fraction of people disproportionately get to exercise any rights that are granted to a corporation, often at the expense of many more people lower in the corporate pyramid. Granting freedoms to corporations is effectively the pigs in Animal Farm saying "you're all free, but some of you are freer than others" because you're granting those rights to the decision makers in the corporation and not to the workers.
  - 2y ago

thegrimmest 2y ago

We don't have to make these changes all at once. I agree doing so would be somewhat disruptive. We can roll back the aid over a period of say 5 or 10 years, giving workers (and companies) time to figure out what to do. I agree it may not be tenable in a representative democracy, but my point is that means the democracy is too powerful and encroaches on fundamental liberty. Government should not have the power to redistribute assets in pursuit of the "general welfare", and indeed it did not until US v. Butler (1936) gave the government sweeping power to do basically anything.

kerkeslager 2y ago
> We don't have to make these changes all at once. I agree doing so would be somewhat disruptive. We can roll back the aid over a period of say 5 or 10 years, giving workers (and companies) time to figure out what to do. We don't need to give companies time to figure out what to do. We already know their solution, because it's the same playbook they've always used: change no business practices, and spend a fraction of that cost on lobbying (bribes) and propagandizing for the change to be reversed. A tiered rollout just gives them more runway to do this. And more time when workers suffer. Instead of trying to predict what will happen based on your ivory tower economic theory, try predicting what will happen based on what has happened, i.e., reality. Your opinion continues to be a horrifying, compassionless take: you openly admit it would "be somewhat disruptive", but the suffering of workers is a sacrifice you are willing to make for your pet ideology. More to the point: why would we even want to give companies time to figure out what to do? They have had plenty of time to do the right thing and they chose to do the wrong thing. I'm not for punitive justice, but I'm also not particularly concerned if the solution to the problem harms those who knowingly and intentionally caused the problem. > I agree it may not be tenable in a representative democracy, but my point is that means the democracy is too powerful and encroaches on fundamental liberty. Government should not have the power to redistribute assets in pursuit of the "general welfare", and indeed it did not until US v. Butler (1936) gave the government sweeping power to do basically anything. Fundamental liberty applies to humans, not corporations. Corporations do not have fundamental rights, period. And just as fundamentally, when government does not limit the power of corporations, corporations step into the power void, gain too much power, and take away people's rights and liberties. Being for corporate liberty is being against human liberty, it's as simple as that. Yes, I understand that the SCOTUS ruled that corporations are people: the SCOTUS is wrong. Yes, I understand that corporations are made up of people. But the actions of corporations are chosen by a small, small fraction of those people, and benefit that same small fraction of people. That small fraction of people disproportionately get to exercise any rights that are granted to a corporation, often at the expense of many more people lower in the corporate pyramid. Granting freedoms to corporations is effectively the pigs in Animal Farm saying "you're all free, but some of you are freer than others" because you're granting those rights to the decision makers in the corporation and not to the workers.
- 2y ago