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Caring solely about money often has the side effect of making others' lives better. Amazon gainfully employs over 500k [1] people, giving them means to put food

Caring solely about money often has the side effect of making others' lives better. Amazon gainfully employs over 500k [1] people, giving them means to put food on the table. Not saying that wouldn't happen without Amazon, but more job availability is always better than less. Bezos just became the richest man ever recorded [2]. [1]: http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/26/technology/business/amazon-earnings/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/26/technology/business/amazon-e... [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16108295 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16108295

Carioca 9y ago
> means to put food on the table With a bit of help from the taxpayers: http://www.dispatch.com/news/20180105/amazon-makes-list-of-large-companies-with-workers-receiving-food-stamps http://www.dispatch.com/news/20180105/amazon-makes-list-of-l...
- kfriede 9y ago
  > 700 employees So, 0.14% of their workforce.
  - LV-426 9y ago
    From the article: "Amazon likely has about 700 workers [in Ohio alone] receiving food stamps, more than 10 percent of its Ohio workforce"
ACow_Adonis 9y ago
Reminds me of: "Oh, Father. You're so wrong. Let me explain. [Puts and empty water glass on his desk] Life, which you so nobly serve, comes from destruction, disorder and chaos. Now take this empty glass. Here it is: peaceful, serene, boring. But if it is destroyed [Pushes the glass off the table. It shatters on the floor, and several small machines come out to clean it up] Look at all these little things! So busy now! Notice how each one is useful. A lovely ballet ensues, so full of form and color. Now, think about all those people that created them. Technicians, engineers, hundreds of people, who will be able to feed their children tonight, so those children can grow up big and strong and have little teeny children of their own, and so on and so forth. Thus, adding to the great chain of life. You see, father, by causing a little destruction, I am in fact encouraging life. In reality, you and I are in the same business.
- digitaltrees 9y ago
  Fifth element. That’s a Deep cut.
  - djsumdog 9y ago
    I don't remember this scene. I might have to watch it again.
    - celticninja 9y ago
      When Gary oldman is talking to the priest, then he chokes on a cherry and none of his machines can save him.
- armenarmen 9y ago
  Aaah Keynesians
  - dang 9y ago
    Please don't post unsubstantive comments here, let alone ideological flamebait. Those are just the sort of things we're trying to avoid on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- roywiggins 9y ago
  Aha, that's the broken window fallacy, I think.
- slg 9y ago
  AKA the broken window fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
- gwern 9y ago
  On the other hand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fable_of_the_Bees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fable_of_the_Bees
thom 9y ago
You mean, "giving them means to live in a tent near an Amazon fulfilment centre."
- kfriede 9y ago
  Who is forcing them to work at Amazon? Their lives are clearly better working there than if Amazon had never existed. If conditions are so bad that these employees live in tents, why not quit and.... oh wait.... live in tents (now with less money).
  - thom 9y ago
    Well, good luck with that.
  - tardygrad 9y ago
    Amazon presumably. Without Amazon they would be making a living wage at a mom&pop store, and we would all be paying more for lower quality products with less choice.
  - andrepd 9y ago
    Ah the old "it's better to have a glass of water and a stale breadcrust than eat nothing at all".
arpfaust 9y ago
Isn't Amazon in the news every month or so because it treats their workers like crap?
Latty 9y ago
I mean, we have attempted (at least in part) to create a system where acting selfishly in pursuit of money forces you to create value for society. That's literally the intent of the idea of capitalism. It's a good idea - people will act selfishly instinctively, so if you can align that to make it good, then everything works. Of course, we know raw capitalism doesn't work (e.g: monopolies break it). So our systems have all sorts of hacks to try and fix it. The problem is that so many of the richest people just focus on breaking those fixes and finding gaps to exploit to avoid creating value for society. Currently, a lot of the groups in power across the world are actively trying to make more of those gaps they can slip through, and remove the layers of fixes we have put in to support the people that are not helped by that simple system. Yes, it's good for people to want to make money in a capitalist system, assuming the system is perfect and that there is no way to break it is to ignore reality.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > I mean, we have attempted (at least in part) to create a system where acting selfishly in pursuit of money forces you to create value for society. That's literally the intent of the idea of capitalism. No, it's not; that's an after-the-fact rationalization. I mean, we were a few centuries into the feudalism-capitalism transition before anyone started even talking about property rights in those terms in general, at least another century before capitalism as a system was even described (and by it's critics, not it's supporters), and I think several decades later till this excuse was cited specifically as a justification for capitalism as such. Capitalism was created, incrementally over time, because rich merchants decided to use their wealth to force feudal overlords to cede progrrssively more power and influence to the rich merchants. Not as a manner to harness greed for the public good. Just as a matter of greed, pure and simple.
  - Latty 9y ago
    Yes, I'm talking about how we justify it now and why we continue to try to use it as our primary system. That is at the very least the sales pitch. I believe it's a sensible idea - trying to ignore or change human nature seems unlikely to work, trying to harness it and direct it seems viable, and works to at least some extent in our current system. My point was that, while that may be the aim of the system, it's not inherent to it - you are backing up my point by saying that it was not always used that way.
noncoml 9y ago
You are talking about making an actual business. The GP was talking about essentially scamming people.
jshen 9y ago
You are making a big assumption which I don't think you can make which is ... that Amazon is the result of a person or people who solely care about money. I don't think your assumption is true.
- andrepd 9y ago
  Well, what do you think they care about then?
  - jshen 9y ago
    Many things, money being only one of them.
andrepd 9y ago
https://i.imgur.com/k6ewk2L_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium https://i.imgur.com/k6ewk2L_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&f... My, how the world was improved by ruthless optimization and margin squeezing, centralization of commerce and retail, concentration of wealth, buying of legislators, invasions of privacy, etc.

Carioca 9y ago

> means to put food on the table With a bit of help from the taxpayers: http://www.dispatch.com/news/20180105/amazon-makes-list-of-large-companies-with-workers-receiving-food-stamps http://www.dispatch.com/news/20180105/amazon-makes-list-of-l...

kfriede 9y ago
> 700 employees So, 0.14% of their workforce.
- LV-426 9y ago
  From the article: "Amazon likely has about 700 workers [in Ohio alone] receiving food stamps, more than 10 percent of its Ohio workforce"

ACow_Adonis 9y ago

Reminds me of: "Oh, Father. You're so wrong. Let me explain. [Puts and empty water glass on his desk] Life, which you so nobly serve, comes from destruction, disorder and chaos. Now take this empty glass. Here it is: peaceful, serene, boring. But if it is destroyed [Pushes the glass off the table. It shatters on the floor, and several small machines come out to clean it up] Look at all these little things! So busy now! Notice how each one is useful. A lovely ballet ensues, so full of form and color. Now, think about all those people that created them. Technicians, engineers, hundreds of people, who will be able to feed their children tonight, so those children can grow up big and strong and have little teeny children of their own, and so on and so forth. Thus, adding to the great chain of life. You see, father, by causing a little destruction, I am in fact encouraging life. In reality, you and I are in the same business.

digitaltrees 9y ago
Fifth element. That’s a Deep cut.
- djsumdog 9y ago
  I don't remember this scene. I might have to watch it again.
  - celticninja 9y ago
    When Gary oldman is talking to the priest, then he chokes on a cherry and none of his machines can save him.
armenarmen 9y ago
Aaah Keynesians
- dang 9y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantive comments here, let alone ideological flamebait. Those are just the sort of things we're trying to avoid on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
roywiggins 9y ago
Aha, that's the broken window fallacy, I think.
slg 9y ago
AKA the broken window fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
gwern 9y ago
On the other hand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fable_of_the_Bees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fable_of_the_Bees

thom 9y ago

You mean, "giving them means to live in a tent near an Amazon fulfilment centre."

kfriede 9y ago
Who is forcing them to work at Amazon? Their lives are clearly better working there than if Amazon had never existed. If conditions are so bad that these employees live in tents, why not quit and.... oh wait.... live in tents (now with less money).
- thom 9y ago
  Well, good luck with that.
- tardygrad 9y ago
  Amazon presumably. Without Amazon they would be making a living wage at a mom&pop store, and we would all be paying more for lower quality products with less choice.
- andrepd 9y ago
  Ah the old "it's better to have a glass of water and a stale breadcrust than eat nothing at all".

arpfaust 9y ago

Isn't Amazon in the news every month or so because it treats their workers like crap?

Latty 9y ago

I mean, we have attempted (at least in part) to create a system where acting selfishly in pursuit of money forces you to create value for society. That's literally the intent of the idea of capitalism. It's a good idea - people will act selfishly instinctively, so if you can align that to make it good, then everything works. Of course, we know raw capitalism doesn't work (e.g: monopolies break it). So our systems have all sorts of hacks to try and fix it. The problem is that so many of the richest people just focus on breaking those fixes and finding gaps to exploit to avoid creating value for society. Currently, a lot of the groups in power across the world are actively trying to make more of those gaps they can slip through, and remove the layers of fixes we have put in to support the people that are not helped by that simple system. Yes, it's good for people to want to make money in a capitalist system, assuming the system is perfect and that there is no way to break it is to ignore reality.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> I mean, we have attempted (at least in part) to create a system where acting selfishly in pursuit of money forces you to create value for society. That's literally the intent of the idea of capitalism. No, it's not; that's an after-the-fact rationalization. I mean, we were a few centuries into the feudalism-capitalism transition before anyone started even talking about property rights in those terms in general, at least another century before capitalism as a system was even described (and by it's critics, not it's supporters), and I think several decades later till this excuse was cited specifically as a justification for capitalism as such. Capitalism was created, incrementally over time, because rich merchants decided to use their wealth to force feudal overlords to cede progrrssively more power and influence to the rich merchants. Not as a manner to harness greed for the public good. Just as a matter of greed, pure and simple.
- Latty 9y ago
  Yes, I'm talking about how we justify it now and why we continue to try to use it as our primary system. That is at the very least the sales pitch. I believe it's a sensible idea - trying to ignore or change human nature seems unlikely to work, trying to harness it and direct it seems viable, and works to at least some extent in our current system. My point was that, while that may be the aim of the system, it's not inherent to it - you are backing up my point by saying that it was not always used that way.

noncoml 9y ago

You are talking about making an actual business. The GP was talking about essentially scamming people.

jshen 9y ago

You are making a big assumption which I don't think you can make which is ... that Amazon is the result of a person or people who solely care about money. I don't think your assumption is true.

andrepd 9y ago
Well, what do you think they care about then?
- jshen 9y ago
  Many things, money being only one of them.

andrepd 9y ago

https://i.imgur.com/k6ewk2L_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=medium https://i.imgur.com/k6ewk2L_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&f... My, how the world was improved by ruthless optimization and margin squeezing, centralization of commerce and retail, concentration of wealth, buying of legislators, invasions of privacy, etc.