6 ms·

Whatever the corporate equivalent is of a late stage authoritarian dictatorship.

hotpotamus 4y ago
I believe it's just "corporation". Have you ever worked for a company that was run democratically? I've worked at good and bad places, but ultimately the orders came from the top. I don't think Amazon is very unique in their governance and attitude towards their workers, they're just more competent than most at execution.
- TeeMassive 4y ago
  They can do things that's within the law. Recording conversations have been considered harassment in the past. Blocking vocabulary related to unionization could be considered blocking employee from self-organizing.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    Well good for Amazon then that The Federalist Society has managed to install extremely right wing and anti-labor judges over the past few decades. If there's any leeway in the law for consideration, I can tell you which way that consideration will go. Not so good for society sadly.
    - TeeMassive 4y ago
      > Well good for Amazon then that The Federalist Society has managed to install extremely right wing and anti-labor judges over the past few decades. You need to stop to see the world in black and white. The Federalist Society is a corporatist / statist organization. They hate labor. They love big pharma, etc.
thrwaway9871 4y ago
"Algorithms"
- umeshunni 4y ago
  "Suppressing hate speech"
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
scarmig 4y ago
So much of what we call "capitalism" is just creating authoritarian planned economies in the miniature and shrugging our shoulders and saying that it's all "private" so rights like free speech don't apply. And both factions of the elite who run the country like it that way.
- awb 4y ago
  > shrugging our shoulders and saying that it's all "private" so rights like free speech don't apply Centralized control over industry can have some pretty bad consequences too.
- gruez 4y ago
  I think you missed the whole "capitalism" vs "planned economies" comparison entirely. The advantage of capitalism over planned economies isn't that it's democratic or whatever. It's that in capitalism, individual companies are allowed to fail if they perform poorly, whereas in a command economy it takes the entire country down.
  - scarmig 4y ago
    1) Within the United States, the largest corporations are closely associated with government, with a very porous interface between their highest levels. And they certainly aren't always allowed to fail. 2) Once a megacorporation has established dominance in a given market, a combination of network effects and regulatory capture removes competitive pressures. This allows the internal planned economy of the corporation to continue without competitive pressures. See e.g. Google, which essentially throws money earned through dominance in ad markets against the wall in every direction but produces little of new value. The reason my "capitalism" has quotation marks is to point out that actually existing capitalism in the USA has pretty much nothing to do with competitive free markets.
mc32 4y ago
The old, it’s a private company so they can set their own rules (see all the responses to Twitter censorship accusations).
- TheCoelacanth 4y ago
  They can set their own rules, within the bounds allowed by law. It appears to me that they would only be allowed to make this restriction if they prohibit all non-work conversation: https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/employees/your-rights-during-union-organizing https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/em...
- tenebrisalietum 4y ago
  Over a chat app they provide for work use, I'm not seeing the ethical issue. Pay and overwork is one thing but why can't these employees use their phone for things they don't want the company to observe? Phones are cheap.
  - rubiquity 4y ago
    Would you be ok with them taking away the break room if such discussions were happening in the break room?
    - awb 4y ago
      I don’t think companies are required to provide a break room, are they? If a company goes above and beyond the requirements of the law and then removes that perk, I don’t see any legal issue with that. As long as they’re not a monopoly, the option of working for another employer is a good way of combating legal, but immoral company policies.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - wewtyflakes 4y ago
    People are living social creatures, they are not robots, and the pursuit to treat humans as APIs for units of productivity will lead to a predictable outcome of causing human misery.
infamouscow 4y ago
"Spreading misinformation."

I believe it's just "corporation". Have you ever worked for a company that was run democratically? I've worked at good and bad places, but ultimately the orders came from the top. I don't think Amazon is very unique in their governance and attitude towards their workers, they're just more competent than most at execution.

TeeMassive 4y ago
They can do things that's within the law. Recording conversations have been considered harassment in the past. Blocking vocabulary related to unionization could be considered blocking employee from self-organizing.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  Well good for Amazon then that The Federalist Society has managed to install extremely right wing and anti-labor judges over the past few decades. If there's any leeway in the law for consideration, I can tell you which way that consideration will go. Not so good for society sadly.
  - TeeMassive 4y ago
    > Well good for Amazon then that The Federalist Society has managed to install extremely right wing and anti-labor judges over the past few decades. You need to stop to see the world in black and white. The Federalist Society is a corporatist / statist organization. They hate labor. They love big pharma, etc.

thrwaway9871 4y ago

"Algorithms"

umeshunni 4y ago
"Suppressing hate speech"

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

scarmig 4y ago

So much of what we call "capitalism" is just creating authoritarian planned economies in the miniature and shrugging our shoulders and saying that it's all "private" so rights like free speech don't apply. And both factions of the elite who run the country like it that way.

awb 4y ago
> shrugging our shoulders and saying that it's all "private" so rights like free speech don't apply Centralized control over industry can have some pretty bad consequences too.
gruez 4y ago
I think you missed the whole "capitalism" vs "planned economies" comparison entirely. The advantage of capitalism over planned economies isn't that it's democratic or whatever. It's that in capitalism, individual companies are allowed to fail if they perform poorly, whereas in a command economy it takes the entire country down.
- scarmig 4y ago
  1) Within the United States, the largest corporations are closely associated with government, with a very porous interface between their highest levels. And they certainly aren't always allowed to fail. 2) Once a megacorporation has established dominance in a given market, a combination of network effects and regulatory capture removes competitive pressures. This allows the internal planned economy of the corporation to continue without competitive pressures. See e.g. Google, which essentially throws money earned through dominance in ad markets against the wall in every direction but produces little of new value. The reason my "capitalism" has quotation marks is to point out that actually existing capitalism in the USA has pretty much nothing to do with competitive free markets.

mc32 4y ago

The old, it’s a private company so they can set their own rules (see all the responses to Twitter censorship accusations).

TheCoelacanth 4y ago
They can set their own rules, within the bounds allowed by law. It appears to me that they would only be allowed to make this restriction if they prohibit all non-work conversation: https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/employees/your-rights-during-union-organizing https://www.nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rights-we-protect/the-law/em...
tenebrisalietum 4y ago
Over a chat app they provide for work use, I'm not seeing the ethical issue. Pay and overwork is one thing but why can't these employees use their phone for things they don't want the company to observe? Phones are cheap.
- rubiquity 4y ago
  Would you be ok with them taking away the break room if such discussions were happening in the break room?
  - awb 4y ago
    I don’t think companies are required to provide a break room, are they? If a company goes above and beyond the requirements of the law and then removes that perk, I don’t see any legal issue with that. As long as they’re not a monopoly, the option of working for another employer is a good way of combating legal, but immoral company policies.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- wewtyflakes 4y ago
  People are living social creatures, they are not robots, and the pursuit to treat humans as APIs for units of productivity will lead to a predictable outcome of causing human misery.

infamouscow 4y ago

"Spreading misinformation."