this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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If you're paying your employees what they're worth (not the minimum the market will bear, but actually in line with the value they contribute), and you're still making Bezos money, then you're fleecing your customers.
There's no way to get to a billion dollars without 1) exploiting your labor and supply chain by taking advantage of capitalist forces to pay less than the value of their contribution or 2) exploiting your customers by taking advantage of capitalist forces to charge more than the value of your product. Usually both, to extreme degrees, enabled by monopolies, regulatory capture, collusion, and other capitalist tricks. That's not "a business that helps people".
No matter how "innovative" an entrepreneur is, the actual value of their product or service is generated by the people who actually do the work. Of course, you're entitled to the value that you personally create, but the best business idea in the world is worth exactly zilch without implementation. Bezos doesn't build those fulfillment centers, he doesn't manufacture the products, he doesn't pack the boxes, he doesn't drive the trucks, he doesn't program the website. He only has the wealth he does because he pays the people that generate the value of his company the absolute minimum that he can get away with, skimming a big slice of everyone's labor value for himself. That doesn't help the public.
You don’t give him enough credit. He worked extremely hard to make Amazon what it is today. Additionally, he took major risks to his credit where he convinced investors to fund a new form of supply chain. He is reaping the reward of taking entrepreneurial risks and creating something innovative. I don’t know how you can say that Amazon doesn’t help people. Their prices are in-line with the market and no one can touch their shipping costs. Their warehouse jobs are demanding, but they explain that to anyone getting into it. In time, the people will mostly be replaced by robots anyways. The employees want more money, but robots work for free. If anything, we should be very interested in potentially implementing UBI and a VAT on automation per Andrew Yang.
He did not work multiple billions of dollars hard. No one can possibly work multiple billions of dollars hard. Bezos is worth 157 billion, and he's 59 years old, which averages to over $10 million per day since he was 18. Are you seriously suggesting that he has done 100 times more work, every single day of his life, than someone making $100,000 does in a whole year? Sure, he had some good ideas, and deserves to be fairly compensated, but that's monstrously out of proportion.
Capitalism does not, and has never, fundamentally rewarded hard work. Capitalism, fundamentally, rewards having a bunch of money to buy the rights to the value of the hard work of others. The most reliable way to get rich in capitalism isn't even to have great business ideas, it's to be born with rich parents so you can buy lots of shares in a company, and then use your shares to demand the company prioritize maximum dividends and minimum employee compensation. The investors that actually contribute meaningful ideas are a coincidential minority at best.
Sure, UBI and VAT are valuable ideas, but the main problem is that the robots will be owned by rich investors who made their money by being born rich enough to throw money at ventures that made them richer.
The actual solution is vesting the employees who actually create value with shares of the means of production they use to create that value. When the workers are the shareholders, they are actually compensated for their hard work, and the problem solves itself.
Bezos is never going to reach out grab your hand and pull you up to sit beside him, the only result of you licking his boot so hard is a sore tongue, though ideally you'd choke, and stop enabling this hell for the rest of who don't actually get off on being exploited (nor on the fantasy of exploiting others)
He is being defended indirectly. I am defending capitalism. Sure we can make some reforms to improve salaries across industries, but the ultra wealthy serve a purpose too. People are claiming that they sit on their money, but they clearly do reinvest in new entrepreneurial ventures. The more wealthy, the more groundbreaking. It is great that Bezos invested in civilian space tourism. That will only strengthen innovation in the space sector, which is needed. The US space program results in many innovations that we use across other industries today. Elon is revolutionizing tunnel digging and maybe rail transport. Bill Gates is either trying to stave the spread of disease or working on thinning the population depending upon the content you read.