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Comment by holydude | Hacker News Reader

I am against excessive taxation or overregulation but companies like Amazon ...no really any company...should be responsible for treating the society fair. Amazon is a behemoth that grew because of its ruthless behavior towards its competitors. I am sure there is more to life than constant race to the bottom when your average american has to compete with someone from china or africa.

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Why should they? Corporations are licensed sociopaths. That's by design, it's not a bug, we get a lot of value out of the regulated sociopathy.

If you're against regulation yet expect companies to work towards the higher social good regardless of profit motive, prepare to be disappointed on both counts.

Nah. I understand how this all works. I am a bit naive and hope that someday we will find a way to make everyone happy :-)

How can you treat someone unfairly when they are not compelled to interact with you at all?

Every single person who has a job with Amazon is there because they choose to be.

Come on, you are really simplifying. That argument was used in London at the beginning of the XIX century. We all know now it is flawed.

Except neoliberals and right-wing libertarians (for most part), as their idiology is based on the belief of an unaltered freedom of choice afaik. The good old myth of pure freedom of choice is not dying anytime soon.

The same way we fight against sexual harassment we can just raise the standard for everyone.

When the alternative is destitution, homelessness, and starvation the choice to work in a hellish occupation can hardly be called 'voluntary'. Many who find themselves in a situation where a job in one of these hellholes is an attractive proposition are in those types of desperate life circumstances.

I hadn’t realized Amazon had established a monopoly on unskilled labor positions. A real shame for society, then.

> Every single person who has a job with Amazon is there because they choose to be.

That's not necessarily the case in the UK where people claiming unemployment benefits are compelled to spend 35 hours a week searching and applying for jobs.

Someone in that regime may well have applied to work at Amazon because they would have had a benefit sanction otherwise.

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