[dragonwriter]

> The other is the issue of Amazon employees receiving food stamps (now called SNAP, apparently). This one seems particularly odd to me, because I'm not sure how to interpret it.

You should interpret it as sign that even among much of what passes for the left in America, corporate feudalism is deeply entrenched in consciousness. Instead of meeting basic needs being seen as a responsibility of public authority, to be addressed out of tax revenue, it is seen as the duty of the feudal lord (employer) to whom peasants (employees) are bound.

[andrewla]

> corporate feudalism is deeply entrenched in consciousness

Is there anything about Amazon being a corporation that really touches on this, as opposed to their simply being an employer? I feel like an analogy like this is of limited utility anyway. It's too easy to point out all the myriad ways that the existing system is different from feudalism, and it's unclear whether the negative aspects of feudalism continue to apply after having undergone such a radical transition.

> Instead of meeting basic needs being seen as a responsibility of public authority, to be addressed out of tax revenue, it is seen as the duty of the employer to whom employees are bound.

I mean, isn't the point of feudalism actually the former -- that the public authority (the feudal lords) address the basic needs? It is much easier to switch to a different employer than it is to switch to a different public authority. So it seems like what you are advocating is a return to feudalism, rather than trying to remove it.

[dragonwriter]

> I mean, isn't the point of feudalism actually the former -- that the public authority (the feudal lords) address the basic needs?

Lordship in a feudal system is a private property right (perhaps not freely tradeable because of the terms on which it was granted, but a property right nonetheless) [0], not a public position. (It exercised powers that current and even pre-feudal systems which had a concept of public authority associated with such authority, but it was not such an authority.)

[0] and while the lord/land relationship was granted from above, the lord/tenant relationship was in many feudal systems theoretically one of voluntary formation, though frequently, especially at the lowest levels, the subject of at least economic coercion.

[merpnderp]

I'm not exactly sure what you're saying, but it sounds like you're saying the modern welfare state is feudalism.

[andrewla]

I think comparing anything in this conversation to feudalism is an empty rhetorical device. A metaphor or analogy can be useful when it motivates a proposed solution or underlying cause, but in this case it's being used as a vacuous claim in order to create a sense of guilt by association -- "hey, this thing is like feudalism, and therefore bad, because feudalism is bad".

[s73v3r_]

No, not at all. It's that, if you are employing someone full time, those people should not need public assistance. If they do, then taxpayers are subsidizing your labor costs. And for a company as big and as rich as Amazon or Wal-Mart, that's completely unacceptable.

[badpun]

Define “basic needs”. People can survive (have shelter and not die from starvation or malnutrition) on way less than the minimum wage. So, it’s already about more than the basic needs.