[wutbrodo]

I've always found it to be an odd displacement of responsibility. If somebody doesn't have the resources they need to live, it's our collective ethical responsibility to provide a resource floor. Walmart et al don't magically gain ethical responsibility for providing this floor just because they purchase someone's labor, in the same way that buying a dresser from someone off of Craigslist doesn't make you responsible for making the seller has enough income overall. It's difficult for me to see this view as anything but a desperate ploy to abdicate direct responsibility for taking care of the neediest and foist it off on some perceived other

[dragonwriter]

I think it's more of a remnant of a primary-employer-as-patron model of thinking that still permeates much of modern society as something of an echo of feudal social relations than a “desperare ploy” to do anything, but otherwise I agree with your characterization of it as a displacement of social responsibility onto a private actor that is both poorly positioned to carry it out (in that any greater effort of them to do so to their employees would probably reduce the number of employees and increase the total unmet social burden) and lacking incentive to do so.

[wutbrodo]

> I think it's more of a remnant of a primary-employer-as-patron model of thinking that still permeates much of modern society as something of an echo of feudal social relations

As always, I'm never sure which side of Hanlon's Razor to fall on, since the level of stupidity and the level of malice required for either explanation are off the charts