[ruined]

i mean, if Amazon is getting more out of the worker than it costs to keep them around, that's by definition exploitation. it's silly to avoid the word, it's purely material.

how you feel about it is up to you, but the more it sucks for the worker the less they'll like it.

it's important that for most people, "voluntary" in this situation involves the threat of fairly immediate homelessness, hunger, and family separation.

maybe the market will solve this, but i think the market might have a larger appetite for hellish consequences than many of us would like, and we all have to live with them.

[SR2Z]

It's not, and the entire reason why markets exist is because two people can walk away from a trade better-off than they were before.

It's exploitation if Amazon is tricking workers into working for less than their time is worth, or if Amazon is breaking labor laws.

"Voluntary" means that out of the incredible number of open job postings these days, workers picked Amazon's. Acting like the alternative to Amazon is homelessness and hunger is hilariously wrong.

[ruined]

sure. if the relationship was 100% downside it would be hard to convince anyone to do it. everyone understands this. of course there is an element of choice.

but you are underestimating how immediate and real the threat of homelessness appears to the class of people who work warehouse jobs.

>It's exploitation if Amazon is tricking workers into working for less than their time is worth, or if Amazon is breaking labor laws.

these are both literally happening.

if Amazon wasn't getting more utility and value out of their resources than they spent, Amazon would not be profitable. it is okay to call that exploitation. it doesn't require tricking anyone.

as for labor laws, that's still under litigation, but the NLRB agrees.

[SR2Z]

> but you are underestimating how immediate and real the threat of homelessness appears to the class of people who work warehouse jobs.

A shockingly large chunk of people making six figures live paycheck-to-paycheck. The perceived threat of homelessness is useless compared to actual homelessness statistics, which tell a different story.

> if Amazon wasn't getting more utility and value out of their resources than they spent, Amazon would not be profitable. it is okay to call that exploitation. it doesn't require tricking anyone.

It's not exploitation, and it's not OK to call it exploitation. All trades must create value for both parties, or else they wouldn't happen. It's the reason why civilization is able to exist at all.

Yes, Amazon gets more out of their workers than they pay them. Workers get paid more for their labor than they would get out of it themselves.

[prewett]

> if Amazon is getting more out of the worker than it costs to keep them around

That's a pretty simplistic argument. For one thing, it assumes a zero-sum game. But in economic theory both sides need to gain something in order for a transaction to occur. Walmart is not exploiting its customers just because it gets more from the customer than it cost (i.e. profit). Both sides are benefiting: the customer gets thousands of products in one location at pretty much the lowest possible price. Likewise, Target is not exploiting its customers just because it has higher prices than Walmart; customers get thousands of products in one location with somewhat higher quality than Walmart and a good deal better style. Target has a fairly loyal following, in fact, indicating that customers derive value from Target, even though Target is turning a profit; they could always go to Walmart if they were unhappy.

My employer is (hopefully) getting more value from me than they are paying for. I do not see it as exploitative at all: I could be in business for myself, but I already tried it and I discovered I did not want to bother with a lot of the business stuff, and people were not interested in paying for my product. So I switched the (internally perceived) product I am selling: now I am selling my software engineering services. In return I get some money. I'm a lot happier now than when I felt like I was an employee.

The problem is not that Amazon is getting more perceived value from the worker than the perceived value that they are paying the worker. The problem is that Amazon is abusive; people work for them either because they pay enough to make up for the abuse (at least the initial perception), or the worker does not feel like they have other options. The latter is not a problem of companies making a "profit" on workers, though; that is required for any employment to take place. It is a problem, but it is a different problem.

[jholman]

> that's by definition exploitation

I think you're just factually wrong about this particular part. If I understand you correctly, you're claiming that the definition of "exploit" is "derive net profit from", but I've never seen any definition like that. Generally, I think there are two definitions:

1) use / utilize

2) use unfairly

The first is typical when describing resource exploitation. The second is typical when describing relationships between humans. In neither case does net profit come into it.

That's both my personal understanding of the word (but who cares what I think), and also what I see in three different online dictionaries that I just checked. So I ask you: where are you getting your definition from?

[andi999]

Then every non bancrupt company would be exploiting the staff. The definition is no good.

[ruined]

true. why does that make it a bad definition? it is a material relationship, it is okay to call it accurately.

[adrianN]

I'm not a native speaker, but to me exploitation has a negative moral connotation. I think it's possible for companies to make use of their employees to make a profit without exploiting them.

[ruined]

the negative moral connotation of "exploitation" is an effect of anticapitalist propaganda :)

[anotheracctfo]

Or you could band together and collectively withhold your labour. These are solved problems, its how the impoverished and exploited ended the gilded age.

Individualization is heavily pushed because capitalism requires fungible labour. But if you band together then capitalism breaks down, because pure ideology runs into the brick wall of reality.