shouldn't we strive for better and demand better as well?

[meitachi]

The New York Times' article on Amazon business practices: Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace

From a purely business perspective: brilliant, perhaps. From a human perspective: callous, to say the least. Sickening even. But are our businesses required to be morally good? Do we and should we demand better from them? Well, isn't that up for us to determine, whether we'd trade those moral principles for the convenience and price that Amazon offers in its mission of customer satisfaction?

Capitalism per se is neither morally good nor evil, but it certainly doesn't account for human dignity or quality of life as it grinds ever towards profit. Do we feel obliged, due to our participation in society, to want better for a society? Do we feel obliged to strive for it? Would we or should we trade individual comfort or benefit for a greater good -- and to what degree?

The lines are hard to draw, but I would personally be hard-pressed not to say that we can do better (as a society, as a country, but also as people). Given some of the stories, facts, and data presented in this article, Amazon can do better. And we should demand that they do.

Comments

[meiface.livejournal.com]

You make a good point! I do wonder if Amazon has similar culture in other countries, given they are less likely to condone it even than the U.S. Apparently there are plenty of recruiters of other tech companies who actually have Amazon vets of over 2 years on a list to watch out for when hiring because they tend to have been bred into assholes and be extremely difficult to work with. The article sounds like it's mostly talking about corporate culture in Seattle, but I do wonder if they try to accommodate the existing culture in other countries. You'd think they'd have to if they wanted to succeed there but who knows...

Ugh, two months late is awful! I know they do pretty good US service on the whole; I wonder if they've prioritized that to the detriment of doing well in other countries. If they want to keep growing, that'd have to change, and of course that ties into the above of adapting to other cultural norms.