Re:Amazon’s HR Failures
by soco on Friday June 18, 2021 @10:08AM
(#27550465)
We can all agree that slavery was a profitable business as well - for those who profited from it. Nowadays we look at it with different eyes though, so why shouldn't we look with those same eyes at Amazon (et al) practices as well? Only because they are contemporary? Of course I'm not saying that Amazon does slavery, my point is that if we can apply ethics talking about old practices, we should do the same with current practices.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
> We can all agree that slavery was a profitable business as well - for those who profited from it.
It actually wasn't the most profitable business because slaves are both unproductive and not capable of being your customers. Economics being called "the dismal science" was started by a slaveowner who was mad that economists were opposed to slavery.
Of course, to this day middle managers do a lot of things that aren't economically rational because it makes them feel more powerful.
Slavery was profitable. Many mansions in England attest to this. It just wasn't optimal.
Serfdom is not exactly the same as slavery though. It has enough differences to make them incomparable from an economic point of view.