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Re:Alibaba to invest $15.5B for “common prosperity” by the-dude on Thursday September 02, 2021 @11:47AM (#28393542)
Before WWII, companies in NL did this kind of stuff to make the lives of their employees better.

Philips built housing and sportsclubs in Eindhoven, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSV_Eindhoven.

Bata ( shoes ) built housing for their employees in Batadorp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batadorp.

The Dutch railroad built a 'Tuindorp', including school, in Haren, which I grew up in, https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuindorp_(wijk)

There are more.

Re:Alibaba to invest $15.5B for “common prosperity” by 238475235243 on Thursday September 02, 2021 @11:55AM (#28393656)
Alibaba isn't doing this voluntarily... They disappeared Jack Ma for re-education and he came back with wonderful ideas about donating all profits to the CCP.
Re:Alibaba to invest $15.5B for “common prosperity” by throwaway4good on Thursday September 02, 2021 @12:12PM (#28393867)
Poor Jack could have been in outer space with Jeff now ...
Re:Alibaba to invest $15.5B for “common prosperity” by bamboozled on Thursday September 02, 2021 @12:39PM (#28394209)
Are you implying he deserved it?
Re:Alibaba to invest $15.5B for “common prosperity” by throwaway4good on Thursday September 02, 2021 @04:48PM (#28397169)
I was making a joke.

But I don’t know? Would it have been better, more fair that Jack went into space in a billion dollar rocket than he was forced to spend the money on “common prosperity”?

Re:Alibaba to invest $15.5B for “common prosperity” by throwaway4good on Thursday September 02, 2021 @12:29PM (#28394087)
There is similar thinking in "classical" American capatalism from Henry Ford's idea that his factory workers needed to make enough money to buy the cars they produced to all sort of concrete projects for the broader society.

This is a story about housing built by the Ford motor company:

https://askus.thehenryford.org/faq/169797

I am sure there are many other examples.

Re:Alibaba to invest $15.5B for “common prosperity” by 238475235243 on Thursday September 02, 2021 @12:31PM (#28394111)
If you read a biography of Ford you'll find this story just isn't really true. He couldn't find workers and had to raise the wages, and in doing got a lot of PR by spinning it as being good for workers to buy cars.
Re:Alibaba to invest $15.5B for “common prosperity” by chewz on Friday September 03, 2021 @02:27AM (#28401042)
Same in Poland before WW2. These greedy capitalists from late XIX/ early XX c. had felt necessity to build housing for their workers and nurseries for workers children.. What a waste of productive capital.

My grandfather had been worker / specialist and my family had been living in factory’s housing (free rent, electricity and coal provided). And grandfather had been earning a decent wage too. Some long forgotten small steelwork company…

(On the other hand my grandfather had no sense of work-life balance. He had been living for his factory. Even when retired he had been going to factory every day to check if he can help with something).

From my Moms side many relatives had been railwaymen and their families also lived in housing projects provided by Railway company..