The writer Rob K. Henderson has covered the hypocrisy of the upper and upper-middle classes in several of his pieces on what he calls "luxury beliefs". The case of Amazon def. fits into a similar theme.
You can broach the topic with uppercrust folks (without even really trying) of whether supporting Walmart by shopping there is conscionable or not, and you'll get one set of responses/reactions. Meanwhile, it's nowhere near socially unacceptable to talk about all the stuff you order from Amazon, despite Amazon appearing to be by and large worse in its compensation/treatment of its employees and its effect on the economy and the environment—all things that aspiring bougie types ostensibly profess to rank highly in their meditations when it comes to Walmart.
The notion of luxury beliefs isn’t just about plain old hypocrisy (though of course there’s plenty of that) — I think it’s more about beliefs one can only hold because of one’s position of privilege.
The usual example given is ‘defund the police’. If you’re rich enough to hire your own security or otherwise live safely in a world without police, you can advocate for this and win social points for doing so. Meanwhile, the actual consequences of such an idea, were it to be implemented, would be catastrophic. Unlimited immigration/open borders is another one: if you’re relatively poor, your ability to make a living (among other things) is potentially threatened by this. If you’re rich, you needn’t worry. You can live in your fancy neighbourhood far detached from the consequences of such policies, so you can freely hold such positions and even frown upon those who don’t.
Luxury beliefs are just like tangible luxuries [*] — you have them not because you want them or really believe in them, but because they signal to others that you’re of a certain class. Poor people can’t have them, so they’re desirable as status indicators.
[*] OK — some ‘luxuries’ are worth it and aren’t just for showing off. But I’m talking about the ones that are.
"Defund the police" doesn't mean what you think it means here.
It doesn't mean removing all funds from the police as the name implies. It actually means reallocating funds from the police to trained professionals for appropriate situations. Like having a government division that hires psychologist / mental health workers to respond to mental wellness checks. Having mental health / homelessness services workers respond to calls about vagrants. So instead of getting a boot to the teeth or death as seen in the news, those at risk groups and people get the directed help and support they need.
I'm not sure this distinction matters much to most people, though. People hear "defund the police" and draw their own conclusions as to what that means, and it's not a far leap to go from "defund the police" to "welp, guess they want to tie the hands of cops and take away all of their funding so they can't do their jobs"
I think what your saying is that people are drawing the wrong conclusion when they hear 'defund the police'. But, if they knew what was really meant they may actually support it. So the distinction actually matters a lot.
Like if they heard that it meant sending trained mental health professionals to deal with a mental health crisis called into 911 instead of just sending some cops who may very well just shoot them, that might change their minds about it.
No, what we are hearing is that a group for some reason chose a horrible catch phrase that they now say does not mean what the phrase specifically, on it's face, means, and that the group now wants to tell everyone it's not them it's us.
Edit: I think the USA needs to completely change how we approach mental health. My grandfather spent his life cruisading for that. Allowing the catch phrase to distract from that point to the extent that the catch phrase is now pretty much a central focus shows that 'defend the police' very much is a problem.
But, let's complete the idea to make it bulletproof.
Regardless of moving goalposts due to changing definitions, the luxury belief still remains:
Reallocate (vs defund) police still moves funds around. Funds are not infinite.
- Less police means more crime. This means fewer personnel to combat crime. Crime strikes directly at the poorest.
- Less police means more mental care. This means more personnel and facilities to combat mental cases. This had been tried already, with no meaningful decrease in mental problems.
It isn't a good catchphrase, I fully agree. But the reason its been derailed is because there are people actively derailing it and deliberately misleading its meaning. They fight any plan that would diminish the authority and power of police. That's the problem here.
They correctly understood it to mean abolish the police. As was made very clear by those who created the statement as they carried it the BLM riots in 2020
Fair enough. I've heard 'abolish the police' and 'all cops are bastards' (whatever that means) too, so such a sentiment definitely exists. Either way, those usually espousing such things don't seem to have much of a concrete plan in mind (and don't have to, because offering concrete solutions isn't the purpose of such rhetoric).
> According to the New York Times, the slogan and movement failed to result in any meaningful policy change. This was attributed to the slogan having no clear definition of its goals.
> I've heard [...] 'all cops are bastards' (whatever that means) too
Is that an honest question?
Usually it asserts that police institutions operate similar to organized crime, where some level of bad acts (e.g. perjury, evidence tampering, abuse of power) are a de-facto requirement of continued membership. Thus the corollary that anyone who survived there long-enough to be "a cop" must have become "a bastard" to do so.
Compare to: "All mafia members are bastards."
Such systems are self-sustaining because each cohort has the dilemma of defending itself against being denounced by the next. Forcing incoming members to commit the same crimes means they are "stuck in the same boat" , changing incentives from "reveal their crime" to "hide our crime."
To add to your point: sometimes people point to the videos catching cops abusing their power and say “it’s just a few bad apples.” They’ve been saying it for decades. It turns out that is correct as the full saying is “a few bad apples spoil the bunch”. Police departments don’t get rid of the bad apples, the bunch is spoiled and rotten. So far gone that the few good cops who join and speak up are railroaded out. Look at the Los Angeles CA police where there are different gangs within the police department.
That's a thoroughly sensible proposition. However, right there in the Wikipedia article you post:
> some ["Defund the Police" advocates] seek modest reductions, while others argue for full divestment as a step toward the abolition of contemporary police services.
"Defund the Police" is my nomination for the worst political slogan of the 21st century (so far). It contains such multitudes that it's become a Rorschach test for both users and hearers. I wish the reformers (like yourself - whom I fully support) and the abolitionists (I think they're wack jobs) would decide to march under different banners.
It came out of the BLM riots, and very much meant complete police abolishment. All the long winded after the fact redefinitions was just people wrapped up in it stepping in to save face. Since at this point they're linked to it and know it looks bad now that they've had a second to step back and think about it
This feels like the equivalent of mansplaining on this topic, with a heavy dose of gaslighting for bad measure. We were all around for the 2020 riot period, wherein what it means explicitly was made clear over and over and over again.
That is not at all what the ‘defund the police’ is about. I know the tagline is confusing.
What it really means is to fund the various necessary services instead of only the police. So if someone is in need of mental health help, you send a mental health professional instead of the SWAT team.
That's not really true. Certainly that's what it really means for some people. But for other people it means "yes, we literally mean defund the police" or else some version of "all cops are bastards." I'm just just saying that there are some odd opinions on the fringe, but rather this movement never managed to clearly define or unify its message.
I think Amazon is actually among the best compensated of the "shit jobs" out there, but it is about the shittiest (certainly it's the pissiest; I've seen the bottle bombs their drivers like to leave since they don't really accommodate bathroom breaks).
I don't even really find much hypocrisy amongst the upper class here; they'll outright say that these are shit jobs not intended to provide a living wage; certainly not something you can raise a family on. Probably said as, "those people should have gone to school".
Amazon warehouse jobs are so bad the company has to have contingency plans for when they have burned through the entire available labor force. Walmart does not have to have such plans.
The Walmart distribution center built around where I grew up was not known as a hub of shit jobs. It was a source of envy. Amazon warehouse worker pay, in contrast, lags behind Walmart by several dollars per hour and offset several years. And that's assuming you're actually hired by the company directly, rather indirectly as a second class worker brought in through the timeless scam involving contractors employed by staffing agencies.
Total anecdote but had the opportunity to chat at length with an Amazon warehouse worker (in the UK) over the holidays. They said it’s hard work but they got various perks, decent pay, they didn’t even want to be a supervisor which they had been offered, and liked it.
Would I want the job? Hell no. But this is an intelligent person who is doing this because they have no other option.
The UK has social safety nets that Americans don't get when they have a job. Amazon isn't allowed to play the same game in countries with worker protections.
I can certainly believe there are issues for Amazon workers in the US that don’t apply in the UK to the same degree. Although Amazon does seem to have various heath insurance plans for US workers. I assume workers have to pay some amount in as is the case with most jobs, including white collar ones, in the US.
Amazon management has to routinely come up with contingency plans after having burnt through/burned out the local available workforce. I have never heard of any other company ROUTINELY has that issue.
Amazon does not have a physical whip yet, but they do have a mental whip of tracking every minute of every day you do at work, and ranking you among all the others working there.
Those kinds of people don’t shop at Walmart because they perceive themselves as being in a higher social class than the “people of Walmart.” I don’t think they care much about the compensation of the employees.
I care about worker’s rights but there is only so much I can do. The Clinton administration refused to include a requirement on standards of employment in order to benefit from free trade with the U.S. Walmart did a lot of harm while it grew to its current size. That memory is still fresh. The damage caused by Amazon is more opaque but it is a loathsome company.
What is needed are standards of employment that all companies should be forced to adhere to.
You can broach the topic with uppercrust folks (without even really trying) of whether supporting Walmart by shopping there is conscionable or not, and you'll get one set of responses/reactions. Meanwhile, it's nowhere near socially unacceptable to talk about all the stuff you order from Amazon, despite Amazon appearing to be by and large worse in its compensation/treatment of its employees and its effect on the economy and the environment—all things that aspiring bougie types ostensibly profess to rank highly in their meditations when it comes to Walmart.