> How did we end up in a place where we demand the system of government be democratic, with all the emotional language of freedom, self-determination and so on. And then we carved out an exception and made it so our places where we work are run as oppressive dictatorships...
Private enterprise rests on property rights. Thus Bezos, as owner, was free to write that memo, including spelling out the consequences of sabotaging the company's strategy through insubordination or incompetence.
The only way this is dictatorial is if people are coerced to work there without a legal right to quit at any time. Their employment contracts given them that right (I assume) and they spell out the consequences of quitting without giving proper notice---which one could do. Thus, they're employees, not slaves in a dictatorship.
That's not to say that Amazon or other large corporations don't have problems with mistreating workers. In fact, thinking of businesses as machine systems may encourage a mindset among management that risks dehumanizing the people who do the work. And this problem is far broader than amazon.
However, dehumanizing workers isn't inherent in private property and owners' rights to run their firms as they see fit (within the constraint of law). Look at the Guinness company - privately owned, yet a pioneer in treating workers really well, and people have tasted the quality of their work round the world. Guinness believed people have inherent dignity (as a Christian he knew they were each made in God's image), so as a business owner he knew it was good for them and for his business to treat them well.[1]
Dehumanizing employees is often a result of misaligned incentives in the legal system, of unjust laws that don't fit with reality, or more fundamentally a result of the deep levels of brokenness that exist in every human being. No one is perfect, and no human system is flawless. The distortion of private property and resulting authoritarianism in business that you ask about is a sad result of what the Bible calls sin.
Private enterprise rests on property rights. Thus Bezos, as owner, was free to write that memo, including spelling out the consequences of sabotaging the company's strategy through insubordination or incompetence.
The only way this is dictatorial is if people are coerced to work there without a legal right to quit at any time. Their employment contracts given them that right (I assume) and they spell out the consequences of quitting without giving proper notice---which one could do. Thus, they're employees, not slaves in a dictatorship.
That's not to say that Amazon or other large corporations don't have problems with mistreating workers. In fact, thinking of businesses as machine systems may encourage a mindset among management that risks dehumanizing the people who do the work. And this problem is far broader than amazon.
However, dehumanizing workers isn't inherent in private property and owners' rights to run their firms as they see fit (within the constraint of law). Look at the Guinness company - privately owned, yet a pioneer in treating workers really well, and people have tasted the quality of their work round the world. Guinness believed people have inherent dignity (as a Christian he knew they were each made in God's image), so as a business owner he knew it was good for them and for his business to treat them well.[1]
Dehumanizing employees is often a result of misaligned incentives in the legal system, of unjust laws that don't fit with reality, or more fundamentally a result of the deep levels of brokenness that exist in every human being. No one is perfect, and no human system is flawless. The distortion of private property and resulting authoritarianism in business that you ask about is a sad result of what the Bible calls sin.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Search-God-Guinness-Biography-Changed...