> Theoretically a company like Amazon should be able to provide masks, goggles and health monitoring to its workers
Theoretically yeah, but practically Amazon is driven by people with short-term profits in mind, so you don't see this happening. In the ideal world, capitalists realizes that if their customers / workforce goes out of jobs because of sickness, they won't earn as much. But seems that's too much future thinking, so business are trying to extract as much value they can before they'll be forced to shut down.
Amazon is actually defined by long-term thinking, which was heavily criticized for over a decade while their stock remained flat. It's hard to imagine now, but people didn't really believe in the company until about 2009.
Jeff Bezos' letter to shareholders, 1997:
It's All About the Long Term
Because of our emphasis on the long term, we may make decisions and weigh tradeoffs differently than some companies... We will continue to make investment decisions in light of long-term market leadership considerations rather than short-term profitability considerations or short-term Wall Street reactions.
This seems pretty standard when you ask executives at any company. Of course no executive is gonna go straight out and say they don't care about the long-term, only about short-term profitability.
> Hey Joe, does your company emphasis on the long term or short-term profitability?
> Joe: What a good question! We at ACME AB of course favor long-term sustainability rather than short-term profitability
> How about letting your warehouse workers go to the bathroom whenever they want?
> Joe: well, our long-term plan depends on short-term profitability so of course people can't go to the bathroom whenever they want, they should have a allocated slot for that.
Point being: look at the actions of a company rather than the words of the owners/workers, and you'll get a much more real picture.
You mean like eschewing short term pandering to the market and massively reinvesting in the company? Like they've done for years. So, yes, Amazon thinks long term.
While Amazon clearly does not have their workers best interest in mind, this is not a short-term profit driven company. On the contrary, Amazon is focused on growing and solidifying its long-term position at the expense of short-term profits.
The company doesn't do anything by itself. It's all driven by people, and people who work in a company changes. Effectively any company participating in the for-profit culture of capitalism favors short-term shareholder benefits over long-term societal ones, because that's simply how the system works and prefers.
Theoretically yeah, but practically Amazon is driven by people with short-term profits in mind, so you don't see this happening. In the ideal world, capitalists realizes that if their customers / workforce goes out of jobs because of sickness, they won't earn as much. But seems that's too much future thinking, so business are trying to extract as much value they can before they'll be forced to shut down.