<story><title>Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-16/amazon-to-buy-whole-foods?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&amp;utm_content=business&amp;utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wooter</author><text>name a single commune as successful or operating at the scale of Whole Foods or Amazon. in history.</text></item><item><author>throwaway91111</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not sure if you can call this capitalistic, though. WF as a commune could likely share many of the benefits or exceed them even without requiring shareholders to satisfy. Instead, a devotion to profits will ensure they are given the minimum to execute their job well.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;ll be interesting to see what bezos does with it for sure.</text></item><item><author>vnchr</author><text>Interesting comparison. In this case, people aren&amp;#x27;t unionizing for essentially the opposite reason. Rather than state provided social welfare, their needs are satisfied through this capitalistic solution. Employees are empowered and rewarded through their work.</text></item><item><author>rmc</author><text>In the 1880s Bismarck increased the modern welfare state (it was called State Socialism &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;State_Socialism_(Germany)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;State_Socialism_(Germany)&lt;/a&gt; ). The idea was that, if the poor people can get some form of social welfare from the existing state, they&amp;#x27;re less likely to support a proper socialist&amp;#x2F;communist revolution. Sounds like that. People won&amp;#x27;t unionise when they don&amp;#x27;t think they need to.</text></item><item><author>pc86</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s nice to see non-union employees treated well and paid well, &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; because of any negative feelings toward unions or unionization, but because I think it shows that you can be a successful capitalist without trying to suck every ounce of productivity and profit out of your lowest-paid employees.</text></item><item><author>_7siz</author><text>Oof. I wonder what this means for Whole Foods culture and employees.&lt;p&gt;If you don&amp;#x27;t know, John Mackey, the CEO &amp;#x2F; founder, is a major believer in conscious capitalism and of empowering his employees.&lt;p&gt;Whole Food employees get paid pretty darn well with some crazy good benefits for their industry and line-of-work (UNION FREE most of the time too!).&lt;p&gt;WF banks on them being true believers and motivators of the cause - including dedicating a fair amount of paid time to trainings. I&amp;#x27;ve heard mix stories about how Amazon treats employees. I wonder how that will mesh.&lt;p&gt;So I guess I&amp;#x27;m asking:&lt;p&gt;* What is going to happen with employee culture?&lt;p&gt;* What is going to happen with all the &amp;quot;Fair Trade&amp;quot; deals WF has in place that might not be the most economical decision now?&lt;p&gt;* Here comes store automation and hefty lay-offs?&lt;p&gt;Source: Worked at WF for 3 years</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>polymeris</author><text>Switzerland&amp;#x27;s 2 largest supermarket chains Migros[1] and Coop[2] are structured as cooperatives, generating yearly revenues of ~28 billion CHF, each.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Migros&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Migros&lt;/a&gt;
[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Coop_(Switzerland)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Coop_(Switzerland)&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-16/amazon-to-buy-whole-foods?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&amp;utm_content=business&amp;utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wooter</author><text>name a single commune as successful or operating at the scale of Whole Foods or Amazon. in history.</text></item><item><author>throwaway91111</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not sure if you can call this capitalistic, though. WF as a commune could likely share many of the benefits or exceed them even without requiring shareholders to satisfy. Instead, a devotion to profits will ensure they are given the minimum to execute their job well.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;ll be interesting to see what bezos does with it for sure.</text></item><item><author>vnchr</author><text>Interesting comparison. In this case, people aren&amp;#x27;t unionizing for essentially the opposite reason. Rather than state provided social welfare, their needs are satisfied through this capitalistic solution. Employees are empowered and rewarded through their work.</text></item><item><author>rmc</author><text>In the 1880s Bismarck increased the modern welfare state (it was called State Socialism &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;State_Socialism_(Germany)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;State_Socialism_(Germany)&lt;/a&gt; ). The idea was that, if the poor people can get some form of social welfare from the existing state, they&amp;#x27;re less likely to support a proper socialist&amp;#x2F;communist revolution. Sounds like that. People won&amp;#x27;t unionise when they don&amp;#x27;t think they need to.</text></item><item><author>pc86</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s nice to see non-union employees treated well and paid well, &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; because of any negative feelings toward unions or unionization, but because I think it shows that you can be a successful capitalist without trying to suck every ounce of productivity and profit out of your lowest-paid employees.</text></item><item><author>_7siz</author><text>Oof. I wonder what this means for Whole Foods culture and employees.&lt;p&gt;If you don&amp;#x27;t know, John Mackey, the CEO &amp;#x2F; founder, is a major believer in conscious capitalism and of empowering his employees.&lt;p&gt;Whole Food employees get paid pretty darn well with some crazy good benefits for their industry and line-of-work (UNION FREE most of the time too!).&lt;p&gt;WF banks on them being true believers and motivators of the cause - including dedicating a fair amount of paid time to trainings. I&amp;#x27;ve heard mix stories about how Amazon treats employees. I wonder how that will mesh.&lt;p&gt;So I guess I&amp;#x27;m asking:&lt;p&gt;* What is going to happen with employee culture?&lt;p&gt;* What is going to happen with all the &amp;quot;Fair Trade&amp;quot; deals WF has in place that might not be the most economical decision now?&lt;p&gt;* Here comes store automation and hefty lay-offs?&lt;p&gt;Source: Worked at WF for 3 years</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ihnorton</author><text>Not exactly a commune, but interesting nonetheless and on the same scale as Whole Foods (12 bln Euro turnover):&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Mondragon_Corporation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Mondragon_Corporation&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Oneida is (was) the closest US analogy I can think of, though much smaller.&lt;p&gt;There are some very successful Kibbutzim spinoffs in Israel, into 100s of millions US$ (I don&amp;#x27;t know how ownership was structured).</text></comment>