Just this week, we saw yet another protest outside the home of Jeff Bezos where the protestors built a guillotine. These protests have now happened in New York, Washington DC and now Beverly Hills each with around 100 people. There is something pretty big going on here, and the business world should be paying attention to this. So I am going to be breaking it all down for you in this video. WATCH NOW
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VIDEO SUMMARY
Who is Jeff Bezos and why are people protesting? Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world, with a net worth of $113B. He is the founder of Amazon, starting the company from his garage in 1994 and building it to become the massive corporation today.
Amazon has faced a lot of criticism during the COVID-19 pandemic. Amazon never really shut down, because so much of the country relied on Amazon’s deliveries. A lot of employees were upset by working in unsafe environments. A number of Amazon employees walked out of a shipping facility in Staten Island, led by a man named Chris Smalls. They were protesting unsafe work conditions. Amazon immediately fired Chris Smalls. What is troubling to people, is that Amazon is firing these employees, while the company is making record profits during the pandemic.
Since being fired, Chris Smalls has been leading these protests outside the various mansions of Jeff Bezos around the country. And at each protest, they are building a guillotine. The guillotine is a very specific message referencing the French Revolution. I do not think a lot of people really understand the subtext of what is going on here. The French Revolution was a period of time when poor people rose up against the rich and said “off with their heads.” The guillotine seems pretty gruesome to us today, but it was actually considered one of the less painful forms of execution because it was so quick. France used guillotines to execute people until 1977 which was the last time a Western nation beheaded someone.
To understand what the protestors are saying, we have to know a little about the French Revolution. In 1793, France executed the French King Louis XVI and established a democracy. This was part of a social movement away from monarchies and towards democracy. In fact, this happened shortly after the United States declared independence from England in 1776.
The switch to democracy was a huge change for France. Before the revolution, France still operated under a Feudal system where peasants belonged to vast estates. French society was structured into three classes of people. Under the King was the Clergy who managed the churches and owned 10% of the land. Then came the nobility who owned 25% of the land. And finally the common people which represented 95% of the population. The clergy and the nobility were very rich and the common people were very poor.
This all happened around 300 years after the Renaissance. The Renaissance is when small businesses and trade across Europe made it possible for normal people to create wealth. But the feudal system was holding people down. Peasants do not have rights. Peasants cannot vote. This caused a lot of frustration.
Most history professors will explain that the driving force behind the French Revolution was this desire for democracy, but I disagree with this interpretation. The French Revolution was about money. I know I am going to get a lot of angry comments from history professors in the comments, but in my opinion, it was about the money.
Let us look at the financial situation in France:
- Unfair tax system – The tax structure was regressive which meant the more money you had, the less you paid in taxes. In the US, we have a progressive tax system, where the tax rate increases with your income. In France, the Clergy and the Nobility paid no taxes and the poor people paid all the taxes.
- France was nearing bankruptcy. The country was running out of money and no one wanted to extend them new debt.
- Massive budget deficit (10% of GNP in 1789 to 64% in 1793)
- Increased taxes on poor people
- Massive printing of money
- Economic depression
- Massive unemployment
- Massive inflation (3500%)
- Massive amounts of debt holders. This incentivized inflation, which diminished the value of people’s debts.
- Famine, and high food prices leading to mass starvation
All these things drove the revolution. It was not simply that people wanted to vote. It was economic. People were starving and their leaders were screwing up the country. They were angry and they wanted a voice.
When we look at this list today in hindsight, many of these things almost seem silly. Clearly King Louis XVI was not an accountant, because many of these financial problems could have been prevented. Why did the king allow the rich people to pay 0% taxes? Why didn’t he just tax them? Why didn’t he just cut the government’s budget? Why did he print so much money? For whatever reason, the result was economic collapse.
What is unique about the French Revolution is how violent it was. This period was called the Reign of Terror. The new government formed what was called the “Committee of Public Safety.” This committee executed people it identified were against the cause of the Revolution. 16,500 were executed by guillotine, out of as many of 40,000 executions either by firing squad, drowning, or being beaten to death. Most of these happened without a trial.
So one of the questions for historians is “why was the revolution so bloodthirsty?” Massive crowds gathered to watch executions by guillotine in the public squares. Why did they keep killing once the people had the right to vote? The Committee of Public Safety was established after King Louis XVI was already executed. Why did they have to kill 40,000 people?
In my opinion, the violence was driven by the money. People were poor. People were starving. And this sparked a flame of protest. Once the killing started, they could not stop.
There is a simple reason why I say all of this. Rich people do not riot. There is no reason for them too. But if you look at your life, and there are no opportunities for economic success, while the upper classes are doing fine, you are going to riot. Even if you had the right to vote, if there are no opportunities for you, you are still going to riot.
A lot of academics try to explain why the Reign of Terror happened. I will tell you the real reason why history professors explain the French revolution as being driven by democracy. It is because it is very reassuring for the public. If the reason for all the killing was for the right to vote, once democracy is established, there is no reason for the Reign of Terror to ever happen again. I think this is naïve. It was not the vote. It was the money that sparked the fire of protest. And if that is the case, those same economic conditions can happen again.
Now just to be clear, no one wants the Reign of Terror to happen again. No one wants poor people to rise up and cut off the heads of 16,500 people. But this is a threat we should take seriously, and it is something we should be doing everything we can to prevent.
Let us look at the list again of the causes of the French Revolution. All these things could happen in the United States. Just look at the tax system. The US says it is a progressive tax, meaning the wealthy pay more tax, but I keep hearing about rich people who pay almost nothing in tax. The US has a massive budget deficit. The US is massively printing money. Food prices are rising quickly. At some point, poor people, even though they have the right to vote, are going to feel like their leaders are not working for them, and the rich will need to be held accountable.
- Unfair tax system
- France was nearing bankruptcy
- Massive budget deficit (10% of GNP in 1789 to 64% in 1793)
- Increased taxes on poor people
- Massive printing of money
- Economic depression
- Massive unemployment
- Massive inflation (3500%)
- Massive amounts of debt holders
- Famine, and high food prices leading to mass starvation
So what can we do to prevent this? Most business owners will look at this information and think there is nothing they can do. This is all the economy. How can one person influence the outcome?
I actually think there is a lot that each of us can do to prevent another Reign of Terror from happening. I think what it takes is leadership in the business community. When you learn about leadership, there is a common idea: When you take care of your people, your people will take care of you. They talk about this especially for leaders in the armed forces. If you are commanding troops, you have to be willing to be in the trenches with them. If you run back to safety when the first shots are fired, they are not going to go the extra mile for you.
So when we look at the question “what can we do?”, you can be a leader. The way leadership plays out in the business world is through the everyday decisions you make. When you are sitting at the top of a company, you are making 150 little decisions each and every day. In each of those decisions, are you thinking about the welfare of your people? Or are you thinking about yourself? That is the difference that makes a leader. It is when you approach those 150 decisions with self-sacrifice instead of selfishness. Because I will tell you this. Your people know who is looking out for them and who is not. And I will say it again, “When you take care of your people, your people will take care of you.”
When I look at the business world today, I see a huge lack of leadership. That is why we study ethics. When you take a look at the financial statements of a business, you cannot understand them unless you also take a step back and ask yourself the question, “Am I doing what is right?” Unless you ask yourself that question, the numbers on the page are not going to make sense and will not lead you to the correct business decision. That is why ethics has always been part of accounting, all the way back to the original accounting textbooks written by Luca Pacioli in the Renaissance. Luca Pacioli talked about reputation, honesty, and integrity, as driving factors behind what makes financial markets work. Your business is not going to last, unless you are doing what is right for your people.
So let us bring this conversation back to Amazon and Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world. People are out in front of his house, protesting, and building a guillotine. This is why it is important that you learn about business history. This is the same spark, and the same message that turned into the flame of the French Revolution. That flame turned into a wildfire that became 40,000 executions. I do not know why more people are not paying attention to this. If I was a rich person in America, I would be scared to death.
What do these protestors really want? When I first saw this news story, I dismissed it thinking they are just probably crazy people with crazy demands. But when I started looking into it, they are actually not asking for that much.
Their main demands include:
- Personal protective equipment to protect employees
- Paid sick leave for employees testing positive for COVID-19
- Hazard pay during the pandemic
- Compensation for COVID-19 deaths on the job
- $30/hr Minimum wage (currently $15/hr)
- 1 hr lunch breaks
- Free child care and health care for full-time employees
When I first read this I was shocked. I expected these requests to be outrageous. But we are only talking about $30/hr. The protestors are not asking for anything here that would be impossible for Amazon to implement.
Let us think about this for a minute. We are in a pandemic. We all rely on Amazon employees to make deliveries, while everyone sits in their houses in quarantine. These employees are risking their lives, and they are saying Amazon is an unsafe work environment. They are saying they do not even have basic Personal protective equipment. These people are heroes. We should be treating them like heroes.
This brings us to our question about leadership. Is Amazon taking care of their people here? This is a time, when Amazon is raking in the money, and Amazon is firing any employee that speaks out. No wonder people are protesting. But we need to take notice, because this is not any normal protest. They are building guillotines. This is a spark that we do not want to turn into a flame.
And yes, these are protestors that have the right to vote, but that is clearly not stopping this spark from happening. We should ask ourselves, are these protestors looking at their lives and seeing that there are economic opportunities around them, or not? Are they feeling that their government leaders are working for them, or not? We should note here, that Amazon just picked their new corporate headquarters. Out of all the cities in the US, do you know where they picked? Arlington, right next to Washington DC. The seat of political power. Are our political leaders working for Amazon? Or the poor people? Who is making money? Amazon? Or the poor people?
Jeff Bezos, if you are listening. I do not know if you have anyone around you who will be brutally honest. But I will be. You are being a jerk. Just give the guy his $30/hr so he can feed his family, and so he will stop building guillotines outside your house. Jeff Bezos, this is sparking a movement that none of us want, and unless you do something, these protests are going to continue and they are going to get bigger.
There is one more interesting thing about the protestors. At the end of their list of complaints, they make an interesting statement. They say they are going to lobby the US government to reform the tax structure to raise taxes on the rich, just like what the poor people asked for during the French Revolution. Now I am not saying that is the right or wrong thing to do. All I am trying to do is point out that there is an awful lot of parallels going on between what is happening right now, and the French Revolution and we should be paying attention to it. Because I will tell you this, the protestors are certainly making the connection.
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Neither Zach De Gregorio or Wolves and Finance shall be liable for any damages related to information in this video. It is recommended you contact a CPA in your area for business advice.