Friday, September 19, 2014

Jack Ma Is Not Our Friend

Mr. Alibaba is now a multi-billionaire, and he wants your money, too:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-18/jack-ma-said-planning-personal-roadshow-with-clinton-to-immelt.html


From what I can see, the Alibaba business model is this:

  • Poor people sell to each other,
  • Mr. Alibaba takes a cut from each transaction, and
  • Mr. Alibaba and friends take a big chunk of QE2 IPO cash back to China (or wherever).


Sounds like "the rich get richer, while the poor stay poor" to me.

What we need is a business model which allows everyone (i.e., 11 billion of us) to make a living ... not one which makes a few multi-billionaires while the rest of us starve.


What do you think?


By the way, a family member of mine has done business with Alibaba and was negatively impressed with the quality of the delivered product. You may not like Walmart, but at least they QA their products. It does not appear that the Alibaba business model includes such a step.


Update: There is a good essay titled "The Alibaba IPO frenzy: Symptom of a diseased economic order" on the World Socialist Web Site:

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/09/22/pers-s22.html

I agree. This is profits for the rich, crumbs for the poor; at least so far.

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