Will the liberal-conservative VVD in 2018 throw off the veil of nihilism that has covered the party since the early 21st Century?

You know you live in a civilized country

When not only you and your political allies behave valiantly and fair,

But also your political opponents…

Ernst Labruyère

I am a social-democrat, I have always been one and I probably will always be one. It felt naturally for me to pay my taxes and share some of my wealth with people who were not so lucky as I was. I never had the intension to become really rich and to work so hard that I lost track of what was going in the world. Leisure time and nature were just as important as the time spent in the office.

Therefore, as a citizen living in The Netherlands, it always felt naturally to vote for the social-democrat Partij van de Arbeid (i.e. PvdA, the Dutch labour party). And even though I have been quite dissatisfied with this party over the last ten to fifteen years, I could not think of another party to vote for. Just because…

Nevertheless, the PvdA is nowadays not the pivotal party anymore that it was in the past. The steady decline of social-democracy during the last twenty years, in combination with the devastating effect that participating in Cabinet Rutte II had on the leftwing voter’s confidence in the party, made that the PvdA is currently at the edge of the cliff.

Will it rise again? Or will the PvdA definitely topple over into the abyss? It is anybody’s guess…

As also the Christian-Democrat CDA party is not the pivotal party anymore that it was in the past, there is only one party left that deserves this statement: the liberal-conservative VVD.

Even though I would never think one second about voting on the VVD, it has always been a quite dignified and worthy party. A party that represented people with above average wealth, but of which the representatives did not seem to forget that they lived and worked in a world in which people took care for each other. A party also that brought forward good officials, responsible civil servants, as well as excellent aldermen and governmental representatives inside and outside The Netherlands (i.e. in the Europe forae).

However, that changed since the emergence of the rightwing populists in The Netherlands – initially represented by the murdered Pim Fortuyn with his “Livable Netherlands” movement and at a later stage his Lijst Pim Fortuyn – at the beginning of the 21st Century.

Suddenly the VVD felt like a party that was overtaken at the right flank by the populists, whose real “moment of glory” came with the initially unstoppable rise of Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom: a former member of parliament for the VVD.  

Since then, the VVD has been torn between its more centrist leaders, who see the VVD as a broad, centrist ‘people’s party’, that brought numerous decent government officials in the past, and the people in the party who wanted to follow the footsteps of the populists closely, in order to not loose more votes to them. 

Especially during the heyday of Geert Wilders the voices of the right-wing semi-populists within the VVD started to sound louder and louder. The choice between these two parts of the party was in fact an impossible choice. Simply, because both goals – being a moderate liberal-conservative party vs a semi-populist, very conservative party – can hardly be combined under one roof, unless at least one share of the party members gives in to its goals and values.

This conundrum might explain the surprisingly quick, but nevertheless enduring success of party leader Mark Rutte, who came into power in 2006 as fraction leader and political chief and stayed at the top without ‘wearing out’ too much, in spite of already three periods as Prime Minister.

Mark Rutte is a thoroughbred bridge builder, seemingly without an own face or opinion, and an excellent manager, who can keep everybody more or less happy and can follow the agenda of the greatest common devisor, until the end of the cabinet period.

In a centre-rightwing cabinet with the Christian-Democrat CDA and the Party for Freedom, he followed the rightwing agenda with initially enough keystones to keep Geert Wilders and his extreme-rightwing party happy.

In the “leftwing-ish” cabinet with the social-democrat PvdA, he built up very good personal relations with his vice-PM Lodewijk Asscher, as well as a very tight and structured agenda, that he followed to a T. Therefore Rutte kept the cabinet afloat for the whole five year period, in the longest stint for a Dutch cabinet since the Second World War.

And at the end of every cabinet period with him at the helm, all the participating other parties suffered substantial losses in the national elections, but Rutte always survived with unchallenged confidence and his signature “stainless steel grin” glued to his face: the undisputed winner of the elections.  

These substantial losses of the popular vote happened to the CDA and especially to the PvdA (this party was almost annihilated in the last elections), but to a much lesser degree to the VVD itself: the party also suffered losses, but remained the largest party by far.

Therefore one could see Mark Rutte as a textbook example of a good leader and an excellent manager. Even I have to give him that.

The only thing that should bother his voters, however, is for what Mark Rutte himself stands in the elections. 

Mark Rutte has made so many statements and promises in the past that were either blatant lies or that he knew in advance he could not keep that people don’t have an idea what is the truth with him and what not. And he was also political friends with so many people with so many 180 degree different opinions, that he seems without any form of spine or conscience.

His greatest strenght is therefore also his greatest pitfall: he can be friends with anybody and seemingly never draws the line of decency, that other politicians would have drawn in the same situation.

This habit of the PM has not been bad per sé for the VVD as a party (i.e. in sheer number of voters, compared with the other parties), but the consequence is that the VVD is still a “schizophrenic” party with two incompatible sides in it, that might fall apart as soon as the leadership changes.

In my humble opinion, it must be worrisome for the more moderate (i.e. liberal) members of the party and for a list of decent ex-politicians, like Erica Terpstra, Frans Weisglas, Ed Nijpels, Joris Voorhoeve and Pieter Winsemius, that their party has turned into a hotbed for increasingly radical and populist politicians, with a very self-interested view on the world.

These politicians steer the party in a more and more conservative, even xenophobic and anti-European direction, in order to not lose track to the PVV and to the also extreme-rightwing and xenophobic Forum for Democracy of the ‘new political talent’, Thierry Baudet.

Compassion with the less fortunate people in society, with the goals and foundations of the European Union and with the necessity for a fair tax payment for rich people and (large) companies have been exchanged for a “me first” politics. And Mark Rutte remained ‘on course’ as the perfect manager and never raised his voice to clearly draw the line, in order to stop this more and more conservative direction.

This is the reason that I – as a social-democrat person with respect for some past politicians of the VVD – think that it is time for the other leaders and pundits within the VVD to draw the line for Rutte in 2018:

• either become more conservative, more anti-EU and selfish in your vision for the future and loose the other members of the party;
  
• or again become the broad, liberal party with a great tradition of very good, moderate officials and leaders. A party that encloses all people and also encloses the European Union concept and the need for cooperation in Europe with respect to the global challenges of this time.

The latter undoubtedly means that the conservative and populist voters and politicians within the VVD will leave the party disappointed. But you really can’t have it all, even though the contrary seems to be true at this moment.

In my vision, Mark Rutte, in spite of his chameleontic characteristics and his excellent management skills, is not the leader that the VVD needs for the future. 

Too long he has held the party hostage with his failure to choose a sustainable road for the future and with his lack of choice for the party that he wants to lead.

The rumours of Mark Rutte aiming for an important position in the European Union are enduring, in spite of his categorical denial of these rumours. 

Nevertheless, his excellent management skills would make him a very good follow-up for current president of the European Council, Donald Tusk (i.e. “the other Donald”) and he did not make many enemies in Europe. 

On top of that, Rutte would be an excellent guy to keep up the good old Atlantic connection with the United Kingdom and the US, in spite of the Brexit.

After he would have left national politics in The Netherlands, it would give the VVD the time for a very thorough cleansing within the leadership and directions of the party. 

There have been simply too many scandals and too many politicians in distress within the VVD. This can’t go on and this should not go on! And then the VVD can finally make the important choice to become the party that they really want to be! 

So they can finally throw off the veil of nihilism that has covered the party since the beginning of the 21st Century!

2018 should be year in which we throw away the shackles of fear and anger that keep us locked and just start to live with each other again, like we always did.

Fear is the path to the dark side.

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate.

Hate leads to suffering…

Master Yoda – Star Wars 1

Star Wars 1- The Phantom Menace was far from the best film in the Star Wars series. This was due to the fact that George Lucas paid so much for his computer equipment and computer artists, in order to develop all these extraterrestial cities, vehicles and creatures, that he had to save money otherwise spent on a real good script.

Nevertheless, the aforementioned quote by the wise Jedi Master Yoda in the movie, is spot on. How spot on it is, can be seen on a daily basis. 

People all over the world, often under the “inspired leadership” of their governments, are talking each other deep into a depression, based upon fear, anger and resentment against other groups of people: 

• Fear for poverty and for losing their current lifestyle, caused by others;
• Fear for an unbalanced budget and for “squandering tax money” on wasted social security;
• Fear to lose one’s wealth, due to national taxes;
• Fear that the multinational corporations either leave one's country or don’t want to establish themselves overthere;
• Fear to lose the euro due to the Greek and Italian mountain of debt;
• Fear to lose the battle for economic prosperity to the Chinese and Indian people;
• Fear for the radical islam;
• Fear for terrorism on people's home turf;
• Fear that normal people might grow bad ideas regarding the government;
• Fear for unfavourable climate change AND fear that saving the climate might come at the expense of the economy's health ;
• Fear that someone else might have it better than ourselves.

In other words: there is a lot of fear in modern societies. A whole lot of fear… And that the fear leads to anger and resentment (even hatred) is also crystal clear. 

The leadership of for instance American president Donald Trump is largely based on fearmongering and protecting himself and his rich friends from dangers that are not really palpable, but attend to feelings of insecurity in American society.

In the process he makes promises to the average middle and lower class Americans that he won’t keep, while his promises to his wealthy friends and especially himself are rocksolid.

The same is true for the presidencies of Vladimir Putin in Russia and Xi Jinping in China. 

Both are extremely afraid for the forces in society that could end their presidency untimely, while at the same time they are robbing society from the money that it earned and deserved... Therefore they are using every trick in the book (and outside the book) to prevent anything – aimed against their position – from happening.

And even in the more moderate Europe a lot of decisions have been fear-based... 

Take the Brexit, which was based on fearmongering and longing for a imaginative situation, that in reality has never existed. Or take the South- and East-European leaders with their outrageous fear for the islamist immigrants and the societal unrest coming from dissidents within their own country.

They are closely followed by the cowardice and ignorant North- and West-European leaders, who are willingly shutting their eyes towards the deteriorating situation in Greece and Italy; countries which “have to keep their own pants up” (i.e. Dutch expression).

“Keeping the budget clean and being frugal” is their eternal mantra that should prevent the Northern and Western countries from showing a human face towards the countries that saved them from the “refugee influx”: Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey. "Pity is good, as long as it doesn't cost us money!"

All of this is fear in disguise. And just like in the Star Wars movie, this fear leads to anger and – if we don’t look out very carefully – to hate and suffering. Just like it did during World War 1 and 2 and during the numerous other wars that have been fought in the meantime.

Would it not be great when we could simply stop being afraid for all these useless fears?! And start to care for the things that are really important?

Personally, I don’t give a rat’s behind whether the headoffice of Shell and other (paper) headoffices would leave The Netherlands. We have already been too long taken hostage by these companies with their demands and lobby for customized regulation, that is eventually bad for the country; not good!  

The climate and the heating of the earth, however, decide whether my beloved city Almere will be threatened by the rising tides of the 21st Century. That would be a real threat for my wife and me and (especially) for my children and future grandchildren.

And the increasingly erratic behaviour of our world leaders is also a direct threat for world peace: after the devastating explosion happened, it is not so important anymore what caused the fatal spark. Now, however, it is important to prevent this spark from setting everything on fire.

Mass immigration, even though an important theme for the future, is never the fatal ingredient for riots and civil war to these eyes and especially not in the current situation with moderate immigration.

Look at for instance Jordan and Turkey and decide how much these countries are destabilized by the influx of the millions of refugees that they received. And then think how much the tens of thousands of refugees could destabilize Europe. You can do the math…

To name an important cause for the current fear in society and at the same time debunk its influence: islamic – or other kinds of – terrorism are painful and cruel for a country, but not a fatal cause of revolts either.

Look for instance at the United States, where domestic violence and even ‘involuntary manslaughter’ by toddlers(!), are causings many more deaths than (islamic) terrorism in 2017. If you are afraid to be killed in an attack, please be careful for your husband, your wife and your children. And for your own gun, of course!. As this is the sad truth in the United States.

Yet, worldwide governments are starting to treat all their citizens as possible suspects of dangerous crimes. People that need to be closely monitored by street cameras, eavesdropping of telephone, mobile channels and the internet, as well as all other kinds of vigilant pursuit.

Citizens are not trusted as good people that can be mostly left alone without governmental hindrance. 

No, they are seen as theoretically bad people that must be closely followed to prevent bad plans from happening. And the worst thing is: when intelligent and angry people have really bad plans, the governmental agents are in some cases not in time to stop them from fullfilling their plans. 

And after every (extremely rare) successful attack, the need for more vigilant pursuit is expressed by attention-hungry politicians, useless as it is to stop all bad things from happening. Thus millions of good people have to suffer for a few bad people, by losing their privacy and everything that is dear to them "for the greater good", which is bad in fact.

Let 2018 be the year in which the trust in each other returns. The year in which we take societal risks for what they are: sometimes dangerous, but seldomly fatal for society. 

The year in which we disclose populists and cynical demogogues for what they are: pathetic parasites that feed upon other people’s fear and misery in their daily cries for attention.

I know a lot of people, but I know very few really bad people. They do exist and they can be dangerous for myself and my loved ones. 

But probably the most dangerous people are politicians who see everywhere enemies of the country and who think they have the solution for every problem.  

They are people who are willing to sacrifice everything – except for themselves and their loved ones – for their ideas and solutions. Especially when they think that everyone, who does not agree with them, is a potential enemy of the country. We know already where this leads, as we saw this film before...

So let’s celebrate 2018 as the year of the return of common sense and friendship: in politics and in our daily lives. 

Let us have that, instead of hostility between people. Let us throw away the shackles of fear and anger that keep us locked up in ourselves and our self-destructive ideas. The pied pipers of fear will not guide the way to more prosperity and happiness. 

Life is beautiful and we should spend the short time that we are around on this earth to create things of beauty and joy for each other. Let us not spend our lifetimes in fear and anger, but in joy and amazement. 

That is my wish for the new year 2018. 

“We are people, not slaves or robots!” Companies should honour the needs and desires of their workers or pay the price for not doing so!

If one wonders whatever circumstances started the Russian Revolution in 1917 – exactly hundred years ago – or roughly 130 years earlier the French Revolution, he should look at the lower class and middle class workers and impoverished people in his country. And first and foremost to the way they are treated by the wealthy people and (large) companies in this country. 

Then this person should realize that most revolutions start because these simple workers and the non-working poor are utterly fed up with their living circumstances and want to make a drastical change, even if that might cost them their life eventually.

If the lower class workers and the poor in a country are treated humanely and are given chances to work themselves up towards a better life, no revolution will ever break out. 

However, if such workers are treated like poor, talentless and useless people, who are only good for one thing – for which they are not appreciated at all and paid very poorly too – revolution could be looming when the humiliation reaches its peak.

To this respect it is good to look at the grim developments at one of the largest and most popular companies in the world: Amazon. This company is extremely successful in both sales of food and non-food articles to the general public and rendering cloud services (i.e. the rental of broad computer services) to companies. Its status in the digital world is iconic, just as the status of its founder, Jeff Bezos.

Yet, this company seems well on its way to become one of those companies that is hated and despised by their personnel for the inhumane treatment of their workers, if the following story is indeed true.

This story, which was based upon research done by a reporter of the British newspaper Daily Mirror, was printed in the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad a few weeks ago:

Personnel of a British distribution centre of webgiant Amazon is severely underpaid for the long, long working days they have to make around the holidays. Some employees make working weeks of 55 hours for a minimum hourly wage of around UKP 8.20 (roughly € 9,16). This became clear from undercover research of British newspaper Daily Mirror.

Journalist Alan Selby worked five weeks for a distribution centre in Tilbury, where he saw that the personnel was treated as ‘live stock’ and became so tired that they fell asleep standing. Some workers had to be treated by ambulance personnel. “The personnel receives a wage that is lower than the average cost of livelihood. One of them asked: ‘Why is it not allowed to sit for a moment when it is not busy? We are people, not slaves or robots’”, according to Selby.

The journalist, who runs marathons in his leisure time, experienced that himself: “The only times that I did not stand up, was during my breaks.  My body ached, I felt dizzy and was afraid that I would topple over. One of my colleagues told me she overstretched her hamstrings, but had to continue anyway”. Selby saw the managers screaming at those who dared to rest.

Also the daily targets would lie too high. It is expected from the packaging personnel that they prepare for shipment 120 products per hour. Those who did not make that number, were fired...

When asked, Amazon did not exactly experience the urgency behind the cause for this article. Again the Algemeen Dagblad:

Amazon informed us in a reaction that they ‘offered a safe and positive working place’. “We are proud upon having created thousands and thousands of job in the past years. The targets have been based upon earlier results of our personnel”.

“Nothing to see her, folks. Everything is cool! Carry on, as you were!”

There are roughly three possibilities with respect to this story:

• a. Alan Selby is a stargazer and a liar who makes something out of nothing. Amazon personnel should simply shut up, enjoy their work and be glad that they have a job.
• b. Amazon is a cynical club that doesn’t give a rat’s behind about the wellbeing of their personnel and only hunts for impossible targets and yet more efficiency on the way towards full robotization of their workforce.
• c. Amazon is not aware of treating its personnel badly and truly believes that they offer a good job to their personnel. 

The first possibility of the three is not very plausible, as at the same time of the publication of this article in the UK, the personnel of Amazon in Germany and Italy was on strike to get improvement of their labour circumstances too.

Remain the two possibilities in which Amazon is either extremely naive or cynical...

Both possibilities are not favourable for the company. And looking at Amazon’s reaction when confronted with the news in the Daily Mirror (see red and bold text), I tend to think that Amazon is just extremely cynical.

Probably the company cannot wait for the moment that they can either move most of their operations to the low wage countries, where workers are less critical and too much strapped for cash to complain about labour circumstances, or fully robotize their operations so they don’t need human workers at all. 

Anyway, the result is shocking, to these eyes!

And unfortunately the situation around Amazon is not unique. A few weeks later, an article appeared in the Dutch online magazine The Correspondent, in which the situation for the workers at Schiphol airport had been put under scrutiny. 

Also this article was written by an investigative reporter, Dick Wittenberg, who spoke with workers in the lowest qualified jobs at Schiphol.

The tendency in this article was very much akin to the situation at Amazon: long working hours without toilet breaks, poor payment and uncertain situations around the prolongation of contracts:

At Schiphol I stumble upon uncertain workers and working poor. Masses of workers are running around. Labour Union FNV estimates that at least a quarter of the 65,000 people, who work at the roughly 450 companies, does not have a steady job. At some companies or departments of companies, their share rises above 70 per cent.

They run from one temp job to another, or from one temporary contract to another. They hardly earn the minimum wage. A large share does hardly build up a pension or does not get paid at all during sickness. And in the meantime they can always be ‘written off’ and be exchanged for more productive workers.

Everything at Schiphol is aimed at keeping the tariffs for the aviation companies as low as possible. This means that insufficient demands are made towards the companies that work on Schiphol. And that goes at the expense of the personnel of these companies.

Take for instance the luggage and passenger handling companies. In the battle for the goodwill of the over hundred aviation companies that land on Schiphol, these companies feel forced to work as cheap as possible, according to a spokesman of the FNV union, Leen vander List. “This simply means more production with less personnel involved and - as a consequence of this modus operandi - also more poorly renumerated and very insecure labour contracts”. 

In order to prevend that now insecure workers can claim a fixed contract after having three sequential, temporary contracts within two years, companies at Schiphol use a trick, making use of temporary labour organizations. 

After a number of contracts at one company, the temp agency places the worker at another company for a certain amount of time. After a while, the temp worker starts again at square one at the first company. Annually, over 10,000 uncertain workers are pumped around this way. FNV spokesman Van der List calls this the ‘merry-go-round of uncertain workers’.  

Both articles are either based upon first-hand experiences of the journalist (in case of Alan Selby) or testimonies of direct witnesses at these companies in The United Kingdom and The Netherlands. However, the tendency of both articles is fiercely denied by the main corporate protagonists in it.

Hence, the credibility of both stories is based upon the credibility of the reporters in question, who state things that are 180 degrees opposite of the image that both involved companies Amazon and Schiphol want to spread to the general public: an image of happy and satisfied workers being part of one happy family at their respective companies.

I believe these aforementioned stories, however. Personally, I see a disturbing trend towards the further dehumanization of workers over the last number of years. These are workers, who increasingly have to act like robots, in their quest for their nearly impossible targets. 

People, who are denied the simplest things like toilet and smoke breaks and a few minutes to put their feet to rest, outside the bare minimum of work breaks they are granted. Because this could harm their ability to meet those aforementioned targets.

Besides that, people are suffering from (too) low wages and from lack of certainty in the form of fair contracts for a longer period of time or – even better – fixed contracts. Contracts, that build up a fair pension and fair sickness money.

The same has happened in health care and home care were nurses and other health care workers are fighting their impossible targets of having to give so much aide in only a few minutes per patient. No more room for talking with patients and giving aide beyond the bare minimum. They have to work like emotionless machines, if they want to meet their targets. Nothing else is possible.

Many healthcare and homecare workers are so sick and tired of these impossible targets and the accompanying pressure that they gave up their jobs, according to the local newspaper Eindhovens Dagblad:

This is exactly where institutes for homecare warned for for a long time: it is simply impossible to take new clients in, irrespective of the urgency of the demand. They are seriously short-handed. There is no influx of new workers. To put it even stronger: healthcare and homecare workers are leaving their job by the dozen. Only in Brabant [i.e. Dutch province in the south] already 10,000 workers left their job this year [2017 - EL].

Also in the cleaning industry this development is underway, as cleaners have to clean a class room or an office in roughly five to ten minutes. This leaves them only enough time to do a poor job, as thoroughly cleaning a class room would take at least 30 minutes. 

No good job can be done in this minimum amount of time and thus no job satisfaction can be reached, due to a job well done. Everything is arranged for meeting the nearly impossible targets, to be able for their employer to offer the cheapest price at their principals.  

The biggest problem, to these eyes, is the ongoing dehumanization of workers. 

Workers are not seen as the living, intelligent, hardworking and curious people that they are, but as durable means of production that are only appreciated for their possibilities to meet their targets. Nothing else!

When the targets are not met, the appreciation for the workers is gone at the spot and the workers must be replaced by better, quicker and more successful workers. Their opinions, worries and ideas are not important for their employers; just their sheer output.

One reinforcing effect to their misfortune is that workers, when not sufficiently unionized and represented on higher levels in society, are often extremely poor represented in the political arenas. The large, successful companies and the rich citizens on the other hand are overly represented there, because of their money and (thus) their influence on the leading politicians.

This means that the needs of the lower class workers and the poor are often neglected, in favour of measures that are aimed at the rich people and the large companies: lowering taxes and rising subsidies for investments. And preparing more building ground for expensive owner-occupied housing than cheap rental housing for the lower and middle classes. 

These groups have the money and the influence to “buy” their opinion and their interests into the political arenas.

Perhaps, the United States political arena is the most blatant example of this phenomenon, due to the nearly unlimited amounts of payments that can be made to the political parties and their representatives, as well as the extremely costly election campaigns that cause that all parties and all representatives are strapped for cash with respect to their (re-)elections. 

Paying money in The United States means buying direct influence, via the carrot (the money) and the stick (no more money for the next re-elections) clause.

Nevertheless, my gutfeeling says that the emotions of the lower class workers could come to a boiling point within a few years, when the working circumstances do not further improve and serious payment rises are made for everybody in the company, instead of the top management alone.

The only problem is, that a lot of the current, lower class anger in society is now aimed at immigrants and (religious) minority groups, instead of at the people who are behind their financial backwardedness and disdain for their position. This is expressed in the misunderstanding and sometimes sheer hatred against the religious minorities and the immigrants from Africa and Asia, that are looking for a safe refuge. This is a dangerous development, that has led to extremely bloody wars in the last century.

When this will turn around, however, and the anger of the lower classes and poor people WILL be aimed at the leading classes and the companies who treated them poorly, these leading politicians, (large) companies and rich citizens could be in for a rough ride, just like it happened more often in the past.

I personally hope it will not come this far, but the signs are not exactly promising, given the aforementioned widespread examples of antisocial, corporate behaviour.

Nevertheless, the recipe to solve this issue is fairly simple: forget the impossible targets and forget the fairytale that the robots are ready to take over most jobs. 

Start to give the workers in the simpler, but nevertheless extremely important jobs the respect and the remuneration that they deserve. Make sure that their targets are feasible and that they have enough backup to do their job in a normal way. 

Make also sure they live in decent houses in decent areas and make sure they enjoy their jobs and get satisfied by it. Don't take their efforts simply for granted, as if they are slaves or robots.

Frits Philips, one of the leading entrepreneurs behind the expansion of the now world-famous Philips brand, understood this lesson very well and he acted accordingly. He built and bought good houses for his workers and gave them sports and leisure time and the means to do so. By doing so, he earned their eternal respect and gratitude.

I wonder if Jeff Bezos of Amazon has this grandness in himself or that he is one of the infamous American entrepreneurs that treats people like slaves… or robots, as a matter of fact. 

Even robots need some maintenance every now and then; just like people do!