I worked at Ikea for some time and it's quite amazing the possibilities you had as an employee pursuing a career within the company. Rather than them basing your performance on past studies and grades, you definitely had the possibility to pursue any role within the company as long as you had the "right" mentality and really wanted it. Just like any early-stage startup I've work with.
I was a lazy university student who just saw it as a part-time job though, just improving my economical situation for a bit but the few ideas I had was easily escalated and heard.
Kind of miss that place sometimes.
When it comes to Kamprads legacy, I do hope they open a fund with his pile of cash because for me, his legacy is stained by all the sketchy tax evasion schemes they've set up.
Great question. I think their own documentation of it is spot on and gives a honest picture of their core values. You can read it for yourself here: http://ikea.in/culture-value
I guess it’s worth saying that I don’t work for Ikea anymore so my words are my own and not affiliated with Ikea in any way.
Also, only someone with poor reading comprehension - whether through rushing or lack of focus - would have thought you still worked for Ikea, I appreciate you saying it for those people though. :)
Ingvar was a fascist sympathizer with corporatist ideas. He stayed true to his nazi sympathies long after the atrocities of Nazi Germany became known to the world. He was once a very active member of Svensk Socialistisk Samling[1][3].
As late as 2010 he hailed the Swedish fascist leader Per Engdahl[1][2].
He may have been an excellent business man (and tax evader), but please remembers these facts too.
```
The tycoon revealed some elements of his past in a book in 1988, admitting that he was a close friend of the Swedish fascist activist Per Engdahl, and a member of his New Swedish Movement between 1942 and 1945.
He said that his involvement was youthful "stupidity" and the "greatest mistake" of his life.
```
The parent already pointed out that in a 2010 interview he expressed his unchanged admiration for Endghal. And he was also later show to have remained friends with him well into the 50s, exchanging correspondence and kind regards, a further misrepresentation of the length and character of their friendship.
Mixed feelings here. Incredible entrepreneur that built an empire on solid product values. Masterfully executed through laser focus on logistics. Brought design and furniture to the masses.
Shadowed by his Nazi roots which I never felt he apologized forcefully enough...
And the fact the incredibly shadowy ikea tax structure makes it hard for anyone to compete against. Profiles itself as a Swedish company and uses the country for marketing purposes but has done everything it could to avoid taxes here.
Also, the mountain of cash hidden in all the Dutch and Luxembourg trust funds coming from this tax structure is not being used to contribute back to society in a meaningful way like Gates and Buffett.
> Also, the mountain of cash hidden in all the Dutch and Luxembourg trust funds coming from this tax structure is not being used to contribute back to society in a meaningful way like Gates and Buffett.
Not really an excuse, but at least since 1990s, that was very common among the European rich.
Psychologically, it's easy to justify: the state takes about half of your hard-earned cash, then passes it on to a bunch of bureaucrats in Brussels who have not done a damn thing in their lives. On the other hand, before everything became computerised, stashing the money in Luxembourg was way too easy.
It was not a specific tax that targeted IKEA. But there was a set of taxes and regulations that one could say targeted all major "owners of capital".
Until 1989, the corporate tax was 52%. Yes there were various deductions, but still, 52%.
Then a wealth tax of 2.5% on assets (all asset classes) over 1.6 million kronor - about $1.5 million in todays monetary value. This wealth tax could also be collected from a corporation when its liquid holdings exceeded double than that that of its debt.
Add to that, a intense political debate about introducing the so called Employee Funds - a mechanism in where a large part of the collected corporate tax would be dedicated to buying shares in the taxed corporation, shares that would then be distributed among the employees with a goal of collective ownership.
Perhaps indicative of the business climate in 1970s Sweden, Astrid Lindgren, the author of Pippi Longstocking, famously wrote a short satirical story about her over 100% margin tax rate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomperipossa_in_Monismania.
And yet Lindgren remained a committed Social Democrat even in spite of this. Drawing a parallel between her and a tax-dodging, fascist sympathizer is quite the leap. Lindgren despised the Nazism Kamprad embraced and never really fully repudiated.
Not sure where I drew that parallel. I think we aren't discussing the facist angle in this sub-thread.
What you are saying regarding Lindgren is correct, but the point is that the Social Democrats went to far, as they drew heavy criticism from even a loyal supporter. But then the party partially reversed direction in the 1990s.
Note that Ingvar Kamprad wasn't the only one to leave Sweden for tax related reasons in the 70-80s era. To name a few others: Hans Rausing (TetraPak), Stefan Persson (H&M), Ingmar Bergman, Björn Borg..
You used Lindgren and her story as an example of the "business climate" of Sweden in the 70s and as an implied defense of Kamprad/IKEA's actions. But her critique, when coupled with her continued commitment to socialism, isn't comparable to Kamprad/IKEA's actions.
Essentially, there's an important and material difference between saying, "I'm a socialist, but these taxes, which I'll continue to pay, are excessive" and "I'm an unreprentant fascist who must hide my wealth from these undeserving thieves," even if the latter can opportunistically profit from the former's sentiment to justify their own actions.
The way you are framing it, it sounds like Lindgren did a bad thing in criticising the Social democrats, but in the end she remained committed to socialism, so she ended up on the "safe side".
Or being "good socialist" is one end of the scale, and "bad fascist capitalist" is on the other end. That doesn't make much sense, as that is mixing up two different scales. Fascism is a political system (could be described as a militaristic nationalism) that is opposed to democracy, while capitalism is an economical system.
In fact, what Lindgren did remain committed to was not really socialism, but rather a form of social democracy with a "mix" economy including both state and private ownership - which is what Swedens Social Democratic party came to represent in the 1990s.
"Add to that, a intense political debate about introducing the so called Employee Funds - a mechanism in where a large part of the collected corporate tax would be dedicated to buying shares in the taxed corporation, shares that would then be distributed among the employees with a goal of collective ownership."
Not many business owners today start from the aspect of frugality like he did. IKEA is a place that targets everyone but is priced at middle class or lower levels unlike most products today. That goes back to his roots.
Mr Kamprad was renowned for his devotion to frugality, reportedly driving an old Volvo and travelling by economy class.
In a 2016 interview with Swedish television channel TV4, Mr Kamprad said that it was "in the nature of Småland to be thrifty".
"If you look at me now, I don't think I'm wearing anything that wasn't bought at a flea market," he said.
Far away from Sweden, on a Saturday night me and my wife were in line buying some sheets at IKEA for beds we just setup from IKEA, and it was bustling with massive lines. His products have massive reach.
IKEA is quite good at everything they do and are extremely efficient, except checkout on a Saturday but we grabbed some meatballs while waiting in line.
Fun fact: IKEA stands for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd which is derived from founder's initials and hometown. [1]
The driving idea behind IKEA was, and is, that anyone should be able to afford stylish, modernist furniture. Kamprad felt he was not just cutting costs and making money, but serving the people as well. [1]
Some of the "frugality" stuff is just image - he also had a Porsche, lived in a very nice property in Switzerland for 40 years, and also owned a French vineyard (although he forced IKEA to sell the wine from the latter so he may have actually made money off of that one...)
Ingvar Kamprad got mega rich, as accountants do for the rich they have much of it offshore and hidden because they get a piece, but he is probably in the top 10 most wealthy, 50 billion or so [1].
What didn't change is the company focus, very middle class like Costco.
What didn't change is how the company was started, from frugality and internal innovation.
What didn't change is treating employees well as part of your business that directly affects consumers.
So yeah, he got mega wealthy and deserved it and earned those toys. But the company and mission never changed meanwhile many companies in that space folded or moved to focus on upper middle class or wealthy only. IKEA still has a Costo/Sears type of target market that is largely not pursued today. IKEA workers also love it like they do at Costco, WinCo and you can compare that to how Walmart treats retail workers (they treat devs well) in pay and how people feel in the organization. I prefer to spend money at places that treat employees well and pay well.
Give people cheap stuff, pretend to be one of them and they won't question anything you do. Seem like he invented the modern tech company decades early.
As far as sports cars go, you can get a reliable Porsche that will last you a very long time. Not necessarily wasteful if you want good performance out of a car.
I read the news in an IKEA sofa wrapped in an IKEA blanket resting my head on an IKEA cushion watching TV on an IKEA bench. He truly built a startup that changed the world.
Even the purported difficulty of assembling the furniture: When we moved last time, we decided that it was time to invest in some “proper” furniture (at, uhm, decidedly non-Ikea prices) and all of it needed to be assembled in some manner or other (one shelf-system rather extensively so) and the instructions were singularly opaque and the steps required convoluted and difficult. You can get into some interesting gymnastics with Ikea stuff, especially when you try to skimp on the “two person” recommendation, but nothing like this. I love our new furniture, but I’m never laughing at an Ikea-assembly-joke again.
I REALLY don't understand that trope; IKEA furniture is so crazy easy to build. The directions are always precise with no ambiguity, without using any words.
It’s a reminder to assess people on their actions, especially the outcomes (rather than intentions) of their actions, and not speculation on what might be in their heads.
Moving from a country with no Ikea to a country with Ikea has been a paradigm shift for me, and I'm not sure it's entirely a good one.
It used to be that if I wanted furniture, I'd go to the second hand store, and look for some used furniture that fitted my purpose. If I couldn't find something that worked, then I'd look online, and then failing that, I'd buy it new.
I found some real gems at the second hand store. A desk I bought is going strong 5 years later (I gave it to a friend).
Now I don't even bother, I just go straight to Ikea. It's so cheap that there's no point in looking at second hand.
Sure there is a point in getting second-hand furniture/clothing/electronics/whatever, even though these things can be had new from IKEA/department stores/China/anywhere for a pittance. The reasons are multifold, actually. You can find things second-hand which are hard or impossible to find new. You can often get higher-quality material second-hand - after all it has already spent a lifetime in someone elses care and still survives to be resold. Second-hand is often still cheaper and the proceeds generally go to some 'good cause' (which you might, or might not agree with so it makes sense to investigate this before giving a charity your business just like it makes sense to do the same before giving any business your money). Reuse is better than recycle is better than landfill. The second-hand store is probably closer to your home than the IKEA, certainly closer than China. When it comes to electronics you can generally get 'professional' grade material for 'consumer' prices.
In other words it is your own actions which will decide whether the presence of IKEA (et al) is detrimental, neutral or beneficial. It can be beneficial due to the economy of scale made possible by their concept but they do have a number of 'throwaway' products which can be seen as wasteful, although many of those products are made of recycled (fibreboard) or rest materials (hardboard) so the waste is more related to manufacturing, transport and disposal. The solution is just not to buy those products - or repair/reinforce them when they get damaged.
On another take, the amount of IKEA furniture I've assembled over the years has instilled some basic sense of design and structure which has aided my in building my own outdoor furniture. IKEA is, effectively, a DIY store and you aren't limited to the pieces they package together. You can really be creative with it.
The Lack specifically is one of the most versatile pieces of furniture in existence. Dirt cheap, symmetrical, strong load bearing, simple design and assembly. The classic “Lack Rack” server racks have been posted on here several times as another example of what you can do with the Lack.
I think you’d like Enzo Mari’s Autoprogettazione. He designed some furniture with the intention that they should be easy for people to build themselves from simple material and with a few simple tools. And by building their own furniture, people would get a better understanding and appreciation of good design.
So? Furniture of any quality can be found at second hand stores. From one of a kind expensive pieces to el cheapo ready to break stuff and everything in between.
That said, there's nothing much that can hurt a properly done desk. I have IKEA desks I use for 10 and 15 years now, and other than a few dents I've caused them, are perfectly fine.
I don't mean to insinuate that Ikea has bad quality stuff, quite the opposite.
Instead of getting second hand stuff, it's easier for me to just get new stuff from Ikea. But what's happening to all the second hand stuff that I would've bought? Does it all just go into the landfill? Because that's a waste.
> Instead of getting second hand stuff, it's easier for me to just get new stuff from Ikea. But what's happening to all the second hand stuff that I would've bought? Does it all just go into the landfill? Because that's a waste.
the stuff you would've bought at near-Ikea prices won't be trashed, rather it will likely have to sell for slightly less. and the stuff that would've been that price will sell for slightly less, all the way down to some stuff that might've gone for a few dollars on craigslist will be given away for free. and the stuff that was only worth $0 will instead be trashed.
along the way, some folks of more limited means will be able to purchase slightly nicer furniture than if you'd gone and bought the nicest thing they could afford.
But wouldn't this cheaper Ikea furniture just translate to even cheaper second hand Ikea furniture? I can't imagine a way to keep furniture prices high enough to pressure people into engaging in the second hand market.
The last time I wanted to get rid of something very cheap I posted it online for people to pick it up for free. A few days later it was gone.
I'm not disagreeing with you, but I recently saw an IKEA lamp selling for £10 in a second hand furniture store. The same lamp sells for £6 new in IKEA!
TBH, because of the amount of effort that Ikea furniture assembly and shopping takes, I'd rather just buy it used & 'pre assembled'.
Ikea being a maze is really annoying when you just want to buy a few cups. Going to target or similar is about the same kind of furniture, for the same price, with a much faster experience.
Perhaps because of the presence of an IKEA in your new area, it would be an even better place to seek out second hand furniture. Perhaps more choice and cheaper as people flock to IKEA?
Or in my case, I had the luck of finding the IKEA desk I was looking for - three blocks away from me, second hand, already assembled, on Gumtree.
This is why I love cities. (Sydney isn't even that dense)
I'll bet that was the highest quality stuff Ikea ever produced. I was in a store for recycled stuff a week ago or so looking for a typewriter and some old comic books for my kids and it struck me that none of the furniture they was made by Ikea. That translates into there being a direct path to the landfill from Ikea.
You say that, but in two previous homes I've purchased, assembled and fitted IKEA kitchens - they were far better quality than other options in the same price range, and even held a candle to ones costing 2x as much. Solid oak for the doors and drawer fronts, good quality hinges and handles - the cabinets themselves were just laminated chipboard, but unless you're spending £££ that's the same for most kitchen suppliers.
Recently had a look at property listings, and both homes have been on the market recently, and both still have the kitchen I fitted 10 and 15 years ago, both still looking excellent.
As with most brands, they sell cheap throwaway things as well as more expensive, but that means that people who need furniture but would otherwise not be able to afford anything (unless they got everything 2nd hand) can furnish a home.
Easily fooled? No way that is solid oak. And for once that's a good thing, solid oak would warp, so you'd have to cross laminate it to counteract this. It's about 95% MDF with some veneer to make it look like wood. Yes it's heavy, but MDF is about as heavy as solid wood would be. The only way to get the kind of fit that makes it possible to assemble an IKEA product is to use what is called 'engineered' materials, a completely natural product would not work at that scale, there is just way too much variance. So even when IKEA does sell stuff that is made of wood throughout it will still be an engineered product. But the doors and drawer fronts of kitchen cabinets are not going to be cost effective that way so instead you get this MDF+surface coating solution, which for that application is ok.
The easiest place to verify this is where the hinges embed in the doors and the boreholes for the drawer to frame connection, there you can easily see that it is not solid wood.
They sell both but are good about clearly labeling things so you can know what you’re buying. This contrasts with some other manufacturers who bury it more.
Actually the real reason people throw it away is because it's inexpensive. Is it worth selling my $20 Ikea table? In the grand scheme, probably not. It's not worth as much because it's not as expensive to begin with. Some of it is certainly crap but a lot of the tables and shelves and whatnot are quite nice, but it doesn't mean you're going to get a lot of money for it second hand.
What I notice with Ikea stuff is that you are more likely just to give it away. I was at a party a few years ago and the host said they were sick of a cheap Ikea table. I consulted the wife and we ended up taking it with us. I notice that people will give away the cheap stuff rather than trying to sell it. Still have the table BTW.
I agree. Ikea furniture is so cheap and readily available that reusing it after a renovation isn't exactly worth the trouble. I have an ikea table that is as new but I'm planning to either give it away or throw it in the trash because it's taking up space and cost abour 30€. Am I going to bother putting it on craigslist to recover 10 or 20€? It's not worth it.
Put stuff in the front yard, and order a takeaway.
I'm only slightly facetious - last few times I've planned to throw something away and had put it outside, a delivery person from somewhere or other asked if they could take it.
Chances are there are plenty of people in lower income jobs that'd love taking it off your hands.
Ikea has more and less cheap furniture. The longer life stuff is generally made of solid wood or plywood and its quality is just fine. Ikea never just throws a product together, which also applies to the cheap ones.
Stuff from that era was really good. High quality woods and good finishing work. Then it went downhill with the low point somewhere around '97 or so and since then it has been slowly climbing back up. But there is a long way to go if they ever want to get back to their old quality level and their profit margins would likely suffer as a consequence.
> their profit margins would likely suffer as a consequence
They would certainly have to raise prices if they raised the quality, and then they lose their customers to competitors who are cheaper (and even worse quality - have you ever tried the cheap furniture from a hardware store?)
Furniture is a competitive market, and IKEA are very aggressive at undercutting their competition (they have directives to never let their competitors be cheaper) and they manage to sustain profits though their scale of operations (and some good engineering - IKEA have hollow tables filled with cardboard that's more durable than some competitors solid MDF stuff).
Basically people aren't willing to pay for quality. IKEAs trick is to be both cheap and have an acceptable level of design and quality.
IKEA has several price/quality options. I’ve shopped there for a long time and slowly moved up the product line. Their breadth makes it hard to compete with.
On the low end, pretty much anything cheaper than IKEAs entry level is total garbage. I’m looking at you Target! That stuff is little better than a cardboard box.
On the high end, price rapidly outpaces quality. Every time I think “maybe I’ll get real furniture this time” the prices jump 10x. That’s just not worth it to me.
I agree. The jump to “real” furniture is ridiculous. Suddenly the dinner table cost $3000. And if you try to find something in between there are the stores whose main selling point seem to be that they aren’t IKEA. Their prices are double and the quality is worse than IKEA.
I’ve no direct experience with CB2, but my experience with furniture in that price range is that the quality usually is worse than IKEA. They might use mor expensive materials, but QA is usually bad.
My take on this is that they make some real crappy stuff, like in: if you ever take it apart, you might as well throw it away.
And then they also have some decent, quality stuff, like some of their couches.
The problem is that as a consumer, it’s sometimes a bit unclear which category you’re buying into. Price is not a good indicator when it comes to ikea stuff: they have cheap stuff that’s great and expensive stuff that’s dispensible.
> you ever take it apart, you might as well throw it away.
I'm sure virtually no other piece of hone furniture was ever designed to be taken apart. Iikea's stuff is designed to be easily shipped and put together by unskilled people, but not to be taken apart. I'm sure that you won't rate your cellphone or laptop by how well it handles being disassembled.
I have seen several over 100 years old wardrobes that can be disassembled and reassembled in minutes without damage because they are held together by metal fittings that hook into each other. Like the better Ikea stuff, but much sturdier, especially the actual metal fittings.
The wardrobe I remember best had three doors - it would barely fit through any door if it couldn't be disassembled for transport. It had a socket part, separate wall parts with aforementioned fittings, and a top part that could be slotted onto the walls (and doors with their simple stick and hole type hinges) after assembling them. Assembly and disassembly was as simple as it sounds, if not simpler.
Eventually once we build the post-usefulness processing costs into products, we'll process/recycle everything fully as it should be instead of going to landfill; it's one of those Genuine Progress Index vs. GPD measurement things.
I think landfilling is pretty rare in developed countries. Mostly only the US has enough cheap free space to do it. Most countries incinerate their garbage. Countries that used to mostly landfill like the UK are now moving more and more to incineration.
I visit the local garbage drop off a couple of times per year and the amount of Ikea stuff that gets dumped there is depressing. If you actually read the comment above you'd see that I do buy stuff second hand.
No. Is it hard to see that IKEA furniture is not made to last? Doesn’t matter how many hands it changes - overall longevity is what determines its life.
The topic at hand is recyclability. You may have not throw things away but it is widely accepted and frankly utterly obvious - IKEA furniture has a short lifespan and it ends up being thrown away more according to the GP of this thread.
The original anecdote is that there were very few IKEA items in a store for recycled goods. The point you seem to be ignoring is tjoff's comment that IKEA products are so good that you can resell them and don't have to resort to donating them.
Here's my anecdata:
My desk is made by IKEA. It's sitting in front of me right now, having been disassembled, moved, and reassembled 5 times.
I had an IKEA bed that I got rid of a couple years ago. I ended up doing that by putting it on Craigslist and selling it for cash. I don't remember exactly how long it took, but the turnaround time for the whole thing was super fast.
>> The original anecdote is that there were very few IKEA items in a store for recycled goods. The point you seem to be ignoring is tjoff's comment that IKEA products are so good that you can resell them and don't have to resort to donating them.
That doesn't make any sense to me. Overall lifespan of the product is short - doesn't matter how many hands it changes!
Eventually more IKEA products end up in the landfill. Think about it from a macro perspective.
Let's take an exemple:
- A coffee table that lasts 3 years from Ikea that has had 10 owners
- A coffee table that lasts 20 years from Room & Board that also has had 10 owners
Which one do you think is going to end up in the landfill faster? Doesn't matter if its resellability is high? At some point, it will fail and end up in the landfill.
Now you're begging the question. In the original anecdote, we started with something we know based on observation—that very few IKEA products end up in stores selling recycled goods—and are offered the conclusion that this is because they shortly end up in the landfill due to their quality.
However, you've now taken that (flawed) inference and are presenting it as the starting point—as if it were an axiom, rather than the very thing that is in contention.
The fraction of IKEA furniture thrown away would be likely to match the fraction being IKEA in homes. That is, significant.
A problem with the IKEA stuff is that it’s a) cheap, so little monetary value in that old table you don’t need any more - even if it’s still in perfect condition and b) A prospective buyer can buy a new one (still cheap) and the new one is trivial to transport home compared to the used one that needs some disassembly.
So being cheap obviously makes it thrown away a lot - regardless of quality. You don’t hesitate to throw out something that wasn’t expensive, and prospective buyers always have the option of buying new.
Ikea has optimized the price and durability of an item to maximize utility for both the end user and the corp. People like getting new stuff for cheap and dont value resale or reuse. Ikea is an excellent machine for turning Borneo rain forest into landfill at the lowest price.
Most of IKEAs wood comes from Europe/Russia. They also probably do a lot more work tracing the source of their wood and making it sustainable than your average furniture maker, simply due to their visibility. You might be better off with something hand-crafted by an artisan from local wood, but who can afford that? Most people get their furniture from other big box stores, with unknown provenance
Oh man I love this line of argument but ikea is probably not the best place to deploy it.
The phrase "waste in transit" is so good. Once you have it, and viscerally understand the idea of things sitting on store shelves which you will briefly take into your house before their inevitable journey to landfill... yeah, you will never look at the world the same way.
But overall ikea are not the problem. They have corporate responsibility officers and like hippies who sold out and all kinds of things going on to ensure that the kind of social media disaster you discussed is supposed to never happen. Plus a lot of those people actually care.
Shoot back with interesting evidence of ikea corporate crimes if you have any though.
Ikea actually plans to become "forest positive": https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/ikea-sustai... The article is from 2012, not sure how far they progressed (true sustainability is difficult). I doubt they use any tropical wood though. Most of their wood supplies are already FSC certified.
Arguably they are one of the leading large companies with regard to sustainability. Most of their wood is fast growing pine, and they switched their entire lighting range over to LEDs way back in 2011
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/about_ikea/newsitem/IKEA_pulls_the...
Compared to the BBC article saying that in 2012 they failed to reach their goal of 35% "preferred sources" (undefined), they currently claim to source 50% of their wood from "sustainable sources" (defined as either recycled or FSC-certified)
A counterpoint: Ikea is effectively performing carbon sequestration.
They plan fast-growing pine trees. Those trees remove carbon dioxide from the air. They chop down the trees and make furniture. The carbon is now locked up in that furniture. If they furniture goes into a landfill, that carbon could stay there for decades (or more?). Then, they plant some more trees.
I don't actually know whether building lots of cheap furniture is actually better for climate change compared to building small quantities of durable furniture.
But it's an interesting thought experiment and a reminder to check your facts and do your sums before spouting off.
I'd say that the emissions from logistics (transport) may be quite significant compared to the CO2 stored into the materials, at least post-sales.
Take a desk that contains 30 kg of wood material. 50 % of that is carbon, so there is 15 kg of carbon in it, corresponding to 60 kg of CO2, which is emitted by driving 400 km with a medium-sized car (150 g/km). That much is first contained by the material (even in landfill), and eventually released back to atmosphere.
At least you shouldn't do a lot of transporting this desk back and forth. IKEAs logistics from manufacture to store is remarkably efficient.
How much a civilization throws away and what it throws away is a very rough gauge of its technological and scientific level. At the far-future side of the spectrum, you only detect very low levels of heat energy close to zero Kelvin, and some similarly low leakage of EM. They’ve mastered nanotechnology say, and what we throw out today is high-energy, rich feedstocks to them.
Europe has less of a philanthropic tradition than the United States.
For example, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates have both pledged to give away the vast majority of their fortunes. Jeff Bezos is now making plans for his philanthropy. This happens in Europe too, but is less common.
I was looking to see if there were any specific plans for Mr. Kamprad’s wealth, but unfortunately did not see anything.
The sprit of the time in the US seems to be poisoned by the fantasies of get rich schemes still (including founder dreams of making a company to "get rich" instead of making a company to make a living).
You condescending assholes waste no opportunity to toot your horn. Your statement is as vacuous as it is wrong. First of all, there are quite a few European nations with double digit percentages of the population living under what is considered the poverty line in the US. Secondly, your rich don't give because they are more interested preserving a family name and giving the money to their descendants.
>Much has been written about IKEA's remarkably effective retail formula. The Economist has investigated the group's no less astonishing finances.
>What emerges is an outfit that ingeniously exploits the quirks of different jurisdictions to create a charity, dedicated to a somewhat banal cause, that is not only the world's richest foundation, but is at the moment also one of its least generous. The overall set-up of IKEA minimises tax and disclosure, handsomely rewards the founding Kamprad family and makes IKEA immune to a takeover. And if that seems too good to be true, it is: these arrangements are extremely hard to undo. The benefits from all this ingenuity come at the price of a huge constraint on the successors to Ingvar Kamprad, the store's founder (pictured above), to do with IKEA as they see fit.
It's less common to accumulate very big fortunes because in general there is much more redistribution of wealth and much higher taxes (so also as you accumulate you share a big amount with society). See for instance tipping in the US vs no tips but places paying a more fair amount of money to waiters in Europe. A different model.
The third richest man in the world, Armancio Ortega, is from Spain. The tenth richest man in the world, Bernard Arnault, is from France. Ingvar Kamprad was at one point the eighth. And there are many others.
Lack of philanthropic giving in Europe is not due to a lack of wealth, but due to a desire for dynasty.
As I said as you accumulate wealth in Europe it's very likely that you gave a very large share of it back to the government just in the process of accumulating it. That is one thing but for sure there is also a matter of cultural POV because here is counter intuitive that is single persons that should try to fix things like poverty but more things like universal health care, decent schools for free and so forth.
> As I said as you accumulate wealth in Europe it's very likely that you gave a very large share of it back to the government just in the process of accumulating it.
This may be true for small- to mid-sized fortunes, but not for the really large ones. Ikea in particular is a counter-example for this. They operate a super-tight network of companies, funds and trusts in multiple countries apart from Sweden like the Netherlands and some off-shore tax paradises and perform any possible trick, including the usual fake self-licensing tactics, to reduce their tax burden to next-to-nothing.
The difference to Amazon and Co. is mostly that Ikea is privately-owned, thus you can't simply invest some money in them to at least reap some of the profits of these tactics for yourself. The profits all pile up in private vaults of the owner, which is basically the Kamprad family (with exact ownership stakes being unknown of course, another difference from the publicity requirements that public companies are required to meet).
This news also tops the consumer version of the IKEA swedish subsite. Kamprad was the most well known entrepneur in Sweden. He projected an image of himself as an every day man, even somewhat behind ("smådum") which he obviously was not. He considered the entire supply chain, including buying forests as supply for wood. With him gone, only future will tell if IKEA will be able to keep up its success.
The thing I really really like about IKEA is the fact that you could look at and try out furniture for hours without any staff ever coming over to ask you if you needed anything.
IKEA is actually a köttbullar and lingonsylts (lingonberry jam) distribution system so that us Smålänningar can get our fix almost anywhere in the world.
It's also one of the few places I can get herring too. The Poulsbo stuff that I like is seasonal so I have to go to Ikea for canned fish in the summer.
That I can buy furniture and kitchen tools is a nice bonus.
And while their selection is limited, it's one of the few places outside the Nordic countries and the Netherlands where you can reliably get salty licorice candy.
"In the later years of his life, Mr Kamprad had faced questions over his past links to the Nazis."
It's crazy how he ran Ikea for over 70 years but a quarter of the article deals with his ties to Nazis. Granted, he admits it was the "greatest mistake" of his life, so I suppose the attention to it may not be unwarranted. But I think it would have been prudent to touch on what caused him to shift his perspective. "Youthful stupidity" doesn't convey much.
Still, I can't help but feel like the information age is ushering in a modern-day version of the Akashic records. A double-edged sword anyone with an internet connection can consult. We laud past failures as learning experiences when it comes to startups, almost as if it's a badge of honor. But it's a very different story when someone violates a social contract, even in retrospect. (Albeit there are plenty of cases where people are embraced because of the drastic changes they made in their life, e.g. gang members that become speakers for at-risk youth.)
I think there's both a wisdom, and ignorance, of crowds/culture. And these crowds are constantly redrawing the line of who deserves redemption. Lately, the line seems to be inching in the wrong direction in my opinion.
With the advent of the internet it's scary to think about how efficiently the arbiters of information control the narrative. "We do not judge men by what they are in themselves, but by what they are relatively to us." -Madame Swetchine.
When the war ended he was 19 years old. He was 17 when he was first labeled a "nazi" by the security services. 17 years old is pretty young.
At 17 I was, politically speaking, a dumbass. Like most children that age. Not that I even had any identifiable political view that was in any way expressed, but I didn't know shit about politics.
Today it is even worse since every kid is supposed to have opinions on everything, grows up having a semi-public persona while still being afflicted by the stupidity and naivety of a mind that has been barely usable for a handful of years.
I think "youthful stupidity" covers it plenty much.
Objectively, what IBM did, in helping the nazis, and was collaborating with them, for many years into the war - even when the US was getting involved —, was much worse then what this guy was doing.
There’s also Porsche, Volkswagen (basically, Hitler’s own brand) and any other brands that were involved, and basically the catholic church was preaching in many EU countries for their sons to join the German army...
The important part is that these ideologies don't propagate within these organizations - an important part of this however is - within the leadership of each organization -
publicly acknowledging and owning the organization's past.
In Belgium it is widely known that families where promised more food stamps if they would sign up their sons. This was done by priests, at the local sunday church mass.
This is also one of the reasons there were so many 'collaborators' in belgium - a very Catholic country at the time - , while in fact the main goal was to get rid of the French dominance.
But if you're interested in the topic, Google what the Vatican did those days.
It would. That's why genuine cases of people who did resist should be celebrated over mock "turnarounds" after the fact.
(That said, after some time, things should be forgiven anyway. No much reason to punish a 90 year old today for when he did when he was a Nazi as 18-20 years old -- as sometimes happens).
I think it's important to realize mistakes 10+ million people make are far from character defining.
All governments do good and bad things and it's important to judge them in that context. What separated the Italian fascists from the German fascists was not necessarily obvious at the time. Further, while history reasonably judges German connections harsher, that's filtered through both bias and information people simply did not have.
No. I’m sorry, but the Nazis were, objectively, „the baddies“ in every moral system but their own. And Germans of the time knew enough to come to that conclusions.
It’s possibly right that there is not much use in blaming the opportunists of the time, mostly because there were to many to punish them all. But there also were a significant number who risked or lost their lives in opposition, and this “history is written by the winners” cynicism does more to besmirch the latter, than it absolves the former.
(Am german, have asked grandparents the tough questions)
I am not making that argument. It's not about who won, it's a question of who had what information when.
So, yes the Nazi party line had some frightening implications, but at the time you could easily assume some basic human decency would prevent what actually happened.
To use a recent example many people assume Trump is saying things he does not actually mean. A friend said "Wait he actually wants to build a wall, but that's stupid."
So, my argument is people are willing to overlook implications when they agree with other things you are saying. We often look for the worst of our enemies and ignore what our allies are doing.
Further, this has real word implications and we need to be more careful than simply assume we will know if we are placed in a similar situation.
Fortunately it really isn't. It is ok, mostly single use stuff that seems to be cheap but that is actually quite expensive if you take into account the material costs and the production quality. Even so, their sticker price and economies of scale put almost everybody competing with them out of business.
What is this mythical furniture source that’s better quality than ikea but affordable? A couple of years ago I bought a house after living in furnished rentals for about 10 years, so had to buy furniture. The options seemed to be:
(a) ikea
(b) stuff generally of lower quality than ikea and in my subjective opinion far worse design, for somewhat more money.
(c) very good quality and design, but extremely expensive; 2000 euro and up for a sofa.
Literally all the furniture in my house is ikea, as a result.
Could you point out specifically where they are cutting corners? Their materials are cheap, but not particularly short-lived. The woodwork quality is second to none: never experienced jams, excess play or position mismatches on IKEA pieces.
The edge connectors are particularly troublesome and those are present in almost all their furniture making it next to impossible to disassemble a piece of furniture to move it to a new house. They are designed to be single use.
Well, lucky you. I've had those 'cam lock nuts' break loose on first assembly (so not even when disassembling to move them), and I'm plenty careful and have lots of experience when it comes to mechanics. The basic problem is this: You are supposed to put a very short screw into a bunch of glued together particle board fibers at a ninety degree angle, and then the cam lock will pull on that link to create the desired connection. So you're pulling with considerable force on a 5 mm screw thread into particle board. That's entirely the wrong way to connect particle board, it is borderline strong enough for that first assembly but if you ever take that piece of furniture apart the fibers will be pretty much destroyed the second time you drive the screw in, and anybody who has tried to move the pieces with those screws sticking out more than likely ended up repairing things in creative ways because they will break off when you look at them cross eyed so forget about moving them around.
Altogether this is one of the worst things about Ikea furniture, that and the over reliance on honeycomb cardboard filled surfaces making solid looking sidewalls anything but.
Perhaps it's a bigger problem if you try to move out of historic house with winding narrow stairs. Just moved houses here without disassembling anything but the largest pieces like sofa sets. All my furniture including IKEA pieces made it just fine.
It’s ok looking furniture at decent prices if you’re just a little bit careful when picking stuff from them. They’re the perfect company for very mobile clients, such as myself, as I’ve been moving houses at an average at one every 2-3 years for the past 15 years, it would have been even more economically bad for me had I invested in furniture meant to last 30 to 50 years (compared to Ikea’s 5-to-10 years) but for which I would have had to pay at least 2 or 3 times more.
Before disposable stuff, people bought used furniture and then re-sold it when they moved. It was less convenient, but certainly not 2-3 times more expensive, since good furniture holds its value.
Most of the times when you rent you don't have the actual time to sell the furniture that you bought, because the "finding a new place and moving right in"-period is pretty short. Plus, you kind of need your bed, your chairs and your table until the day when you're actually moving out, so if you were the one who had actually bought them and there's not enough space for them in the new place then your only solution is to leave them behind.
- Finding a buyer (individual or store) and arranging with them to pick it up on the day you're moving out
- Selling your stuff a few days before leaving and improvising temporary alternatives (e.g. $20 air mattress on the floor, or staying with friends)
Note: I'm not saying these are better than just writing off your current furniture and buying new stuff. All I'm saying is that other options existed before IKEA, and continue to exist today.
I really don't know what kind of IKEA stuff people buy that breaks all the time ?
Living in Sweden I've bought quite the number of IKEA furniture, and to this day none has failed. What has been thrown out ( or sold ) has been stuff I got bored with, didn't fit a new apartment, or similar.
There has been missing bolts, goods damaged during transportation etc, some of them really annoying, but all furniture has held together longer than I wanted to keep them.
I once was talking to a firefighter who was saying that these days house/apartment fires burn hotter and much more rapidly. Why? Because of cheap furniture (materials and construction). He didn’t have kind things to say about IKEA.
I was a lazy university student who just saw it as a part-time job though, just improving my economical situation for a bit but the few ideas I had was easily escalated and heard.
Kind of miss that place sometimes.
When it comes to Kamprads legacy, I do hope they open a fund with his pile of cash because for me, his legacy is stained by all the sketchy tax evasion schemes they've set up.
Rest in peace Ingvar.