It wasn’t until earlier this year that I became really concerned about Amazon. Sure, I had warned people previously of the dangers of an oligarch like Jeff Bezos owning a major national newspaper like The Washington Post, and I’d also highlighted Amazon’s creepy $600 million contract with the CIA, but I didn’t truly grasp the bigger picture until recently.
It seems I’d been too focused on the financial system and other predatory industries to see the gigantic threat metastasizing in the room. If that happened to me, I’m sure many of you aren’t paying close enough attention to the risks to freedom and free markets posed by Amazon and its oligarch CEO. That’s why I decided to write this post.
This piece will be presented in two parts. First, I will highlight several recent articles that do a great job describing how dangerous Amazon, and its richest man in the world (net worth of $95 billion) CEO Jeff Bezos, is. Second, I’ll discuss my personal mission of redirecting more our family’s money away from this corporate behemoth.
Let’s kick things off with a few excerpts from a great article by Caitlin Johnstone titled, Friendly Reminder That Jeff Bezos Is Trying To Take Over The Universe:
I will say it again for emphasis: Jeff Bezos, who has used his business prowess to become the wealthiest person in the world, did not purchase the Washington Post in 2013 because he was expecting newspapers to make a profitable comeback. That did not happen.
What did happen is the world’s richest plutocrat realizing that he needed a mouthpiece to manufacture public support for the neoliberal corporatist establishment that he is building his empire upon. This is why WaPo ran sixteen smear pieces on Bernie Sanders in the span of sixteen hours at the hottest point in the Democratic presidential primary battle.
Last year Silicon Valley venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya said that Amazon is “a multi-trillion-dollar monopoly hiding in plain sight.” In June Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, wrote that Amazon is trying to “control the underlying infrastructure of the economy.”
Bezos continues to get cozier and cozier with the US power establishment as his empire metastasizes across human civilization. He kicked WikiLeaks off Amazon servers in 2010, he scored a 600 million dollar contract with the CIA in 2013, he joined a Pentagon advisory board in 2016, he hung out with Defense Secretary James Mattis in August, and he’s spent nearly ten million dollars this year lobbying the federal government, which is likely what led to an NDAA amendment gifting Amazon a $54 billion market it’s expected to dominate as a supplier to the Pentagon.
There’s a lot there, so let’s dig a little deeper. In particular, I want to point people in the direction of the MotherBoard article by Stacy Mitchell, Amazon Is Trying to Control the Underlying Infrastructure of Our Economy. Here’s some of what we learned:
We often talk about Amazon as though it were a retailer. It’s an understandable mistake. After all, Amazon sells more clothing, electronics, toys, and books than any other company. Last year, Amazon captured nearly $1 of every $2 Americans spent online. As recently as 2015, most people looking to buy something online started at a search engine. Today, a majority go straight to Amazon.
But to describe Amazon as a retailer is to misunderstand what the company actually is, and to miss the depth of the threat that it poses to our liberty and the very idea of an open, competitive market.
It’s not just that Amazon does many things besides sell stuff—that it manufactures thousands of products, from dress shirts to baby wipes, produces hit movies and television shows, delivers restaurant orders, offers loans, and may soon dispense prescription drugs. Jeff Bezos is after something so much bigger than any of this. His vision is for Amazon to control the underlying infrastructure of the economy. Amazon’s website is already the dominant platform for digital commerce. Its Web Services division controls 44 percent of the world’s cloud computing capacity and is relied on by everyone from Netflix to the Central Intelligence Agency. And the company has recently built out a vast network of distribution infrastructure to handle package delivery for itself and others.
Companies that want to reach the market increasingly have no choice but to ride Amazon’s rails. With Prime and digital assistant Alexa, from GE appliances to Ford cars, Bezos has lured a majority of households into making Amazon the default provider of everything they order online. Most Prime members no longer comparison shop. This has forced competitors of all sizes—from major brands like Levi’s and KitchenAid to small-scale producers, e-commerce innovators, and independent brick-and-mortar stores—to abandon the idea of reaching consumers directly. Instead, they have to rely on Amazon’s platform to sell their goods.
Amazon exploits this dependence to dictate terms and prices to suppliers, and it uses the data it gathers from companies selling on its platform to weaken them as competitors. A company that designs a popular product and builds a market for it on Amazon’s site can suddenly find that Amazon has introduced a nearly identical version and given it top billing in search results. One study found that, after a retailer becomes a seller on Amazon, it’s only a matter of weeks before Amazon brings the merchant’s most popular items into its own inventory.
With commerce rapidly moving online, Amazon has positioned itself as lord of the realm, which means that online commerce is no longer a market in any meaningful sense of the word. It’s now a privately controlled arena where a single company sets the terms by which we may exchange goods with one another and decides which products—which new authors, which new innovations—get to find an audience.
The sneaky thing about Amazon’s increased dominance in so many key aspects of our lives is that much of the perniciousness is hidden. No one’s going to tell you about all the retailers who have gotten pressured or destroyed via its tactics while you’re happily clicking “add to cart” and smiling about 2-day free shipping. In this sense, it can be best compared to the evils of factory farming. Most people just simply have no idea about the immense damage going on behind the scenes as they indulge in incredible convenience and what looks like a good deal.
While dominating individual and family budgets is all well and good, Bezos is no fool, and he knows the best milk cow on planet earth comes courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer via government spending. Speaking of which, have you heard of the “Amazon amendment” attached to the 2018 NDAA? Didn’t think so.
The Intercept reports:
Under pressure from anti-monopolists, House and Senate negotiators tweaked the controversial “Amazon amendment” this week, but waved it through nonetheless. The provision seeks to turn over federal procurement of commercial off-the-shelf items, a $53 billion market, to e-commerce portals. And with Amazon as the runaway leader in that space, critics say that even with the modifications, the provision still favors the online retail giant, giving it a pathway to billions of dollars in new revenue…
Amazon charges third-party sellers for the privilege of using its platform, anywhere between 15 and 20 percent of gross sales. If Pentagon procurement, and potentially all federal procurement, shifts predominantly to Amazon, it would collect billions of dollars annually without doing much of anything.
And in addition to hosting third-party sales, Amazon competes against those third parties with its in-house brands, armed with superior data to know what gets purchased and what doesn’t. Procurement officials will be susceptible to Amazon’s usual suite of behavioral nudges, like adjusting search results or controlling what gets into the “buy box,” the top option it suggests for purchases.
Plus, the whole concept of relying on web portals for everyday purchases gives away the government’s leverage to buy commercial items in bulk at a superior price to the open market.
Amazon hired the former chief acquisitions officer of the United States, Anne Rung, to run Amazon Business’s public sector division and has signed numerous local government contracts and federal agreements. The company has lobbied on the NDAA and the “modernization of the procurement process” this year, according to federal disclosures.
“This amendment looks like it will crown Amazon as an official gatekeeper to government procurement,” said Lina Khan of the Open Markets Institute. “Government spending that was previously dispersed across hundreds of distinct companies will now instead all be channeled through one company, with Amazon collecting a tax.”
The NDAA, one of the few bills Congress passes every year, now goes to the House and Senate for final approval. It’s not expected to face much opposition. Few members of the conference committee interviewed by The Hill even knew of the existence of the Amazon amendment, let alone rank-and-file representatives.
Congress doesn’t know about the Yemen war. Congress doesn’t know about the Amazon amendment. What does Congress know, and more importantly, why are these people making important decisions?
Moving on to a more personal note, I only started getting up to speed on many of the concerns described above earlier this year. That’s how behind the curve I’ve been when it comes to the danger staring us in the face from Amazon and Jeff Bezos. As soon as I recognized the threat for what it is I started to examine my own life and our family’s purchasing decisions much more closely.
As parents of two young children, we’re constantly replenishing stuff to keep the household going, with most of these items purchased online by my wife. When I suddenly put two and two together and realized that most of the items we were buying appeared on our porch in Amazon boxes, I asked her to try to purchase from elsewhere, even if it meant paying a bit more. I’m happy to say we’ve successfully cut down on Amazon purchases significantly. Around the same time, Amazon announced its intention to buy Whole Foods, which presented an even more difficult challenge.
I enjoy grocery shopping and I take our son with me once a week on the big shopping run. The large Whole Foods in Boulder is a great store, and I’ve always been pleased with the general selection as well as the enormous butcher section. We spend a lot of money there, and as soon as I found out Amazon would be buying it I started feeling dirty. To move away from Amazon groceries would likely mean several significant inconveniences. First, I’d have to find an alternative store with a comparable selection. I went to various stores in the weeks following the announcement, but left very underwhelmed. I knew of a great independent butcher so I started going there, but that’s the most I was able to do. I was still giving Bezos way too much of our family budget. It wasn’t until yesterday that I may have finally found a replacement for Whole Foods. It’s not as magnificent of a store, and it’s far less convenient location-wise, but it has 90% local ownership and this weekend I will do a big shop there for the first time.
The purpose of this post isn’t to convince you to avoid or boycott Amazon as much as possible. That’s up to you. I’m someone with the resources and time to move my family’s budget away from Bezos, and it’s still been extremely difficult. For other people, the convenience and price points offered by Amazon may be too significant to pass up. I get it.
That said, I do want people to start thinking a lot more about how they spend their dollars. Do you complain about the financial system, yet have your savings at a TBTF mega bank? If so, why? Do you complain about Jeff Bezos, his ownership of The Washington Post, Amazon’s predatory attack on competitors and it contract with the CIA, yet still have Amazon boxes piling up on your porch? If so, why?
A lot of people whine, but then spend their money with the corporations damaging this country.
Put your money where your mouth is!— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) November 15, 2017
How many people bitch about the Washington Post 24/7, yet have Amazon boxes piling up on their porch?
You are feeding the beast.— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) November 15, 2017
Jeff Bezos is worth $95 billion, has a contract with the CIA via Amazon, and owns the Washington Post.
Why are you giving him your money?
— Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) November 15, 2017
How each and every one of us spends our money is far more meaningful than which puppet we vote for every four years. You vote every single day. Time to grow up.
If you liked this article and enjoy my work, consider becoming a monthly Patron, or visit our Support Page to show your appreciation for independent content creators.
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G
Follow me on Twitter.
Thanks, Michael. It always bothers me to read about Bezos’ wealth, now $95B. Why in hell does he not pay his warehouse workers more? Instead of the slave wages he pays, why not $15 to $20 per hour?
Not an excuse but just a thought…his “wealth,” like any of our own tied up in retirement accounts or pensions, is an illusion. This “wealth” you speak of is floating around in the ether as a perceived value. Any attempt to monetize this value or convert it to something more useful, PMs or crypto, would be challenging to the point of being impossible.
Whole Foods is a bullshit. It’s an overpriced grocery store masquerading as a health food store. Open your eyes. Read labels. Do homework.
I dunno about you but I’ve been shopping in health food stores for 40 years. I have NEVER seen Cheerios sold in any of them but there it is on the shelf at WF. Cheerios for Christsakes! Just one example. Much of WF’s stuff — and almost all of their prepared food — is non-organic. I have read reports of GMO ingredients in their products. Where I live they bought an existing store and wasted no time in booting raw milk from their dairy section even though it was a constant sell out. Why? Because WF was afraid of lawsuits even though raw milk is state legal here.
In short, WF is committed to $ and nothing else. Fuck ’em.
Overstock takes Bitcoin and the prices are usually lower than Amazon with very good delivery times.
That’s just one example of how to take your business elsewhere.
I have not used Amazon in several years and refuse to shop amazon. I shop my local small chain grocery store and all my Christmas Gifts for everyone my wife and I have purchased have been from small Business owners who have hand made them at Craft shows we have gone to this fall
For alternatives to Whole Foods, try Trader Joe’s (great bread selection) and New Seasons. For great prices on bulk items, Winco is the real deal.
Absolutely brilliant piece of writting . Terrifying…yet brilliant, people of western scocieties are for the most part ,are asleep at the wheel as we careen over into the abyss !
Yet perhaps articles like this one ,..will whisper into our collective ear ……to wake the hell up !
Mike, please start liberty movement to punish the tech digital advertising monopolies. If they are going to stifel free speech and censor certain views then it is incumbent upon citizens to destroy their business model.
Brave browser blocks all advertising, malware and tracking by default.
If government won’t break up the digital advertising monopolies, then we the people should.
It is our data. Funny how we don’t get to control it or profit from it.
Try brave browser and then if you like it then get freedom lovers to adopt and destroy the digital advertisers.
Cheers
Mike, Jeremy Rifkin talked about this kind of behavior in his book years ago. He explains that Larry Summers was quite aware of the coming IOT and decentralization. Larry said, “well it looks like we need to legalize monopolies”. This is globalization fighting back against popoulism.
https://www.amazon.com/Zero-Marginal-Cost-Society-Collaborative/dp/1137280115/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1510849460&sr=8-1&keywords=jeremy+rifkin
That’s pretty funny – after you talk about Jeremy Rifkin’s book you include a link to guess where – Amazon!!
Amazon are busy shooting themselves in the foot. They started by alienating individual book sellers by freezing their seller accounts and trying to get them to say they are businesses. All they have done is to make these former sellers not also buy from Amazon. This is the first step to a downward trend.
Your best piece ever. I’ve been shopping at Trader Joe’s for two decades, but am worried Amazon might put them out of business. TJ’s is at a disadvantage – they pay decent wages AND have great prices.
The only reason you find it difficult to wean yourself off is that you’ve gotten used to the “convenience”. I’ve never shopped there and find anything online I need.
Well, MK, you just go right ahead and spend more somewhere else. I plan to continue to buy from amazon for as long as it offers the best prices and most convenience available. I just plain don’t buy the argument that doing so will result in the end of civilization, which is more or less what you’re claiming.
Well, JdL, how much are you getting paid to defend Amazon and Master Bezos around the internet?
BTW, MK didn’t write anything “more or less” about the “end of civilization”. So if you want to get to a higher pay grade, you need to sharpen up your shtick.
I will, thanks for your permission.
We all make choices in life and you’re certainly free to do as you please.
The average life span of a human is 1000 months. Jeff Bozo can make all his little scheme to dominate the earth but it will end in about 360 months.
SUM, What’s the average lifespan of a multinational with near-monopoly market share?
Also,
MK: I truly believe Amazon is the most beautifully constructed monopoly that has existed in these United States since the industrial revolution. I also despise it for the same reason.
I generally spend my cash/credit at retailers that produce locally. I do, on occasion, spend some at Amazon because of the convenience factor. I live in a small-ish town though and I am more intimately connected with the people around me because if that. I buy peaches from the guy down the street because he manages his family’s farm 20 miles away and he gets me quality product at low costs. I believe the “Amazon Effect” is actually part of a larger disconnect within our human experience.
As more of our “lives” move into the internet realm instead of the reality realm, we are continually further disconnecting from our real roots. For example, I can buy apparel from my favorite sports team from hundreds or thousands of miles away from the core demographic by just looking at Amazon for 2 minutes. That’s a luxury of our guided age. I think that the circumstance above, alongside our willingness as a species to congregate in cities, has created the monster we call Amazon.
The interconnectedness afforded to us via the internet has destroyed our commonality. We have unintentionally created a construct that allows us to never hear anything we don’t want to hear, see what we don’t want to see or exist in a place we choose not to. The beauty of Amazon is that it helped rip down those barriers which we could not take down ourselves, whether because of lack of capital (like buying in bulk) or because of physical distance (like trying to buy a Flyers jersey in NYC), it was impractical or unheard of previously. It’s a beautiful construct that Jeff created. It’s also a terrible nuisance that people really have no clue about and I’m glad you brought it up.
Amazon will see it’s demise if people lose electricity in 20% of the United States for more than 1 month. They will also lose if they begin a cryptocurrency of their own. “Bezos Bucks” will devalue their own business model from within. Their whole model is based on having more USD to leverage against small companies and cracking down on wasted manpower. Crypto created by Amazon to service Amazon (and eventually other entities) will not only piss off the central banks, but the Governements that “make the rules” when it comes to allowable transactions.
The reason Amazon controls 44% of all cloud computing is because they know that computing power will be the greatest asset in a digital money world (because even the Fed “prints” money on 1s and 0s now). So if crypto goes big, Amazon holds all of the mining rights. If crypto gets shut down, Amazon holds all of the computing power to generate the “real” dollars AND simultaneously track every consumer in the world…talk about monopolies.
/rant_over.
Thanks for pointing this out (it made sense of what I was experiencing with suppliers who I liked and then they disappeared) the day after I read this article I ordered some stuff from ebay and it came in an Amazon box! so now Amazon is after its main competitor under cover of darkness.