It's odd, isn't it, how certain subjects which normally would not detain your attention for more than a nano-second, keep pinging at your consciousness. Thus it is with 'Amazon' and the question arises, in the famous words of Sellar & Yeatman, is 'Amazon' "A Good Thing" or "A Bad Thing"? I am provoked to these ponderings by the headline to an article at CAP-X which is headlined "Trump hates Amazon". Needless to say, in my idle way I haven't actually read the thing and, of course, there is my instinctive re-action that anything Trump hates may not be all bad!
Now, as most of you will know, or at least surmised, I am not much of a shopper! Even so, from time to time when I run out of excuses, I do trail along behind the 'Memsahib' carrying the bags. Walking down what passes for our local High Street (actually called, misleadingly, Cheap Street!) even I have become increasingly aware of the number of empty shop premises. All of them small or medium sized private businesses, most of which have been taken over by the 'yuuuuuuuge' coffee shop chains. Let me assure you that if you ever find yourself in Sherborne there is no chance of you dying of thirst - even though some of the pubs are also closing!
I point my accusatory finger at 'Amazon' (and all of their ilk!) who follow the excellent advice of all good shop-keepers, "Pile it high and sell it cheap!" - well, fairly cheap, at any rate! But, of course, the main attraction of 'Amazon' and their compatriots to lazy, old gits like me who are reluctant to leave the comfort of our armchairs, is that we can sit - or slump - back and buy our 'stuff' at the click of a finger. And who today wants to get in their car and drive anywhere given that all the roads are utterly jam-packed with vehicles and - yes, you're right! - a lot of those bloody vehicles bringing the traffic to a halt every 100 yards, are probably delivery vans for 'Amazon'!
So, it is a pity that our old High Streets are slowly but steadily closing down and the patina of everyday life is changing inexorably. Mind you, it has all happened before and who today misses the blacksmiths and carters and stables which were crushed by the automobile industry? And more recently, the demise of all those nice, neat, polite and friendly shop assistants who used to take your order at a counter and bring the products to you, before the system changed and we were all cast adrift in mammoth 'warehouse'-type premises called 'supermarkets'. Ah well, "The Times They Are a-Changin'" and they will keep on changing so long as we maintain a free market economy which I sincerely hope we continue to do, because even the briefest of glances at those places sinking under a command economy is to look deep into hell!
Even if your view is only shaped by laziness we agree on this subject, David. Imagine my discomfort. The Trump v. Amazon storyline seems to have originated in a short piece in Axios:
https://www.axios.com/trump-regulation-amazon-facebook-646c642c-a2d7-454b-a9a9-cdc6e4eaef2c.html
Posted by: Bob | Thursday, 29 March 2018 at 15:47
There are two great steps forward that the Libertarian, globalization, anti-authoritarian movement needs to boldly go where no-one has been before ...
(1) Splitting of monopolies
(2) Income for life
Both might appear on the surface to be anti-Libertarian, authoritarian actions, coercions in their own right. But they are not. Firstly, "Splitting of monopolies" ...
If I take a tenner out of your wallet, and replace it with ten one pound coins in your purse, I haven't robbed you - I've merely given you change. So if you had one £100 Amazon share, and I took it and replaced it with ten £10 shares, one each in Amazon, Bamazon, Camazon, Damazon, ... Jamazon I haven't robbed you, I've merely given you change.
Now there are moves afoot to do just that to Google: Split it into replicas and let them compete: Google, Hoogle, Ioogle, ... That means splitting all the Intellectual Property so each one of the new offspring has the IP for the search engine, AI, Alexa, G-Suite, etc.
Imagine the benefits to price, innovation, and enterprise by unleashing a fresh generation of propeller heads and entrepreneurs who would otherwise be stuck in the middle management echelons of a tyrannical corporation. Held in place by anti-free market monopoly power, unable to do their funky stuff to their maximum potential because their bosses are just politicians creaming a powerbase of monopoly, rather than innovators and entrepreneurs in a competitive market. Suddenly they are free to innovate and be enterprising like start-ups, but on top of the platforms of the search engine, AI, Alexa, G-Suite etc. One might call them "head-start-ups".
These monopoly tyrants, like google, do to the free market what Putin does to democracy: Destroy it while facading as it. They are fake competitors. They attract global capital not because they offer innovation and enterprise but because they offer a monopoly stitch-up, thereby security, which is attractive to global capital. Lazy global capital can just select the monopolies without having to do any homework, and so the global monopolies entrench ever deeper in licensed domination and destruction of the erstwhile free markets in their sector - all under guise of "capitalism" and its fake connotation to free markets.
And where is this place, who are they, those who will split Google and advance Libertarianism, globalization, anti-authoritarianism into pastures new? No prizes ...
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-google-antitrust/eu-antitrust-chief-keeps-open-threat-to-break-up-google-report-idUSKBN1H110H
SoD
Posted by: Loz | Saturday, 31 March 2018 at 09:35
SoD, you really are 'a very naughty boy'! You started to write a really interesting comment which had me intrigued - and then, right at the end, you squirt in your pro-EU, Berlin-Brussel agit-prop! No hot cross buns for you this Easter!
Posted by: David Duff | Saturday, 31 March 2018 at 13:56
SoD,
There seems to be an emerging global battle between democracy and what George Orwell described as oligarchic collectives, which have taken the place of governmental central planners. Companies like Google and Facebook can be seen as junior members. They're not as destructive as the fossil fuel companies or Russian Federation, but similar in some respects and not overly concerned with being oligarchic tools. They definitely need to be controlled by the populace at large. There's your paradox of free markets.
The Basic Minimum Income is likely on its way:
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/northern-california-city-tries-universal-basic-income/
Posted by: Bob | Saturday, 31 March 2018 at 14:07