Amazon capitalism is representative of many of the destructive forces inherent in capitalism, including: the exploitation and dehumanization of workers; corporate welfare and tax avoidance; extreme wealth inequality; nativism, racism, and sexism; an obsessive mass-consumer culture; surveillance; the erosion of privacy; monopolistic practices; neoliberalism and the public subsidization of corporations; and the assault on the ecological integrity of the earth. While the power and influence of Amazon capitalism grows, so too does popular discontent with it. The rise of Amazon capitalism sows the seeds for new waves of popular rebellion; it provides a strategic new target that could inspire activists to further collaborate across movements, cities, and nations. Transnational links between anti-Amazon activists, in particular, have so far mostly been concentrated within Europe, but they are beginning to grow between the U.S. and Europe,86 as are national links among activists in the United States through Amazonians United and the Athena network.87 As activists around the world are demonstrating, Amazon provides a key site for building alliances among activists not only across space, but also across different types of movements, including movements for economic and social justice, democracy, and environmental justice.
NOTES
1. David Streitfeld, “Amazon Hits $1,000,000.00 in Value, Following Apple,” New York Times, September 4, 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/09/04/technology/amazon-stock-price-1-trillion-value.html. Accessed October 15, 2019.
2. Mary Hanbury, “Amazon Overtakes Google and Apple to Become the World’s Most Valuable Brand,” Business Insider, June 11, 2019, www.businessinsider.com/amazon-overtakes-google-apple-worlds-most-valuable-brand-2019-6. Accessed January 14, 2020. See also, Paul La Monica, “Amazon is Now the Most Valuable Company on the Planet,” CNN, January 8, 2019, www.cnn.com/2019/01/08/investing/amazon-most-valuable-company-microsoftgoogle-apple/index.html. Accessed December 20, 2019.
3. Lauren Feiner, “Amazon Stock Hits A New All-Time High As It Sees Unprecedented Demand,” CNBC.com, April 14, www.cnbc.com/2020/04/14/amazon-stock-hits-a-new-all-time-high.html?__source=sharebar|twitter&par=sharebar. Accessed April 20, 2020.
4. Isobel Asher Hamilton, “Jeff Bezos is Wealthier by $24 billion in 2020, as Amazon Reports at least 74 COVID-19 Cases and its First Death,” Business Insider, April 15, www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-net-worth-jumps-23-billion-during-coronavirus-crisis-2020-4. Accessed April 20, 2020.
5. Global Justice Now, “69 of the Richest 100 Entities on the Planet are Corporations, Not Governments, Figures Show,” Global Justice Now, October 17, 2018, www.globaljustice.org.uk/news/2018/oct/17/69-richest-100-entities-planet-are-corporations-not-governments-figures-show. Accessed December 20, 2019.
6. Howmuch.net. 2019, “Who is More Powerful-Countries or Companies?” https://howmuch.net/articles/putting-companies-power-into-perspective. Accessed April 15, 2020.
7. Jamie Peck and Nik Theodor, “Variegated Capitalism,” Progress in Human Geography 31(6) (2007): 731–772.
8. Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human at the New Frontier of Power (New York: Hachette Book Group, 2019).
9. Matt Day and Jackie Gu, “The Enormous Numbers Behind Amazon’s Market Research,” Bloomberg, March 27, 2019, www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-amazon-reach-across-markets/. Accessed October 15, 2019.
10. Ibid.
11. Daniel Flaming and Patrick Burns, Too Big To Govern: Public Balance Sheet for the World’s Largest Store. Los Angeles: Economic Roundtable, 2019. Available at: https://economicrt.org/publication/too-big-to-govern/. Accessed April 20, 2020.
12. Shannon Liao, “Amazon Admits Defeat Against Chinese E-commerce Rivals like Alibaba and JD.com,” The Verge, April 18, 2019, www.theverge.com/2019/4/18/18485578/amazon-china-marketplace-alibaba-jd-e-commerce-compete. Accessed April 20, 2020.
13. Caixia Liu and Jinhwan Hong, “Strategies and Service Innovations of Haitao Business in the Chinese Market: A Comparative Case Study of Amazon.cn vs Gmarket.co.kr,” Asia Pacific Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 10(1) (2016): 101–121.
14. Adam Rogers, “Amazon Leads Market, Loses Cloud Shares,” Market Realist, September 8, 2019, https://articles2.marketrealist.com/2019/09/amazon-leads-market-loses-cloud-shares/. Accessed October 16, 2019.
15. Jeb Su, “Amazon Owns ½ of World’s Public Cloud Infrastructure Market Worth Over $32 Billion,” Forbes, August 2, 2019, www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2019/08/02/amazon-owns-nearly-half-of-the-public-cloud-infrastructure-market-worth-over-32-billion-report/#6dafdd7829e0. Accessed April 20, 2020.
16. Rachel Siegel and Joanna Slater, “International Pushback Disrupts Amazon’s Momentum to Expand Its Empire Worldwide,” Washington Post, May 10, 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/international-pushback-disrupts-amazons-momentum-to-expand-its-empire-worldwide/2019/05/10/76bd5d26-6507-11e9-82ba-fcfeff232e8f_story.html. Accessed April 20, 2020.
17. Natalie Berg and Miya Knights, Amazon: How the World’s Most Relentless Retailer will Continue to Revolutionize Commerce (London: Kogan, 2019).
18. Victoria Pavlova, “The Amazon Effect: How Amazon Is Disrupting European E-commerce,” Forbes, February 9, 2019, www.forbes.com/sites/victoriapavlova/2019/02/09/the-amazon-effect-how-amazon-is-disrupting-european-e-commerce/#19ceb60c5e7b. Accessed April 20, 2020.
19. Berg and Knights, Amazon.
20. Ibid.
21. Jane A Peterson, “A Showdown Brews between Amazon and Alibaba, Far from Home,” New York Times, October 22, 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/10/22/business/alibaba-amazon-southeast-asia-lazada.html.