Who Should We Call? Trust Busters.

The Increasing Need for Trust-Busting to be Rewoven into America’s Policy Toolbox

Jeff Bezos is the real-world Joker. He’s the villain everyone loves to hate, the villain everyone talks about but no one truly vilifies. Although people may condemn Bezos through scathing Instagram posts or Twitter chains, which catalog everything wrong with his practices, a whopping 90% of Americans still use Amazon for their online shopping. Every time they shop at Amazon’s online retail store, they continue to pad and line the pockets of Jeff Bezos, and that money makes the critical comments on Instagram nothing but performative activism, a noisy gong in the void that echoes around Jeff Bezos’ untouchable castle of money and wealth. 

I myself am guilty of it. I went 4 months without shopping at Amazon but caved one day because I needed a unique product that was only offered through Amazon’s retailers.  I have been hooked again ever since. Amazon is so convenient. It’s the only place where you can buy a one-pound bag of vanilla tootsie rolls, pink bunny slippers, a bed frame, and pepper spray all at the same time. And that’s exactly the problem with Amazon, or at least one of the many problems - it’s too convenient. But before jumping into everything wrong with Amazon, a quick American history lesson on Anti-Trust:

The History of Trusts in America

Anti-trust has been an ongoing tug-of-war in the United States regulatory realm since the early 1900’s. It was first utilized during the progressive movement of the late 1890s and early 1900s with the passage of the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act, and the Federal Trade Commission Acts, all of which serve as foundations for anti-trust regulation to this day. This was in the days of the robber barons, the JP Morgans, the Rockefellers, and Standard Oils of the turn of the century. Concern from policy makers, business people, and consumers alike was over how big a corporation could get, and what that could mean for the economy if one of those businesses were to go bankrupt. However, by the 1920s and 30s, priorities shifted away from anti-trust as two World Wars necessitated heavy industry-government cooperation and the relative dependency on robust industry to recovery from the Great Depression. 

By the 1940s, favor had swung back towards anti-trust, in the face of the belief that limiting monopolies and trusts was the key to promoting vibrant competition and diversity in the economy. The idea flourished that vibrant competition would increase the quality of goods (and the price of goods) provided to consumers. This was because when faced with steep competition, companies had to race to diversify and provide newer, better, and more innovative products at competitive prices or risk remaining relevant and desirable to consumers. 

Throughout the 40s, 50s, and even 60s, presidential administrations - both Republican and Democratic alike - were diligent in “trust-busting” because promoting competition was a high priority. This was especially prominent because it was seen as a keen way to fight off Communism, as promoting competition and free-enterprise would promote the exact opposite outcome of Communism - cooperative, state-led enterprise.  Although the paranoia over Communism is problematic in and of itself, it did motivate positive trust-busting practices from the United States government. 

And yet, even with the dashing success that was the economy in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, the 70s saw the rise of the Chicago School of Thought, an economic theory spearheaded by Milton Friedman, which promoted minimal government involvement in the economy and exalted the corporation above all. Because trust-busting required government interference in what the Chicago School believed to be the natural growth and progression of companies, the Chicago School vilified trust-busting and so, it went out of fashion again. 

Trust-busting has been “out of fashion” since the 1970s and it’s past time that it become a tool in the government’s regulatory realm again. Over the past number of years, America has seen the monopolization of airlines, phone service providers, even cell-phone hardware. (If you’re going to buy a phone in America, you buy an Apple or an Android. That’s it.) These industries demonstrate how, despite the Chicago School of Thought’s belief otherwise, when left to their own devices, corporations can become simply “too big”. 

Amazon’s Relationship to Trusts

What does Amazon have to do with trusts? Well - Amazon is a trust. And that’s a problem for many reasons. Amazon is “too convenient” because it’s the only product in its market that offers the service it offers. A unique platform which sells anything and everything at low to dirt cheap prices.

Although this strongly benefits the consumer, the “me-me-me” attitude that comes with looking for the lowest price is detrimental in many ways. First off, the low prices are what allow Amazon to succeed. Offering lower prices that all competitors makes them the obvious choice to consumers, and drives other producers who can’t afford to operate at a loss the way Amazon does out of business.

Low prices are also harmful to the producers who do decide to settle for the lower price. In order to prevent operating at a loss, other cuts must be made, possibly in the form of wages or material quality.  A supply chain has many people behind it before that product finally reaches your doorstep, and finding the cheapest product possible denies each person along that supply chain the opportunity for fair pay or living wages. This includes Amazon warehouse workers themselves, one of whom stated “If [Bezos] made it Amazon’s policy to pay a living wage, adjusted to the cost of living wherever the job is”...“he could fundamentally change the nature of race relations in America.” 

What’s worse, Amazon is extremely predatory towards both the producers that it competes with and the producers it retails on its platforms. In the early 2000’s, Amazon wanted to purchase a diaper company and when the company refused, Amazon began to drive down the prices of diapers on the Amazon platform. Quidsi - the parent company of the diaper retailer - couldn’t compete with the plummeting prices without going into a deep financial loss on their sales and eventually caved and sold their company to Amazon. This is the exact threat to competition that trust-busters in the 40s, 50s, and 60s were trying to avoid. Amazon has also been accused of copying the products of third-party retailers who sell their products through the platform. 

I can’t even begin to catalogue all of the ways Amazon also hurts communities of color. It has deep ties to policing, through commercial partnerships with police forces such as selling facial recognition technology to police departments and allowing their security affiliate, “Ring”, to enable surveillance tactics.The emissions Amazon produces from the frequent prime “2-day shipping”are environmental racism at its finest, particularly because Amazon locates most of its shipping warehouses in neighborhoods that are predominantly BIPOC. The way warehouse workers were treated throughout the COVID-19 pandemic is also problematic, from being forced to deliver even non-essential items as the COVID pandemic skyrocketed the demand for online retail to providing little to no sanitary measures and communication methods in warehouses regarding COVID safety and exposures. This has allowed cases to run rampant, infecting 26.5% of the people of color in the workforce and has deeply adverse effects on communities of color. Even Amazon’s Halo targets Black voices differently. Need I go on?

With Black Friday approaching, it’s difficult not to be lured to companies like Amazon for the competitive pricing that they offer. But remember: as long as people continue to shop at Amazon, Bezos will remain more of a meme than he is ever a villain. A lot of dialogue has been circulating on social media platforms, billboards, and radio and talk shows in the last few months encouraging Americans to do their democratic due diligence and vote, but let this serve as a friendly reminder that the other 1,460 non-election days in a 4-year period are still voting days. Everywhere you spend your money is a “vote” in favor of that company, and every dollar of money spent at Amazon is a vote for the villain. Think about looking for Black Friday deals at Black-owned, women-owned, and other minority owned businesses instead. It’s hard to break this cycle when convenience beckons but it can be valuable as well.

Does this mean the entire burden falls on the individual to take the moral high road? No. Does this mean any one individual will be perfect at never using Amazon again, no. What’s also important is ensuring that the United States government does its job in trust-busting, and bringing down the monstrous monopoly that is Amazon. But boycotting Amazon, calling your senators, and making it clear to the government that predatory, Trust-like behavior is not to be tolerated in this country, regulated or not, is a strong way to create transformational change in America and beyond. Our individual efforts won’t be the difference between Amazon’s success and failure, but that doesn’t mean our individual efforts as part of the collective effort don’t have power. While consumers have the power to spend where their values lie, true social change is not going to come from individual consumer choices alone, but rather through broader social justice movements and government regulation.

It’s time for the government to do its job, and bring trust busting back into the sphere of policy tools utilized when addressing greedy corporations. 

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