R: Amazon is Good for America

One of the principles most deeply enshrined in Western, and especially American, culture is that capitalism is good. We hold fast to the notion that the free market is a force for good and has brought more people out of poverty than any other force in history. As conservatives, we disdain monopolies as antithetical to the competitive spirit of a healthy capitalistic economy and laud the innovation and efficiency the free market breeds. Yet, the market often isn’t as clear cut as we’d like it to be. The same force which helped bring about the advent of the Internet revolution has also, in the past and in recent years, allowed a few major corporations to crowd out competition, mistreat their workforce, and influence the political realm in major ways. Perhaps the most talked-about corporation today - and the ideal one for our debate to use as an example - is Amazon. Thus, we shall take up the question of whether or not Amazon, with all of its benefits and sins, is good for America.

On the one hand, Amazon represents the raw power of the free market and of capitalism to revolutionize the entire world. Amazon is one of – if not the – largest marketplaces for third-party sellers in the world. Amazon’s ability to innovate its distribution and fulfillment of goods has made it possible for more small businesses than ever to tap into the global marketplace. What it represents as a corporation is the benefit of interconnectivity, the benefit of allowing the market to run wild and competition to force new growth. We owe much of the last 10 years of growth in personal and convenience technology to the access Amazon provides by leveraging its power. We have access to the latest goods at the cheapest price because large corporations like Amazon provide a market place, in much the same way that Twitter, Facebook, and other “connectivity and conglomeration” businesses have used their corporations to simulate unregulated markets (a market of ideas in the case of Twitter). Amazon and other large corporations, because of their size, both force innovation in competitors and drive it themselves with their diversified projects. The world we live in today, one of technology our parents could never dream of and easily accessible, global marketplaces, is possible because corporations like Amazon have been free to grow in an unregulated market.

Yet, there are many calls from both the right and the left to break up Amazon and other “mega-corporations” like it (Facebook, etc.). Some of the driving arguments concern the negative repercussions of concentrating industries in the hands of a few corporations. Small business growth is stifled if not outright killed. Wages typically go down while prices rise, and corporations need not care as much about “doing the right thing” as their customers have nowhere else to go. Amazon is notorious for its shady hiring practices wherein it manages to pay many workers less-than-minimum wage by hiring them as contractors. In addition, Amazon is becoming so large it has the power, should it choose to wield it, to crowd out and monopolize entire sectors of the economy.

Our debate this week is centered on Amazon as a test case because it is often helpful to consider both the extreme case, Amazon being one of the largest corporations in the world. Yet, perhaps just as important, Amazon is a part of our day to day lives, having earned its way (or perhaps wormed its way) into becoming the second most dependable institution among Americans surveyed, only surpassed by the U.S. military. We must ask ourselves if this is a good thing? Should one company wield, unchecked, the power Amazon does? Should we set limits to the size of corporations? Is it time to usher in a new era of trust-busting? What does this say more fundamentally about the value of capitalism and its value for the soul? Our debate may be focused on Amazon, but I encourage you all to expand your considerations into the broader corporate landscape of America and the philosophical landscape of the market.