Statement by Jeff Bezos to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary
blog.aboutamazon.com
blog.aboutamazon.com
"Representatives, Amazon is a company focused on innovation, efficiency, and getting the best and most out of people, and giving the best and most to people, wherever it can.
Tech allows us to tap into economies of scale, create new products and give consumers choices never seen before, squeeze out waste in ways that were not possible up to now, and create net benefit for people in this country. Each one of you can probably personally think of how Amazon technology has improved the lives of yourselves and people you know.
We seek to do this as far as the law allows us to do, and other companies do that as well. We operate within the rules placed on us by the legislatures of this country and its states.
As you know, sometimes even under fair laws, some people will lose out compared to others. Innovation comes with risk and change -- that's an unavoidable consequence of progress. And technology has been doing this for hundreds of years. But that's what laws are meant to set the boundaries of, based on people like you determining how best to create those rules.
If this body is concerned with what we are doing within the laws, it should change those laws based on the best interests of this country and its people. And Amazon will follow those laws.
We want that clarity, and want to follow our responsibilities under the law. It's your responsibility to set out those laws. Amazon welcomes performing our responsibilities to American consumers, and we invite you to do the same to the people you are responsible to."
"however, this body should also note that Amazon will seek to exert control over the legislative process to ensure that Amazon's best interests are represented to the maximum extent that our influence and lobbying budget will allow,^1 even if those interests conflict with the best interests of this country and its people."
1. We spent $16,790,000 in 2019. https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary... I own the Washington Post. I am considered by Forbes, among others, to be the world's wealthiest billionaire. I am also a registered voter in this country.
And some people are obviously more equal then others when exercising that right.
Anti-trust laws exist to protect citizens from organizations that try to break these rules. Amazon is teeing up.
The relevant part of the First Amendment states (emphasis mine):
"...OR the right of the people peaceably to assemble, AND to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
This is preceded by a semicolon, making this clause a compound clause. The right to petition the Government is conferred both on individuals and on assemblies (organizations), and has been since the nation was founded. And this principle has been taken as gospel in law as interpreted by our Courts since the nation's founding.
(*IAAL but this is not legal advice. Seek licensed counsel in your jurisdiction if you need legal advice.)
What makes the modern economy so different is the democraticization of incorporation. Prior to the 19th century it took a specific legislative act to incorporate.
Right now you can create infinite corporations, with little to no traceability as to who's really responsible. Maybe there should be some limits?
By the time you get to the late 18th century (i.e. about when the Constitution was written) you have publications with titles like "A Treatise on the Law of Corporations"; just keep reading the Wikipedia entry above. That was published 7 years after the US Constitution was ratified, but of course the laws and corporations it was talking abot had been around for _quite_ a while at that point.
No, the Constitution applies to government.
But it generally protects people, (not just citizens) which in law included juridical as well as natural persons long before the Constitution.
Impossible, because while corporations are a vehicle through which private individuals act, they are a creation and extension of government power. While the power exerted through corporations is not proximately controlled by people who are particularly accountable to the public for their actions, it is nevertheless government power, and thus the power exerted by corporations can never be greater than that exerted by government, because the former is a subset of the latter.
Like lobby for legislation that protects (or makes paramount) the corporate interests, even though the people within the corporation might completely object to what is being lobbied for?
I think we underestimate how much people are willing to do what their employer requires to continue to be employed, and end up doing things that are totally legal, but not desireable in the long run.
I'm not sure why you seem to have interpreted the word “government” in what I said to mean “employees of the corporation”?
I assure you that when I said “government”, I meant “government”.
Handing over money directly to a candidate is one thing, but the Courts have been a little more hesitant to uphold restrictions on lobbying or political speech -- and the spending of money to do it -- if it's being spent by or given to a third party not directly connected to the Government. The hesitancy is most recently exemplified in the Citizen's United case that is of significant controversy.
And the most evil company in the world telling you to regulate it ought to give you some pause that maybe you really should think about doing that, don't you think?
Am I misunderstanding what you’re saying?
Yeah, I think it deserves some thought.
The real issue is that politicians are shooting themselves in the foot career-wise if they try to close these loopholes. We need to reduce the incentives politicians get from action or inaction depending on chummy relationships with big business. A good start would be more rules around lobbyist relationships, and figuring out how to close the revolving door where politicians are given lucrative jobs/consultancies/speaking-fees/etc by these businesses after leaving office.
Pick something you’re knowledgeable about. Uniquely knowledgeable. Now imagine the Congress is writing legislation on it. Would you think your views might be helpful?
Let’s say you and a few other people are in the same position. Travelling to D.C. isn’t free, so you decide to--as a group--reimburse the expenses of the person who travels. Would this be unfair?
Scale that up to a full-time job, as an explainer of specific things to lawmakers, and lobbying makes sense. Barring lobbying would mean barring people knowledgeable about specific topics from organising to inform lawmakers. That applies to large companies as much as to the Sierra Club.
The trouble is in campaign contributions, post-service jobs and e.g. fancy dinners. These are closer to, or overtly, bribery. Democracy can’t exist without organisation and education of lawmakers, and that means it requires lobbying. Democracy also cannot survive in the presence of chronic bribery. These aims aren't mutually exclusive.
Lobbying, for its many faults, helps lawmakers (who are understaffed and generally underresourced) filter and figure out which opinions are worth listening to. Even the most well-intentioned / good ideas have trouble being advocated by one smart person in this system. You need an organization to attach to that gives you credibility.
Not saying that this is the right way -- and certainly often the less privileged opinions get short shrift in this system. A good government/political structure would give lawmakers effective ways to not have to have to rely on lobbyists.
But it is the system that has arisen in the absence of that.
In fact, the law is so strict in the U.S. that you can't even bribe foreign leaders either (see the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act).
That's myopic though. It's true your "clean separation" would "solve" the problem of regulatory capture, but it would simultaneously re-introduce the problems that regulation has successfully solved [1]. Society is a dynamic system of tradeoffs; solutions to societal problems that are tidy, good, and stable are ever-tempting chimeras.
[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cuyahoga-river-caught...
Who is "they"? Plenty of people do want to reduce the amount of money in US politics, but they come up against the same money that's behind the lobbying in the first place.
1. https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2091... see q32
The legislators who have the ability to change the rules around lobbying are at the receiving end of millions of lobbying dollars, and they don't want the money firehose to stop.
SCOTUS stopped them in their tracks.
A constitutional amendment is absurdly politically expensive.
This doesn't follow. The argument above is that Amazon is a amoral corporation that seeks to make money to the extent that the law allows. Amazon is not considering what is in the best interest of the country. It is acting in the best interest of Amazon.
Left unsaid here would be: "We will quietly but effectively work behind the scenes to prevent them from ever becoming laws."
Sure, but this is an antitrust hearing and trusts aren't really legal in the US.
The big question for him and Amazon should be: why does Amazon paid an average of 8% tax rate [0], when average people pay much more?
[0]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/does-amazon-really-pay-no-taxes...
And maybe that's not a good thing. But there are well defined ways to change that. If we can't, then there is something else wrong.
Also, any single out Amazon here? The entire corporate tax rate in the US is extremely low. It's part of what makes it a business friendly country.
I don't disagree, but in my opinion, many of these things are actively under attack. We used to have stable rule of law, but since the protests I'm not so sure now. We used to value self-reliance and risk taking, but a growing chunk of America now wants a more risk-averse government-reliant (in the form of guaranteed pensions, etc) European style society.
The protests are not dismantling the rule of law. There is a small subset where there is destruction and violence. Many people are expressing their constitutional rights. Some are actually having them violated by the state.
> We used to value self-reliance and risk taking, but a growing chunk of America now wants a more risk-averse government-reliant (in the form of guaranteed pensions, etc) European style society.
I don’t think people have admonished self-reliance or risk. The reality is many people fall through the cracks, and we should tend to their most basic needs the best we can to reduce suffering and allow people to keep being able to contribute to society, rather than leave them alienated and unable to get back on their feet. We’re the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, and have massive wealth inequality. Large corporations and donors are able to control politicians. People are losing their jobs by the millions, and by proxy lose their healthcare (in the middle of a global pandemic). Workers productivity has gone up, but wages have not followed. It’s not about entirely destroying American society as we know it, but rather providing for our fellow Americans people claim to care so patriotically about.
When I think of rule of law issues I think of the AG freeing friends of the president (Stone, Flynn) and punishing enemies (Cohen). I think of the Trump administration choosing Microsoft over Amazon for the Jedi contract for political reasons. Also the lies about Berman 'stepping down', firing Comey and attempting to fire/discredit Mueller, the characterization of the report with a misleading summary, current investigations into the origins of the report, targeting political enemies, seeking international assistance in taking out political rivals etc.
Rule of law definitely seems to have weakened under Barr.
Anyway, this is a really well written opening statement. I know Amazon is known for having a great culture of writing internally, but it's always nice to see it in public. I wish tech companies wrote more about themselves in public, what they get from the press is a disservice - it's a lot more interesting to hear directly from the companies.
I'd be curious what he thinks about the counterfeit items given the 'customer-centric' view. One of the main reasons I didn't by Amazon stock earlier was I thought that would be a problem. In hindsight I realized even though it is a problem, there isn't really a better non-amazon alternative in most cases and I ended up buying stock anyway. If I was there, I'd figure out how to fix that issue - some way to hold sellers to a higher quality bar.
Very well said, I think these attacks on the rule of law are much more concerning given they come from positions of power.
Amazon also does have local cloud boxes.
When there is enormous evidence of bad behavior it no longer makes sense to assume positive intent.
There are a small subset of violent rioters and looters destroying property, absolutely. If you think that the federal and state responses, including violent beatings of peaceful protestors, are not meant to intimidate peaceful protestors then i’m afraid we’ll never agree. We’ve seen countless escalations from the police and feds.
Why are there protests if everything is hunky-dory?
As I see it, a government that ensures basic necessities will allow more people to take more risks. As it is, the privilege to take risks is limited to a select few in the upper and upper-middle classes, and those below don't have the chance to take a risk without it ruining their life.
Couldn't it also be that having the government take care of people actually reduces their desire to take risks and move up socio economic ladder? In Germany, for example you don't see a lot of middle class people moving into upper class like you do in America.
For your first question, Europe has stronger protections for workers than the US, so Amazon would need to pay it's employees more and have more of them. This in general results in less centralized profiting. Bezos would make less but his median employee would make more, meaning as I said before, more social mobility for lower and middle class people like Amazon factory workers, at the cost of not having as many billionaires.
Such mobility is not as common in Germany or Italy, for example (I keep bringing up Germany because I lived there for 4 years). In Germany you tend to get boxed into your career fairly early and after that you kind of just coast to the end of your life. You don't see aggressive job switching to try to get the highest salary and you don't see 40 year old Germans deciding they want to go to dental school like you do in America (for example). In Germany your future career is pretty much set by your mid-20s depending on how you did in school/exams.
Europe tends to look down on risk taking/failure as well which is another reason you don't see many Amazons sprouting from there.
I'm sorry to say it, but the actual data disagrees with you.
> You don't see aggressive job switching to try to get the highest salary and you don't see 40 year old Germans deciding they want to go to dental school like you do in America (for example). In Germany your future career is pretty much set by your mid-20s depending on how you did in school/exams.
You only see those things in already upper-middle or upper class environments in the US. An amazon warehouse worker doesn't aggressively switch jobs to maximize salary. They suffer in a shitty job because they need to to survive.
If you ignore the existence of the least economically mobile when discussing class mobility, of course you'll see greater than average class mobility. There are more working and lower class people in the US than upper-middle class people, and those people have less mobility than their European counterparts, and data on social and economic mobility backs this up. Stop wearing rose-colored glasses and looking only at the social mobility of your peers. Look at everyone, and look at data.
> Sure you do - there is an entire generation of middle class people in America who started off lower middle class in the 80s and retired millionaires in the 2010s thanks to investments, promotions, increased education, real estate, etc.
I don't think that's true. There are some, perhaps, but what you're claiming is that there's an entire generation of blue and pink-collar workers who retired with six-figure incomes. That's not true.
I’d be happy if that’s all they wanted. Some people want to “dismantl[e] White Supremacy, Patriarchy, Capitalism, Imperialism and the role the state plays in supporting them.” And instead of saying “hey, one of those things is not like the other” I now drive past a street in DC every day named after an organization that has this quote on their DC chapter’s front page. (Technically, it’s an honorary name, but DC streets have proper street signs for those.) Meanwhile, the Smithsonian is publishing materials condemning “objective, rational linear thinking” and “progress” and “competition.”
I get that these are fringe academic ideas that fringe people have injected into an otherwise really important conversation. But I’m pretty alarmed about the degree to which mainstream sources are implicitly sanctioning these kinds of assertions. Silicon Valley as we know it can’t exist within this intellectual framework.
1) I don’t trust academics and I think they have outsized influence on culture. I think, for example, academics destroyed the original understanding of the Establishment Clause, and thereby hastened the decline of organized religion as one of the institutions of civil society. I think that is a bad thing. I worry about what’s next on the chopping block. For example, while I don’t think the government is going to seize the means of production, I worry “life, liberty, and property” doesn’t have the cachet it used to. Many people don’t really believe the constitution protects economic rights.
2) Related to (1), I’m worried some well-meaning teacher will tell my brown daughter that “rational linear thinking” is “white culture.” (That would result in a lawsuit.)
3) I know few people my age and economic/educational class who actually wanted Biden to win. The “wonk” set seems to be much more amenable to these fringe ideas. And because we’ve sanctioned an unconstitutional administrative state where unelected wonks wield great power, I worry.
4) There is a disconnect between what I consider mainstream sources out of historical inertia, and maybe what they are now. I have a hard time reading the NYT these days. But I also recognize that, due to massive declines in readership, the NYT is more of a niche source than it used to be. But who still reads it? See (3).
It's tough to metabolize not knowing anyone who wanted Biden to win, because he won the primary overwhelmingly; compare the map in Michigan in 2016 to 2020. Biden won Washtenaw County! Single-payer health care polls well in the abstract, but failed as an actual ballot measure in Colorado and Vermont; people support all sorts of things in the abstract, but in reality don't support radical change.
I have the same contempt you do for the "rational linear thinking" thing and haven't shut up about it for weeks. But then, the Black History Museum took down the poster; it looks like it survived as long as it did because nobody was paying attention to it. Both The New York Times and the Washington Post ran reviews tearing down _White Fragility_; when people actually read the book, rather than nodding their head to the title (it's a great title! admit it!), the scales from their eyes.
If anything, I think the most reasonable concern is that we won't change enough. The police violence and accountability problem is very real and very serious.
That’s reasonable, but there is also another possibility: we’ll make changes in form but not substance. There are attempts underway to rename the high school I attended (named after Thomas Jefferson). Those efforts arose as a result of the fact that this year no African Americans were admitted in a class of about 450. At the moment it seems like changing the name is a lot more likely than changing admissions or recruiting policies.
India, the jewel in the British crown, was originally conquered by a private corporation. Ditto for Indonesia and the Dutch. Capitalism's other greatest hits include the transatlantic slave trade, Belgian rubber farms in Congo, blood diamonds, and modern factory farming. Sure it was great for Europeans to have cheap sugar from the Caribbean, and the traders and planters became very prosperous. But at what cost?
Capitalism needs laws, regulations, and guardrails. Capitalism didn't voluntarily renounce slavery, or child labor. It didn't provide worker safety protections or overtime or other important labor protections. It would never have done, left to its own devices. It required "intrusive government regulation" and activism.
It doesn’t! What we understand as “capitalism” (free market economies based on voluntary transactions) is incompatible with imperialism. Britain used its military power to ensure that India would sell commodities to Britain while buying finished goods back from Britain. That’s not capitalism. We had a perfectly good word for it when I was in K-12: mercantilism.
We have different words for mercantilism and capitalism because they’re different. You know they’re different because people decry the WTO as a destructive capitalist vehicle for facilitating exactly the thing (free trade) that mercantilism prohibited.
Words matter! Definitions matter! There are things you can fairly pin on unregulated capitalism. For example, the requirement that transactions be voluntary doesn’t rule out child labor (in many but not all cases), below minimum wage labor, or labor in unsafe workplaces, insofar as all are voluntary. But it does rule out slavery, which isn’t a voluntary transaction. It also rules out mercantilism, which isn’t based on voluntary free trade, and Belgian rubber farms, which weren’t based on free exchange either of labor or of resources.
Sure, you can redefine “capitalism” to make “something other than what people today understand as capitalism” but you can play stupid semantic games like that with anything.
If you're going to argue that capitalism is incompatible with imperialism, then sure you can be pedantically correct, but then you're arguing about capitalism as a macro-economic policy and not a micro-economic policy, in which case capitalism has nothing to do with personal liberty whatsoever, it has to do with tariffs (and we still aren't doing a good job of it).
That's not usually an interesting discussion to have. And if you're going to make that argument, you sort of also have to accept that Socialism has never been tried (and that it might result in greater personal liberty).
I agree with that. But that’s not how I read the OP’s statement, and not how the links between capitalism and imperialism are developed in the relevant literature. That appeared to go further to imply that imperialism is itself a manifestation of capitalism, rather than something that’s simply compatible with capitalism.
It’s the difference between saying that Democratic countries have a history of imperialism (Britain, Rome) and saying that imperialism is a manifestation of or structurally linked to democracy.
That sounds like a No True Scotsman fallacy. "It's not voluntary? By jove, then it's not capitalism!" Is every person in a market economy that hates their job and does it solely for food, shelter, and clothing, living under not-capitalism? How "voluntary" does a transaction have to be, exactly?
Mercantilism was proto-capitalism. It had all the features - "property rights, capital accumulation, wage labor, voluntary exchange, a price system and competitive markets." - on a smaller scale. Wikipedia mentions it as an earlier form of capitalism[1]. British merchants and industry still enjoyed the benefits of the free market - within the empire - but Indians and other subjects did not. And when Britain made a pivot to free trade in the 1840s[2], they still didn't let India participate. And even capitalist economies have trade barriers or tariffs today. Other than the focus on gold and balance of trade and payments, there isn't that much of a hard-line between capitalism and mercantilism. They're on the same spectrum.
Belgian colonization of the Congo and the rubber farm atrocities happened in the late 19th-early 20th century[3] when Belgium was pretty well capitalist, not mercantilist. Blood diamonds were/are traded in modern capitalist systems.[4] The participation of every actor in the chain of capitalism is successively less and less "voluntary". In some markets and industries, things are pretty good for everyone and even the person on the lowest rung does pretty well. In others...it's not so great.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism#Mercantile
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism#Industrial_Revoluti...
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_S...
The Wikipedia article you link to contradicts your premise:
> Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit.[1][2][3][4] Central characteristics of capitalism include private property and the recognition of property rights, capital accumulation, wage labor, voluntary exchange, a price system and competitive markets
It’s one thing to complain about imperfect implementations of capitalism. For example, observing that economic duress makes some labor transactions only nominally voluntary. But voluntary exchange is a definitional aspect of capitalism. It’s the underlying assumption behind much of the economic theory of capitalism. Criticizing capitalism by pointing to mercantilism and slavery—which are based on precisely the opposite of voluntary exchange—is nothing more than a rhetorical slight of hand.
What about when violent coercion happens under a capitalist system, like with Belgium and Congo, or blood diamonds? That makes it suddenly "not-capitalism"? You might be technically correct but it's semantic handwashing. If those atrocities due to the incentives in a capitalist system, it's entirely fair to pin them on capitalism. Otherwise it's no different than communism apologists claiming true communism has never been tried and therefore, things like the Holodomor shouldn't count against it - which is equally bad.
Are those things happening “under a capitalist system?” It seems to me like a situation where companies have to leave a capitalist country (Belgium) to take advantage of people in a country that doesn’t have a capitalist system and didn’t protect property rights and the voluntariness if exchange (the Congo). Is the Belgian Congo a manifestation of capitalism? By the same token, could you say it’s a manifestation of “parliamentary democracy?” I don’t think either makes sense, because the whole point is that capitalism/parliamentary Democracy aren’t operative in the Congo.
> You might be technically correct but it's semantic handwashing. If those atrocities due to the incentives in a capitalist system, it's entirely fair to pin them on capitalism.
“People want to steal other people’s resources and labor” is an incentive that exists in every system. It’s not unique to capitalism. Non-capitalist nations have been invading places and taking their resources for millennia.
> Otherwise it's no different than communism apologists claiming true communism has never been tried and therefore, things like the Holodomor shouldn't count against it - which is equally bad.
The Holdomor was a famine that was the result of a failure of central planning, which is a logical part of communism. Similarly, you could fairly blame say income inequality on capitalism. Or sweatshop labor, or unsafe workplaces.
But Belgian Congo is more like the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. That’s not a failure of communism just because a communist state was involved.
I never said it was. But you were claiming that capitalism and imperialism are "incompatible". The Belgian Congo (which is one example among many) shows that this is clearly not the case.
You can argue about that not being "true" capitalism because there wasn't voluntary exchange but that's just circular reasoning - "it wasn't capitalism because it wasn't capitalism". Capitalism in Belgium incentivized invading Congo. Offshoring the involuntary part of the exchange doesn't exonerate it. And capitalism or parliamentary democracy in Congo wouldn't have been much use without the military force to resist King Leopold's thugs.
I don’t really enjoy fiction books.
Booking all four on the same day was a genius move by some lobbyist. It dilutes the unique issues that each tech giant presents, and makes scrutiny look like sour grapes.
It doesn’t take much to outmatch the House or the Senate these days. I expect this to be nothing but a bunch of virtue signaling. Nothing will come of it which is a real shame.
Seems like his writing style.
I wonder if he still thinks that's the case.
I can't wait for the world to go back to normal, so it once again becomes shameful to show any weakness and immorality, so we can deal with people's actions rather than their position on the victimhood totem pole.
> Amazon employees make a minimum of $15 an hour, more than double the federal minimum wage (which we have urged Congress to increase). We’ve challenged other large retailers to match our $15 minimum wage. Target did so recently, and just last week so did Best Buy. We welcome them, and they remain the only ones to have done so. We do not skimp on benefits, either. Our full-time hourly employees receive the same benefits as our salaried headquarters employees, including comprehensive health insurance starting on the first day of employment, a 401(k) retirement plan, and parental leave, including 20 weeks of paid maternity leave. I encourage you to benchmark our pay and benefits against any of our retail competitors.
They might still be ‘underpaid’, but maybe they’re less underpaid than other similar businesses? Could it be true to say that all entry-level jobs suck, but maybe working for Amazon sucks slightly less than some others?