Can We Stop Pretending Amazon Is A Remotely Benign Public Actor?
Amazon is donating $1M to Trump’s inauguration and offering another $1M worth of free streaming of the event into America’s living rooms.
Look, I think most of us are grateful for the jobs Amazon brings to the Seattle region and for the convenience it offers in my life (though I am trying to find reliable alternatives!). I love my friends that work there. I’m pleased that they provide some low interest loans for affordable housing projects. While I think they should pay higher taxes, I do understand the concept of a goose and golden egg.
But I think it’s time we do away with the fiction that Amazon is benign actor when it comes to public policy. We can recognize the ways that we in Seattle rely on Amazon without pretending that the people steering the ship are working for the good of our communities.
Corporations maximize profit, but not just when they buy and sell. When they feign an interest in causes and donate—it frequently is in service of the profit motive. These activities are often a way to attract and retain employees, build a brand, or stave off regulation.
We don’t have to be surprised, or necessarily even horrified by this. That’s just what corporations are designed to do. But neither should we be naive enough to believe they will self regulate or genuinely reduce their profits for the good of the community.
Amazon, and its proxies at the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, love to pretend they are really just behaving like good, practical Democrats. But that is a lie. Insisting on low taxes and union busting is beyond the pale. Buying candidates a spot on the city council to get a better deal on taxes is gross and (legal, but still) corrupt.
Still, the MAGA money underscores how far these folks are from the Democratic team. After dropping big money to keep their taxes low here, they are now spending big to get a better deal from Donald Trump.
Let’s call this for what it is. It’s a bribe. It’s a legal bribe, but it is a pay-to-play bribe. It is a $2M gift to a tin-pot wanna be autocrat who is hellbent on turning the federal government into an instrument of revenge against his enemies and a massive corruption racket. And who is threatening to inflict a humanitarian atrocity on immigrant communities.
No one gets to give that kind of money to someone so mendacious and evil and still expect to be accepted in polite society.
Amazon loves money more than they love freedom, women’s basic bodily autonomy, or our community. That is their choice. But it is our choice how we respond. It is our choice for how we view and respond to the actions of the Seattle Chamber, which Amazon dominates. It is also the media’s choice whether they bring this up when they local Chamber and Amazon executives make vaguely progressive sounding statements during election seasons.
Just a few years ago, Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post and they adopted the mantra “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
He knew what was at stake. But he sold us out anyway.
Democracy dies, when dollars are on the line, apparently.