Jeff Bezos is getting nervous. You can tell because he’s more on Twitter, the general activity of those who channel their upsets in unhealthy ways. It should also make the rest of us nervous. It’s a huge, flashing warning sign that America’s wealthiest union-busters will jump into politics more forcefully — an inevitability that could have many bad outcomes, but only one good one.
Over the past week, billionaires Amazon The founder tweeted not about his typical pain-relief interests—improved phallus-shaped rocket designs, luxurious head waxes—but about his policy views. Although Bezos (or whatever PR drone that drafted his tweets) writes in the cold blood of someone who has attended too many management consulting meetings, it’s easy to imagine an effort to push him at number one. On May 13, he criticized an economic statement from Joe Biden, tweeting: “Raising corporate taxes is up for discussion. Curbing inflation is key. Mixing them up is just misleading.”
He went on to another, saying “the government worked hard to inject more stimulus into an already overheated, inflationary economy, and only Manchin saved them from himself. Inflation is a regressive tax for the least wealthy.” It hurts the most.” On Monday, he again attacked failed Democratic stimulus bills, saying they would fuel inflation.
It’s easy to point here, in fact, that union breaking is the kind of tax that hurts the poorest the most, or to point out that Bezos could mitigate the damage of inflation by giving his own employees more pay. It’s worth noting that the extremely wealthy executive chairman of one of the world’s most powerful corporations won’t be outraged at the talk of raising corporate taxes, or he’ll bemoan a pandemic-era stimulus package that has cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Millions of Americans were spared a full-blown economic disaster. For Amazon, it relies on a nationwide standing army of desperate people willing to work in precarious, low-wage warehouse and delivery jobs, all of which boost sales benefits from its impact on the labor market. Hiring has become more difficult as demand for employees has skyrocketed; more importantly, it has helped workers muster the courage to vote for a union, as Amazon warehouse workers did in Staten Island last month. Like Walmart and all other low-margin retail giants whose profits depend on complete control of an unlimited compliant workforce, Amazon sees unions as an existential threat. The economic conditions created in part by government stimulus programs that temporarily made things more favorable to organized labor must be smashed, reversed, and judged as a historic mistake before policymakers consider doing so again.
Bezos certainly believes in all this. Uh. We’ve known him for years as a union-busting super-rich. The fact that he’s waving his stupid Twitter flag like a bargaining Elon Musk is really nothing to worry about.what Yes Sadly, this bodes well for Bezos’ future plans. Because when a wealthy irresponsible businessman suddenly begins to emerge in the world as a public policy thinker, you can be sure that he is about to start entering the world of political influence in earnest. That means we’re now threatened by the very real possibility that Bezos is about to become the next, even richer Mike Bloomberg — potentially devastating for the already poor Democrat’s weak-willed staff Impact.
While Bezos is unmistakably an economic Republican, it’s hard to imagine him making a political bet on being a Republican, if only because of what it means for his social life. No, if he decides he has to actually get into politics – to protect his own interests, and since the classic rich think no one poorer than him should not be in power – he’s bound to use the Democratic Party as his tool. If he’s annoyed enough, he can flood the party with so much income that the whole “centre” will kneel at his door, begging to write any bills he wants. The overall impact will be to add a huge weight to the neoliberal side of the party, a powerful force trying to steer the party away from its recent progressive leanings to the Democrats’ vision of a sober new enterprise – for Republicans The psychotic Maga captive friendly checks and balances.
Last month, Bernie Sanders sent a letter Joe Biden has called on him to stop offering federal contracts to companies that violate federal labor laws, particularly by illegally sabotaging unions.This simple move could take billions away from Amazon, at least in the labor-friendly NLRB’s view. guilty Lots of illegal union destruction. (Amazon disputes this.) This is also a good example Can A new vision for being a Democrat: Not dodgy operators trying to arbitrage corporate campaign contributions, but the Labor Party, which is ready to take its rhetoric about the dangers of rising economic inequality seriously. The Democratic response to the rise of right-wing lunatics doesn’t require a simple attempt to lure Republican donors. Instead, Democrats can become true populists, siding with working people against the forces of capital. (The Republican version of populism, which basically means “prepare to wear a John Deere baseball cap when you say racist remarks,” pales in comparison.)
Look, I love seeing one of the richest people in the world spend his precious time whining on Twitter. He won’t be breaking unions then or coming up with radical new algorithms to make money out of our lives, plus I know the time spent on Twitter is going to be a pain for him, and I support that. But I am here to warn you that this is a very ominous omen. The last thing we need is for Jeff Bezos to transform himself into the biggest power broker in the Democratic Party. Jeff, keep playing with your rocket. The farther you are from the earth, the better for everyone.
