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Amazon’s D.C. Move Threatens the Founders’ Vision for America

17 points by danso 8y ago

cle 8y ago
I don't understand why everyone assumes the DC move is for lobbying or government influence. I always assumed it's just a business move, the DC area has a high supply of security-cleared engineers and AWS is pushing into GovCloud. It seems a lot more plausible to me that Amazon is just making a strategic business move by tapping into a unique labor market, than some conspiratorial culture-shaping crusade.
snakeboy 8y ago
> Movements like the Yellow Vest protesters in France, for instance, have a bigger and easier target to attack because the country’s economic and political power is concentrated in Paris. In this case, wouldn't this be a feature of localisation of private and public elites? That is, it is easier for a grass-roots protest to take hold and target corruption in a centralized way?
eridius 8y ago
If the Founders' Vision was to keep business and government separate, then why was New York City the capital of the US when George Washington was sworn in as president? It didn't last very long, but a lot of people wanted to keep it there. It was Thomas Jefferson that demanded it be moved to a "rural setting", which this article completely glosses over and tries to imply it was the general will.
- skybrian 8y ago
  Yes, people disagreed. It was a compromise.
  - eridius 8y ago
    "The Founder's Vision" implies a grand plan, not a compromise, and especially not a compromise driven by a single person.
    - skybrian 8y ago
      I agree, but I don't think it was just Jefferson? He negotiated a compromise because he needed more votes. Seems like this implies he did have some votes (from southern states), just not enough?
putlake 8y ago
Nothing in the article quotes anything directly from the founders about geographical separation of economic centers and political capitals. Lobbying has already corrupted Washington. There is no logical argument in the article. It seems to be be anti-Amazon propaganda.
- mises 8y ago
  You're completely correct, but I think it's worth using as a spark for a conversation on Amazon's more metaphorical political move into Washington. That is the concern.
mises 8y ago
I think it is important to note that while it doesn't really matter in what city Amazon is located, it's metaphorical "move into Washington" in terms of politics is the problem. Crony capitalism is cancer. Why did we not realize that if we increase the power given to government, someone will abuse it? People have suspected it could be a malicious politician, but it has instead become corporatists that buy their competition out of business to secure monopolies and prevent competition. The more authority we cede, the more it can be abused. I think the best possibility is to move more regulation to state and local governments and to relegate the feds to constitutionally specified powers. Local governments can be easier to buy, but it is my belief that such an impact would be offset by 1. the common man's greater control in how his local government is run (one vote in 100 one-hundred-thousand is much greater than one in three-hundred-million). It is also much harder to catch one-hundred small fish than one whale.
- conanbatt 8y ago
  Yup, my intuition is along those lines as well. Are politicians going to block the massive money that comes along with this like they did in NY? And can you imagine the leverage you get with the big topics like breaking amazon up if it means all the DC officials and gov employees will lose this precious boon? AOC finally won the war on this one. Government just showed it was powerful enough to bend Amazon's will.
caprese 8y ago
Good points, although just a matter of time. The DC area functions as regional support for basically all large tech companies. The article makes it seem like an absurdity to the founding fathers to imagine such a large multi-national corporation being there. But they certainly could imagine this, the revolutionary war was a fight against the British East India Company inextricably tied to Britain until the entity dropped stewardship of these colonies out of budgetary concerns. Masquaraded as a decisive victory to support its new national identity, it was clear that corporate control of the government would not be the stance of the new American government. Yes then the largest public company in the world moving there does theeaten this. But at the same time, that ship has long sailed and this just reminds everyone.
conanbatt 8y ago
Strange move, i think Amazon might be making a play again with the political sphere now. This is purely a play between Amazon and the political caste. They will definitely not fight amazon in DC, and Amazon might gain all kinds of leverage with this one.
- dontbenebby 8y ago
  Or maybe they'll drive up the rent and piss off every single senate staffer, judicial clerk, and lower level regulatory agency worker in the district. DC has a relatively low cost of living compared to NYC or SF, due to the high number of GS payscale[1] workers. [1] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/19Tables/html/DCB.aspx https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...
  - conanbatt 8y ago
    Politicians are homeowners, they will welcome the explosion of housing value
    - dontbenebby 8y ago
      These workers aren't usually buying, they're renting.
cortesoft 8y ago
This seems a bit silly in the modern world. Yeah, geographical proximity mattered 200 years ago, but these days most senior business people travel about the country constantly. I bet they are more often not in their office than in. Second, lobbyists are in Washington all the time anyway. Amazon can spend their money influencing politics from anywhere. Keeping powers geographically separated doesn't mean much in the era of video conferencing and air travel.
- inimino 8y ago
  If you were right, SF housing prices wouldn't be what they are, and Amazon could have put their HQ in Wyoming and gotten a great deal on real estate. Proximity matters. It affects not just who works together but who runs into each other, who you see walking around your city, and how you look at the world.
RickJWagner 8y ago
"Many of the founders would have hated the idea of a megacorporation in such close proximity to Congress and the White House..." How on earth can the author claim to know what the founders would have thought? I can't think of anything left in writing that would suggest such a thing. Seems like the author is just pulling stuff out of..... let's say 'the air'.
asmithmd1 8y ago
This article is nonsense. Off the top of my head: Accenture, General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman, and M&M/Mars have corporate headquarters in the suburbs around Washington. Not such a big deal now, but AOL also through off quite a bit of wealth for a while.
viburnum 8y ago
Move the capital to Kansas City.
- rtkwe 8y ago
  Think bigger! I'd love to see a built from scratch planned city as the capital with proper spaces for all the national museums and departments and a strong public transit setup. Of course the idea is far better than any attempt at it would be and I have no idea how we'd move everything that's been packed into DC to a new location. Given the amount of sea level rise we're probably going to see though there's going to have to be some pretty intense engineering to keep DC as it is.
mensetmanusman 8y ago
Military industrial complex already accomplished that...
whoisjuan 8y ago
OMG, what a bunch of conjecture and bullshit, starting with the ridiculous title. Amazon (or any corporation) doesn't need to be located in D.C to lobby the shit out of whatever they want. That's a complete no-sense. Being in D.C might make some difference in hiring people that have special experience/skills/clearances working with the government, and of course, Amazon being Amazon wants to sell stuff to the government. It would be stupid of them not to. I'm pretty sure that's the extent of it. This person thinks that we are still living like in the days of the Founders where people used horses and shit. Newsflash: We live in 2019, and we have airplanes and the internet. The geographic boundaries between government and corporate America stopped mattering a long time ago.
true_religion 8y ago
Despite Amazon propaganda about their new HQ being “national landing” and collocated in DC/VA/MD, there is no such place. The new HQ is in Arlington, Virginia and considering DC traffic is not an easy transit to or from anything not on same the metro-line. Bezos already lives in VA and owns the Washington Post. I don’t see how moving his HQ makes a difference at this point in terms of access to government lobbying by him.

17 points by danso 8y ago

cle 8y ago

I don't understand why everyone assumes the DC move is for lobbying or government influence. I always assumed it's just a business move, the DC area has a high supply of security-cleared engineers and AWS is pushing into GovCloud. It seems a lot more plausible to me that Amazon is just making a strategic business move by tapping into a unique labor market, than some conspiratorial culture-shaping crusade.

snakeboy 8y ago

> Movements like the Yellow Vest protesters in France, for instance, have a bigger and easier target to attack because the country’s economic and political power is concentrated in Paris. In this case, wouldn't this be a feature of localisation of private and public elites? That is, it is easier for a grass-roots protest to take hold and target corruption in a centralized way?

eridius 8y ago

If the Founders' Vision was to keep business and government separate, then why was New York City the capital of the US when George Washington was sworn in as president? It didn't last very long, but a lot of people wanted to keep it there. It was Thomas Jefferson that demanded it be moved to a "rural setting", which this article completely glosses over and tries to imply it was the general will.

skybrian 8y ago
Yes, people disagreed. It was a compromise.
- eridius 8y ago
  "The Founder's Vision" implies a grand plan, not a compromise, and especially not a compromise driven by a single person.
  - skybrian 8y ago
    I agree, but I don't think it was just Jefferson? He negotiated a compromise because he needed more votes. Seems like this implies he did have some votes (from southern states), just not enough?

putlake 8y ago

Nothing in the article quotes anything directly from the founders about geographical separation of economic centers and political capitals. Lobbying has already corrupted Washington. There is no logical argument in the article. It seems to be be anti-Amazon propaganda.

mises 8y ago
You're completely correct, but I think it's worth using as a spark for a conversation on Amazon's more metaphorical political move into Washington. That is the concern.

mises 8y ago

I think it is important to note that while it doesn't really matter in what city Amazon is located, it's metaphorical "move into Washington" in terms of politics is the problem. Crony capitalism is cancer. Why did we not realize that if we increase the power given to government, someone will abuse it? People have suspected it could be a malicious politician, but it has instead become corporatists that buy their competition out of business to secure monopolies and prevent competition. The more authority we cede, the more it can be abused. I think the best possibility is to move more regulation to state and local governments and to relegate the feds to constitutionally specified powers. Local governments can be easier to buy, but it is my belief that such an impact would be offset by 1. the common man's greater control in how his local government is run (one vote in 100 one-hundred-thousand is much greater than one in three-hundred-million). It is also much harder to catch one-hundred small fish than one whale.

conanbatt 8y ago
Yup, my intuition is along those lines as well. Are politicians going to block the massive money that comes along with this like they did in NY? And can you imagine the leverage you get with the big topics like breaking amazon up if it means all the DC officials and gov employees will lose this precious boon? AOC finally won the war on this one. Government just showed it was powerful enough to bend Amazon's will.

caprese 8y ago

Good points, although just a matter of time. The DC area functions as regional support for basically all large tech companies. The article makes it seem like an absurdity to the founding fathers to imagine such a large multi-national corporation being there. But they certainly could imagine this, the revolutionary war was a fight against the British East India Company inextricably tied to Britain until the entity dropped stewardship of these colonies out of budgetary concerns. Masquaraded as a decisive victory to support its new national identity, it was clear that corporate control of the government would not be the stance of the new American government. Yes then the largest public company in the world moving there does theeaten this. But at the same time, that ship has long sailed and this just reminds everyone.

conanbatt 8y ago

Strange move, i think Amazon might be making a play again with the political sphere now. This is purely a play between Amazon and the political caste. They will definitely not fight amazon in DC, and Amazon might gain all kinds of leverage with this one.

dontbenebby 8y ago
Or maybe they'll drive up the rent and piss off every single senate staffer, judicial clerk, and lower level regulatory agency worker in the district. DC has a relatively low cost of living compared to NYC or SF, due to the high number of GS payscale[1] workers. [1] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/19Tables/html/DCB.aspx https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...
- conanbatt 8y ago
  Politicians are homeowners, they will welcome the explosion of housing value
  - dontbenebby 8y ago
    These workers aren't usually buying, they're renting.

cortesoft 8y ago

This seems a bit silly in the modern world. Yeah, geographical proximity mattered 200 years ago, but these days most senior business people travel about the country constantly. I bet they are more often not in their office than in. Second, lobbyists are in Washington all the time anyway. Amazon can spend their money influencing politics from anywhere. Keeping powers geographically separated doesn't mean much in the era of video conferencing and air travel.

inimino 8y ago
If you were right, SF housing prices wouldn't be what they are, and Amazon could have put their HQ in Wyoming and gotten a great deal on real estate. Proximity matters. It affects not just who works together but who runs into each other, who you see walking around your city, and how you look at the world.

RickJWagner 8y ago

"Many of the founders would have hated the idea of a megacorporation in such close proximity to Congress and the White House..." How on earth can the author claim to know what the founders would have thought? I can't think of anything left in writing that would suggest such a thing. Seems like the author is just pulling stuff out of..... let's say 'the air'.

asmithmd1 8y ago

This article is nonsense. Off the top of my head: Accenture, General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman, and M&M/Mars have corporate headquarters in the suburbs around Washington. Not such a big deal now, but AOL also through off quite a bit of wealth for a while.

viburnum 8y ago

Move the capital to Kansas City.

rtkwe 8y ago
Think bigger! I'd love to see a built from scratch planned city as the capital with proper spaces for all the national museums and departments and a strong public transit setup. Of course the idea is far better than any attempt at it would be and I have no idea how we'd move everything that's been packed into DC to a new location. Given the amount of sea level rise we're probably going to see though there's going to have to be some pretty intense engineering to keep DC as it is.

mensetmanusman 8y ago

Military industrial complex already accomplished that...

whoisjuan 8y ago

OMG, what a bunch of conjecture and bullshit, starting with the ridiculous title. Amazon (or any corporation) doesn't need to be located in D.C to lobby the shit out of whatever they want. That's a complete no-sense. Being in D.C might make some difference in hiring people that have special experience/skills/clearances working with the government, and of course, Amazon being Amazon wants to sell stuff to the government. It would be stupid of them not to. I'm pretty sure that's the extent of it. This person thinks that we are still living like in the days of the Founders where people used horses and shit. Newsflash: We live in 2019, and we have airplanes and the internet. The geographic boundaries between government and corporate America stopped mattering a long time ago.

true_religion 8y ago

Despite Amazon propaganda about their new HQ being “national landing” and collocated in DC/VA/MD, there is no such place. The new HQ is in Arlington, Virginia and considering DC traffic is not an easy transit to or from anything not on same the metro-line. Bezos already lives in VA and owns the Washington Post. I don’t see how moving his HQ makes a difference at this point in terms of access to government lobbying by him.