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I like this detour into economics: >Bezos’s enterprise upends long-held precepts about the fundamental nature of capitalism—especially an idea enshrined by the

I like this detour into economics: >Bezos’s enterprise upends long-held precepts about the fundamental nature of capitalism—especially an idea enshrined by the great Austrian economist Friedrich Hayek[, who] argued that no bureaucracy could ever match the miracle of markets, which spontaneously and efficiently aggregate the knowledge of a society. >Amazon, however, has acquired the God’s-eye view of the economy that Hayek never imagined any single entity could hope to achieve. [...] With its logistics business—and its growing network of trucks and planes—it has an understanding of the flow of goods around the world. In other words, if Marxist revolutionaries ever seized power in the United States, they could nationalize Amazon and call it a day. Perhaps we need to break up Amazon because communism? /s

roenxi 7y ago
Maybe this is what you were drawing attention to, but that part of the article misinterprets centralised planning. What it describes is the logistics of getting something from one place to another. Centralised planning is when a government planner decides the source, the destination and the good without giving final power to a consumer. Amazon doesn't have the final word on what people buy (or the destination of goods for that matter) so it isn't a centrally planned system in that sense.
- losteric 7y ago
  The article also misinterprets Marxism/communism. Amazon is logistics, takeover would give the public a more extensive USPS plus digital infrastructure... it's not a revolutionary seizure of the means of production.
  - morningseagulls 7y ago
    >The article also misinterprets Marxism/communism. >it's not a revolutionary seizure of the means of production. The revolutionary bit of Marxism was a political sideshow for Marx's anarchist supporters. The economic theory of Marx does not require a revolution, because according to that theory, the superior mode of economic production should eventually prevail. That is why you have political movements like democratic socialism and social democracy. These are moderates who believe that Marx's theory of economic progression is correct, but who also believe in incremental change.
- morningseagulls 7y ago
  >that part of the article misinterprets centralised planning. What it describes is the logistics of getting something from one place to another. I think it's worthwhile to re-read the passage I quoted: >Hayek[...] argued that no bureaucracy could ever match the miracle of markets, which spontaneously and efficiently aggregate the knowledge of a society. This isn't just about physical logistics. Hayek is arguing that no centralised agent has perfect information. The author is arguing that Amazon is approaching the stage when it would have perfect information about the consumers it serves. >Amazon doesn't have the final word on what people buy (or the destination of goods for that matter) so it isn't a centrally planned system in that sense. Even if it doesn't have the final word, it does have quite a bit of say in the form of its recommender system. Also, "communism" in the sense of Marx -- one of the two senses in which I was using the word -- is not necessarily a centrally planned system. Rather, it's an idealisation of what an economy would become if it achieved 100% automation, i.e. an economy operating at 100% efficiency. You can see it in the structure of Marx's "historic materialism" argument: just as capitalism had displaced feudalism because it's more efficient, socialism would then displace capitalism, and communism would do the same for socialism. In Marx's hierarchy of efficiency: Feudalism < capitalism < socialism < communism So a communist economy, in Marx's sense, is also an economy in which there's perfect information. That can't possibly happen in the real world, of course, and Hayek correctly points this out about a centralised bureaucracy. But he's wrong about markets; no market is 100% efficient or operates in an environment of perfect information either.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > Hayek is arguing that no centralised agent has perfect information. The author is arguing that Amazon is approaching the stage when it would have perfect information about the consumers it serves. This statement in the article is a huge misstatement. First, Amazon only has information about the goods it sells. There are many things it doesn't sell, and many things that it can't sell. There are huge supply chains behind the products it sells that it does not see. There are also many things of value that are not exchanged with money. Second, to the extent Amazon does have information about its customers, it has that information because of those customers' buying decisions. In other words, it has exactly the information that Hayek says a market participant has, and no more: the price at which other market participants will buy whatever quantity of one's products are sold.
- andrekandre 7y ago
  > Centralised planning is when a government planner decides the source, the destination and the good without giving final power to a consumer. what if it was an ai instead?
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Regardless, Amazon picks the suppliers, owns the information channel, and both informs and transacts with the consumer. It operates on a greater scale than many national economies, falling at about 38th on a current listing based on 2018 revenues. Amazon is the market. Hayek's basic premise was that national-scale central management was impossible. Amazon and other megacorps put paid to this.
  - ci5er 7y ago
    Amazon - often picks all the suppliers, and lets the buyer decide which they prefer. Also - they deal in finished (consumer) goods. There is a whole lot of coordination before that stuff gets assembled and ready for Amazon or one or their marketplace suppliers to ship it. Maybe they've integrated the demand chain logistics, but not the integration supply chain. And they don't dictate that consumers get to purchase one and only one brand of whatever product (like peanut butter).
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      Amazon b2b: https://www.amazon.com/b2b/info/amazon-business https://www.amazon.com/b2b/info/amazon-business
      - ci5er 7y ago
        Neat! (Although I knew about it and stand by my assertion, because...) I still can't conceive of using that to build a (say) iPhone.
pmoriarty 7y ago
Alienation is a critical and central part of Marxist critique. To miss it is to misunderstand Marxism. Marxists could not call it a day after nationalizing Amazon because the people who make the goods that Amazon sells would still be alienated from the goods they produce, and Amazon's workers would still be alienated from the products of their own labor.
- m0zg 7y ago
  In Marxist/Leninist regimes this is commonly solved through mass murder. See Red Terror, Cultural Revoluion, Pol Pot, etc. Eventually you murder enough people to suppress dissent, at least for a few decades, until you run out of money, and ideological fervor gets thoroughly undermined by the relative success of your capitalist neighbors. Source: grew up in the USSR.
  - pmoriarty 7y ago
    How does mass murder help to reduce alienation again? Also, it's widely disputed that the USSR was actually a Marxist society. I've heard it described as "State Capitalism". Regardless, it's pretty clear that the mass murder in places like the USSR, China, and Cambodia was due to small groups of people getting massive amounts of power, abusing that power, and being completely insensitive to the suffering they cause, and not as a consequence of their economic systems. Bloodthirsty despots come in all stripes and are happy to wear any mask as long as it helps them to gain and maintain power. A prime example is Hitler paying lip service to socialism while undermining worker's rights in favor of corporations, murdering socialists, using slave labor, and most of all strengthening his own grip on power. Just for the record, I'm not a Marxist nor a Communist, nor do I advocate for either. But I do think you have to understand Marxism to adequately critique it, and it's pretty clear that the author of the article this HN post links to does not.
    - m0zg 7y ago
      >> How does mass murder help to reduce alienation again? By eliminating the alienated and scaring the rest. >> small groups of people getting massive amounts of power In part, yes. But in part it was because in any revolution not everyone will support your kooky ideas. Those folks will fight you after you succeed. The only known way of pacifying them is by murdering them all. You see this every time. >> you have to understand Marxism I'd argue you're the one who needs to "understand" in this case. I lived the consequences of Marxism for the first 22 years of my life. I want no part of that shit here in the US, no matter how it's sold to me.
me_me_me 7y ago
>> if Marxist revolutionaries ever seized power in the United States, they could nationalize Amazon and call it a day. Isn't that an argument for Amazon is de-facto a monopoly at this stage?
bwestergard 7y ago
This argument - that Amazon prefigures a new Soviet-style planning - has been made sincerely. I’ve written a critique here: http://machineryquestion.com/notes/peoples-republic http://machineryquestion.com/notes/peoples-republic
- morningseagulls 7y ago
  >This argument - that Amazon prefigures a new Soviet-style planning - has been made sincerely. Because there is evidence that Marxists had tried, and failed, to do what Amazon has now succeeded. Project Cybersyn comes to mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2018/08/project-cybersyn-afterlife-chile-s-socialist-internet https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2018/08/project-cybersyn-... However, what Amazon has done is just characteristic of "organized industries", which Hayek conceded in his essay, The Use of Knowledge in Society, as being a "halfway house" between Soviet-style planning and free markets.

roenxi 7y ago

Maybe this is what you were drawing attention to, but that part of the article misinterprets centralised planning. What it describes is the logistics of getting something from one place to another. Centralised planning is when a government planner decides the source, the destination and the good without giving final power to a consumer. Amazon doesn't have the final word on what people buy (or the destination of goods for that matter) so it isn't a centrally planned system in that sense.

losteric 7y ago
The article also misinterprets Marxism/communism. Amazon is logistics, takeover would give the public a more extensive USPS plus digital infrastructure... it's not a revolutionary seizure of the means of production.
- morningseagulls 7y ago
  >The article also misinterprets Marxism/communism. >it's not a revolutionary seizure of the means of production. The revolutionary bit of Marxism was a political sideshow for Marx's anarchist supporters. The economic theory of Marx does not require a revolution, because according to that theory, the superior mode of economic production should eventually prevail. That is why you have political movements like democratic socialism and social democracy. These are moderates who believe that Marx's theory of economic progression is correct, but who also believe in incremental change.
morningseagulls 7y ago
>that part of the article misinterprets centralised planning. What it describes is the logistics of getting something from one place to another. I think it's worthwhile to re-read the passage I quoted: >Hayek[...] argued that no bureaucracy could ever match the miracle of markets, which spontaneously and efficiently aggregate the knowledge of a society. This isn't just about physical logistics. Hayek is arguing that no centralised agent has perfect information. The author is arguing that Amazon is approaching the stage when it would have perfect information about the consumers it serves. >Amazon doesn't have the final word on what people buy (or the destination of goods for that matter) so it isn't a centrally planned system in that sense. Even if it doesn't have the final word, it does have quite a bit of say in the form of its recommender system. Also, "communism" in the sense of Marx -- one of the two senses in which I was using the word -- is not necessarily a centrally planned system. Rather, it's an idealisation of what an economy would become if it achieved 100% automation, i.e. an economy operating at 100% efficiency. You can see it in the structure of Marx's "historic materialism" argument: just as capitalism had displaced feudalism because it's more efficient, socialism would then displace capitalism, and communism would do the same for socialism. In Marx's hierarchy of efficiency: Feudalism < capitalism < socialism < communism So a communist economy, in Marx's sense, is also an economy in which there's perfect information. That can't possibly happen in the real world, of course, and Hayek correctly points this out about a centralised bureaucracy. But he's wrong about markets; no market is 100% efficient or operates in an environment of perfect information either.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > Hayek is arguing that no centralised agent has perfect information. The author is arguing that Amazon is approaching the stage when it would have perfect information about the consumers it serves. This statement in the article is a huge misstatement. First, Amazon only has information about the goods it sells. There are many things it doesn't sell, and many things that it can't sell. There are huge supply chains behind the products it sells that it does not see. There are also many things of value that are not exchanged with money. Second, to the extent Amazon does have information about its customers, it has that information because of those customers' buying decisions. In other words, it has exactly the information that Hayek says a market participant has, and no more: the price at which other market participants will buy whatever quantity of one's products are sold.
andrekandre 7y ago
> Centralised planning is when a government planner decides the source, the destination and the good without giving final power to a consumer. what if it was an ai instead?
dredmorbius 7y ago
Regardless, Amazon picks the suppliers, owns the information channel, and both informs and transacts with the consumer. It operates on a greater scale than many national economies, falling at about 38th on a current listing based on 2018 revenues. Amazon is the market. Hayek's basic premise was that national-scale central management was impossible. Amazon and other megacorps put paid to this.
- ci5er 7y ago
  Amazon - often picks all the suppliers, and lets the buyer decide which they prefer. Also - they deal in finished (consumer) goods. There is a whole lot of coordination before that stuff gets assembled and ready for Amazon or one or their marketplace suppliers to ship it. Maybe they've integrated the demand chain logistics, but not the integration supply chain. And they don't dictate that consumers get to purchase one and only one brand of whatever product (like peanut butter).
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Amazon b2b: https://www.amazon.com/b2b/info/amazon-business https://www.amazon.com/b2b/info/amazon-business
    - ci5er 7y ago
      Neat! (Although I knew about it and stand by my assertion, because...) I still can't conceive of using that to build a (say) iPhone.

pmoriarty 7y ago

Alienation is a critical and central part of Marxist critique. To miss it is to misunderstand Marxism. Marxists could not call it a day after nationalizing Amazon because the people who make the goods that Amazon sells would still be alienated from the goods they produce, and Amazon's workers would still be alienated from the products of their own labor.

m0zg 7y ago
In Marxist/Leninist regimes this is commonly solved through mass murder. See Red Terror, Cultural Revoluion, Pol Pot, etc. Eventually you murder enough people to suppress dissent, at least for a few decades, until you run out of money, and ideological fervor gets thoroughly undermined by the relative success of your capitalist neighbors. Source: grew up in the USSR.
- pmoriarty 7y ago
  How does mass murder help to reduce alienation again? Also, it's widely disputed that the USSR was actually a Marxist society. I've heard it described as "State Capitalism". Regardless, it's pretty clear that the mass murder in places like the USSR, China, and Cambodia was due to small groups of people getting massive amounts of power, abusing that power, and being completely insensitive to the suffering they cause, and not as a consequence of their economic systems. Bloodthirsty despots come in all stripes and are happy to wear any mask as long as it helps them to gain and maintain power. A prime example is Hitler paying lip service to socialism while undermining worker's rights in favor of corporations, murdering socialists, using slave labor, and most of all strengthening his own grip on power. Just for the record, I'm not a Marxist nor a Communist, nor do I advocate for either. But I do think you have to understand Marxism to adequately critique it, and it's pretty clear that the author of the article this HN post links to does not.
  - m0zg 7y ago
    >> How does mass murder help to reduce alienation again? By eliminating the alienated and scaring the rest. >> small groups of people getting massive amounts of power In part, yes. But in part it was because in any revolution not everyone will support your kooky ideas. Those folks will fight you after you succeed. The only known way of pacifying them is by murdering them all. You see this every time. >> you have to understand Marxism I'd argue you're the one who needs to "understand" in this case. I lived the consequences of Marxism for the first 22 years of my life. I want no part of that shit here in the US, no matter how it's sold to me.

me_me_me 7y ago

>> if Marxist revolutionaries ever seized power in the United States, they could nationalize Amazon and call it a day. Isn't that an argument for Amazon is de-facto a monopoly at this stage?

bwestergard 7y ago

This argument - that Amazon prefigures a new Soviet-style planning - has been made sincerely. I’ve written a critique here: http://machineryquestion.com/notes/peoples-republic http://machineryquestion.com/notes/peoples-republic

morningseagulls 7y ago
>This argument - that Amazon prefigures a new Soviet-style planning - has been made sincerely. Because there is evidence that Marxists had tried, and failed, to do what Amazon has now succeeded. Project Cybersyn comes to mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2018/08/project-cybersyn-afterlife-chile-s-socialist-internet https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2018/08/project-cybersyn-... However, what Amazon has done is just characteristic of "organized industries", which Hayek conceded in his essay, The Use of Knowledge in Society, as being a "halfway house" between Soviet-style planning and free markets.