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AOC's power stems from democratic support. Jeff Bezos' power stems from monetary wealth. It's the difference between oligopoly and democracy. No, there will ne
by istjohn 6y ago
AOC's power stems from democratic support. Jeff Bezos' power stems from monetary wealth. It's the difference between oligopoly and democracy.
No, there will never be absolute equality of power. Certain people will always have a louder voice in the culture than others. But cultural power is fickle and comes and goes easily unlike wealth.
- zozbot234 6y agoJeff Bezos' monetary wealth stems from billions of Amazon customers voting with their collective wallets. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
- istjohn 6y agoAOC's power will vanish the moment she breaks with the interests of her constituency. Bezos' wealth does not represent a continuing endorsement of his actions.
- zozbot234 6y ago> [Politician]'s power will vanish the moment s/he breaks with the interests of his/her/their constituency This is almost never the case. Power corrupts.
- jakelazaroff 6y agoHow would AOC continue to have power if people were to stop voting for her or caring about what she has to say?
- darawk 6y agoHow would Bezos continue to have power if people stopped using Amazon? Most of his wealth is in Amazon stock. Sure, he'd have a few billion left over, but his real political power comes from his companies, not his money.
- jakelazaroff 6y ago"A few billion" places his wealth in the top .0001%. It's telling that even in this far-fetched scenario where Amazon and Bezos' "real political power" are destroyed, he's still much more powerful than the vast majority of US citizens.
- darawk 6y agoYou seem to be equating wealth and power. Wealth and power are certainly related, but probably on a logarithmic scale. Someone worth $20,000 isn't twice as powerful as someone worth $10,000. The primary source of political power Jeff Bezos has is his control of a very large employer. Employing lots of people gives you some power over local politics in the areas where you employ those people, and it gives you some level of influence with politicians who might be interested in ensuring you continue to employ lots of people, because it's good for the economy. Your run of the mill billionaire heir/heiress that doesn't really do any useful economic activity doesn't have a huge amount of political power, in general. They probably have more than you or I do, but not a ton more. Certainly not more in (linear* proportion to the wealth difference. Once you realize that the relationship between wealth and power is logarithmic, it's not really a super concerning relationship. There are other sources of power that are much more important, and much less transparent.
- categorybooks 6y agoI would guess that most of Bezos' wealth is stilled tied to the stock price of Amazon, and thus actually represents an endorsement of his actions at least a bit more than if it were all in cash.
- throwaway2048 6y agoif amazon's stock price plunged 95% (basically unthinkable) bezos would still be a billionare.
- camgunz 6y agoI don't buy from Amazon because I agree w/ Bezos' politics. Commerce is not an election; we don't live in a corporatocracy.
- cultus 6y agoBuying from Amazon does not imply endorsement of Jeff Bezo's politics and economic interests. Your equivalence between that and AOC's grassroots support is completely nonsensical.
- arcticbull 6y agoThat's strictly not true. People vote for Amazon the product (over Walmart's web experience), they don't vote for Amazon the Jeff Bezos Political Agenda. Those are two totally different things. For instance, there's plenty of right-wing folks who shop on Amazon while simultaneously hating the Washington Post. As mentioned upthread, this is the difference between democracy and rule by wealth.
- ChrisLomont 6y ago>they don't vote for Amazon the Jeff Bezos Political Agenda. Plenty of companies take a hit on their wallet when the CEO has political agendas the customers don't like.
- arcticbull 6y agoSure, but I think that's conflating two things. You're welcome to take a hit to your wallet when you don't want to enrich a certain business leader. What you shouldn't have to do is take a hit to your wallet because you don't want to politically empower a certain business leader. This is especially true as there's less and less competition, and a few huge players control a disproportionate amount of the market (which is an issue on its own, albeit a separate one). The idea behind a democracy for better or worse is one individual gets one vote. When you start having to figure out how you're voting by proxy through the leadership of each company you do business with, I'd wager, that wouldn't be within the spirit of the system. Companies should compete for individual walletshare by merit, and it really should be apolitical. It won't always be, of course, but I think we're better off if we try and limit it. Conflating the two weakens both imo.
- WalterBright 6y agoThe CEO of Crossfit as a recent example.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y agoExcellently put. And put differently: even if people actually thought that Bezos was just a brilliant businessman, why would anyone think that he's a brilliant social strategist? Or resource planner? Or commander-in-chief? Just because someone knows how to build and run a company that's great at selling stuff tells you absolutely about their qualities as a political/national leader.
- MisterBastahrd 6y agoHis monetary wealth shouldn't give him power over anyone but his own company, nor should it allow him to exercise his right to speech that are denied others for reasons directly related to wealth. It does in both instances. They're not orthogonal.
- dantheman 6y agoWhat about famous people? Beautiful people? Charismatic people? People with the right family name? Bush, Clinton, Kennedy? What about the power newspapers have over shaping the national dialogue? what about tv stations? What about unions? What about film makers, authors? How do we limit their power? or is it only money that we're concerned about?
- cycomanic 6y agoActually your example of newspaper and TV stations exactly examplifies why billionaires have such a vast political power which is unhealthy for society. No single TV station, newspaper by itself would ever yield so much power as to be able to shape public opinion in one direction. However take the media empire of the Murdochs which yields a disproportionate amount of power in several countries, very directly pushing the ideology of it's owners.
- dantheman 6y agoI'd say the New York Times is far more influential than murdoch's tabloids and fox. But that's just my opinion.
- MisterBastahrd 6y agoWhat do all of them have in common?
- MaysonL 6y agoRecently I've found myself voting for Walmart, and Best Buy, and Newegg, rather than Amazon. Mostly based on price…
- cycomanic 6y agoI think you have some very distorted concept of democracy. I don't know any definition which includes voting by where you shop. Also I note that the strategy to paint the political class (as opposed to e.g. the business class or some "new" political class) as all corrupt is a common strategy by totalitarians to undermine democratic processes.
- cycomanic 6y agoAnd the power of previous societies aristocrats stemmed from all the peasants voting with their feet and not leaving the "kings/Lords..." land?
- cycomanic 6y agoI can't believe that we are seriously discussing that using some online retailer is somewhat a voting process equivalent to democratic elections. This really shakes my faith in humanity and the HN community.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y agoThis is totally misleading. A capitalist-ish economy is designed to create winners. If it wasn't Bezos, it would be someone else. What matters about Bezos' wealth (in this context) is not that this specific person controls it, but that we live in a society/economy where there will always be people who accrue this level of power and wealth. The problem isn't that Jeff Bezos is this rich, it's that we live in a society designed to concentrate money in this way. ps. I was the 2nd employee at amazon, and worked closely with Bezos for 14 months.
- dantheman 6y agoDemocratic support of a vocal minority and remember her power is predicated on violence, where bezos's power is based on voluntary interaction -- a big difference.
- zjaffee 6y agoBezos's power is entirely predicated on violence, as the ownership of any assets he holds are marked as belonging to him through the backing of violent institutions. This is arguably moreso than AOC as she has no executive authority.
- sphuff 6y agoShe won with 57% of the vote in her district. By definition not a minority. Are you objecting to her winning through a democratic process?
- dantheman 6y agoShe, as most politicians, compete in a primary - that is where the real election is. Her district was going to vote for the Democrat candidate no matter who was selected in the primary. Lastly 57% may seem like a lot or whatever, but it's ~16,000 votes out of a potential ~700,000 for the district. Hell, 16k out of ~100,000 that voted last time isn't a huge amount. REF: https://ballotpedia.org/New_York%27s_14th_Congressional_District https://ballotpedia.org/New_York%27s_14th_Congressional_Dist... But that's just a minor point, overall.
- WalterBright 6y agoWealth can disappear, too. Look at the Hearst family. Large corporations routinely go bankrupt, which vaporizes all the value of the stock it had.
- malcolmxtucker 6y agoTbh, it's borderline plutocracy.