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Amazon is a rational company and acts in its own interest. The politicians we elect act in Amazons interest. So we are to fault for this. No hiding the truth. I

Amazon is a rational company and acts in its own interest. The politicians we elect act in Amazons interest. So we are to fault for this. No hiding the truth. If we to change (a big if) we have to not vote for the corporate politicians. Till then it is just whining and dining. From the article: The architect of this under-the-radar campaign to smother privacy protections has been Jay Carney, who previously served as communications director for Joe Biden, when Biden was vice president, and as press secretary for President Barack Obama. Hired by Amazon in 2015, Carney reported to founder Jeff Bezos and built a lobbying and public-policy juggernaut that has grown from two dozen employees to about 250, according to Amazon documents and two former employees with knowledge of recent staffing.

xbar 5y ago
We have to not vote for the corporate politicians. Which ones are those?
- SyzygistSix 5y ago
  The ones running in the primary elections that almost no one pays attention to or votes in. Places in Maine and Vermont managed to keep out big box stores. Because they cared and cared enough to be informed and vote. It can be more difficult in areas with more people but I think democracy can scale.
- avmich 5y ago
  We have to look at them and find out. We have to _constantly_ look at them, politics isn't a single transaction - you can't have democracy running by itself, you have to always practically support it with attention and resources.
- Nasrudith 5y ago
  Corporate isn't a useful term of division nor a guide to policy. If say Maine lost their mind and decided to try to autarkize their state government they would wind up just running things far less efficiently from effectively a neurotic a fear of companies as HP Lovecraft had of the ocean. The entire framing of "the people vs. corporations" is a massively overreductive us-vs-them clichè used in service of demagoguery. It is divorced from the reality of not only how the system works but even how any theoretical system could and would work. Instead it is about emotional flattery. The whole dichotomy is worse than useless. Like trying to divide politicians between who is a grey and who is a snakeperson, a nonsensical distraction. There are always conflicting interests in complex arrangements. Just look at the dynamics and all of the interests for and against the proposed "US made union manufactured electric vehicle subsidy".
cowpig 5y ago
I'm pretty tired of this trope about blind self-interest being "rational", as if acting in the public interest is somehow "irrational" There are perfectly "rational" ways of defending placing value in either. Further, public interest and self-interest are not concepts in direct opposition. In fact, I'd go so far as to argue that the best socio-political systems are the ones which best align the two. edit: Further thought: consumer protection laws exist to bring those two into better alignment. In a market where there are many small competitors, it wouldn't make economic sense for any individual to lobby to destroy these protections, as everyone is subject to the same rules. Amazon is large enough that tipping the scales in favor of the self-interest of its business affects it in an outsized way. I think a big part of the problem here is the size of the market actor.
- missedthecue 5y ago
  "Rational self-interest" is a specific academic economics term. https://thebusinessprofessor.com/en_US/economic-analysis-monetary-policy/rational-self-interest-definition https://thebusinessprofessor.com/en_US/economic-analysis-mon...
  - cowpig 5y ago
    A specific academic term that has philosophical implications that I'm saying are harmful edit: maybe not in all contexts, but certainly in the context of the comment I was replying to
  - omnicognate 5y ago
    That doesn't change anything the post you're replying to said. Rational self-interest in that sense is a simplifying assumption made as part of the process of mathematically modelling economic behaviour. It's not a prescription for how a real world company like Amazon should behave. Somebody will probably now bring up "fiduciary duty" and "shareholder value" which are almost as irrelevant.
    - missedthecue 5y ago
      Why should we expect Amazon (or anyone for that matter) to engage in behaviour that favors you at their own expense? That makes no sense to me. Of course they should act in their own rational self interest, just like you and I do.
nitwit005 5y ago
We get the choice between two candidates, both of whom will act in corporate interests, most of the time. Even magical, all knowing, voters that perfectly optimize the selection won't fix the issue.
- dfxm12 5y ago
  Maybe if you only pay attention to national general elections. We didn't get here overnight and yeah, one election can't fix this either. That's not an excuse to have a defeatist attitude though! Just being informed can help you see there's more to it. Based on your comment, one thing I would suggest you get more involved in primary elections.
- SyzygistSix 5y ago
  Primary elections have any number of candidates running and are often only loosely Democrats or Republicans.
nescioquid 5y ago
> Amazon is a rational company and acts in its own interest. The politicians we elect act in Amazons interest. So we are to fault for this. When I was young, I was told that even in totalitarian societies, you got to vote. There might be one name on the ballot, but you got to vote. People refuse to vote 3rd party for fear of throwing a vote away, yet only corporatist candidates will fly under D or R. Voting for different Ds or Rs won't change anything. The passage you quote is merely one small illustration of regulatory capture, a normalized form of corruption.
- SyzygistSix 5y ago
  >yet only corporatist candidates will fly under D or R Not true. Non-corporate candidates run in the primaries all the time. No one votes for them or even bothers to show up, despite the early voting periods most states have. Texas has 10 days of early voting. My state has 20.
  - nescioquid 5y ago
    US political parties are essentially private organizations; that they hold elections to determine their candidates is a not terribly distant change. In any case, they are not obliged to be impartial in the process. But to vote in a primary, you need to be a partisan. So even if the parties were perfectly impartial in this process, all you've managed to show by "no one votes for them" is that Ds and Rs select for corporatist candidates.
    - SyzygistSix 5y ago
      But they don't, especially on the local and state level. They may fund their favorites but outright socialists and communists can and do run in the Democratic primaries, to say nothing of progressives and Greens. And if I was in a district that had closed primaries where one party routinely wins, I would definitely register for that party. It doesn't mean anything.
      - nescioquid 5y ago
avgcorrection 5y ago
This is a fantastical claim when you think about it. You are effectively claiming that both (1) US citizens systematically choose politicians that are corporate friendly (because this is the more general truth—they are friendly to all entities with money) and that (2) this “choice” is so free that you can just “vote for someone else” (who?). Another (less fantastical claim) is that most politicians are corporate friendly and in turn you don’t really have such a free choise.

xbar 5y ago

We have to not vote for the corporate politicians. Which ones are those?

SyzygistSix 5y ago
The ones running in the primary elections that almost no one pays attention to or votes in. Places in Maine and Vermont managed to keep out big box stores. Because they cared and cared enough to be informed and vote. It can be more difficult in areas with more people but I think democracy can scale.
avmich 5y ago
We have to look at them and find out. We have to _constantly_ look at them, politics isn't a single transaction - you can't have democracy running by itself, you have to always practically support it with attention and resources.
Nasrudith 5y ago
Corporate isn't a useful term of division nor a guide to policy. If say Maine lost their mind and decided to try to autarkize their state government they would wind up just running things far less efficiently from effectively a neurotic a fear of companies as HP Lovecraft had of the ocean. The entire framing of "the people vs. corporations" is a massively overreductive us-vs-them clichè used in service of demagoguery. It is divorced from the reality of not only how the system works but even how any theoretical system could and would work. Instead it is about emotional flattery. The whole dichotomy is worse than useless. Like trying to divide politicians between who is a grey and who is a snakeperson, a nonsensical distraction. There are always conflicting interests in complex arrangements. Just look at the dynamics and all of the interests for and against the proposed "US made union manufactured electric vehicle subsidy".

cowpig 5y ago

I'm pretty tired of this trope about blind self-interest being "rational", as if acting in the public interest is somehow "irrational" There are perfectly "rational" ways of defending placing value in either. Further, public interest and self-interest are not concepts in direct opposition. In fact, I'd go so far as to argue that the best socio-political systems are the ones which best align the two. edit: Further thought: consumer protection laws exist to bring those two into better alignment. In a market where there are many small competitors, it wouldn't make economic sense for any individual to lobby to destroy these protections, as everyone is subject to the same rules. Amazon is large enough that tipping the scales in favor of the self-interest of its business affects it in an outsized way. I think a big part of the problem here is the size of the market actor.

missedthecue 5y ago
"Rational self-interest" is a specific academic economics term. https://thebusinessprofessor.com/en_US/economic-analysis-monetary-policy/rational-self-interest-definition https://thebusinessprofessor.com/en_US/economic-analysis-mon...
- cowpig 5y ago
  A specific academic term that has philosophical implications that I'm saying are harmful edit: maybe not in all contexts, but certainly in the context of the comment I was replying to
- omnicognate 5y ago
  That doesn't change anything the post you're replying to said. Rational self-interest in that sense is a simplifying assumption made as part of the process of mathematically modelling economic behaviour. It's not a prescription for how a real world company like Amazon should behave. Somebody will probably now bring up "fiduciary duty" and "shareholder value" which are almost as irrelevant.
  - missedthecue 5y ago
    Why should we expect Amazon (or anyone for that matter) to engage in behaviour that favors you at their own expense? That makes no sense to me. Of course they should act in their own rational self interest, just like you and I do.

nitwit005 5y ago

We get the choice between two candidates, both of whom will act in corporate interests, most of the time. Even magical, all knowing, voters that perfectly optimize the selection won't fix the issue.

dfxm12 5y ago
Maybe if you only pay attention to national general elections. We didn't get here overnight and yeah, one election can't fix this either. That's not an excuse to have a defeatist attitude though! Just being informed can help you see there's more to it. Based on your comment, one thing I would suggest you get more involved in primary elections.
SyzygistSix 5y ago
Primary elections have any number of candidates running and are often only loosely Democrats or Republicans.

nescioquid 5y ago

> Amazon is a rational company and acts in its own interest. The politicians we elect act in Amazons interest. So we are to fault for this. When I was young, I was told that even in totalitarian societies, you got to vote. There might be one name on the ballot, but you got to vote. People refuse to vote 3rd party for fear of throwing a vote away, yet only corporatist candidates will fly under D or R. Voting for different Ds or Rs won't change anything. The passage you quote is merely one small illustration of regulatory capture, a normalized form of corruption.

SyzygistSix 5y ago
>yet only corporatist candidates will fly under D or R Not true. Non-corporate candidates run in the primaries all the time. No one votes for them or even bothers to show up, despite the early voting periods most states have. Texas has 10 days of early voting. My state has 20.
- nescioquid 5y ago
  US political parties are essentially private organizations; that they hold elections to determine their candidates is a not terribly distant change. In any case, they are not obliged to be impartial in the process. But to vote in a primary, you need to be a partisan. So even if the parties were perfectly impartial in this process, all you've managed to show by "no one votes for them" is that Ds and Rs select for corporatist candidates.
  - SyzygistSix 5y ago
    But they don't, especially on the local and state level. They may fund their favorites but outright socialists and communists can and do run in the Democratic primaries, to say nothing of progressives and Greens. And if I was in a district that had closed primaries where one party routinely wins, I would definitely register for that party. It doesn't mean anything.
    - nescioquid 5y ago

avgcorrection 5y ago

This is a fantastical claim when you think about it. You are effectively claiming that both (1) US citizens systematically choose politicians that are corporate friendly (because this is the more general truth—they are friendly to all entities with money) and that (2) this “choice” is so free that you can just “vote for someone else” (who?). Another (less fantastical claim) is that most politicians are corporate friendly and in turn you don’t really have such a free choise.