Why A.O.C. & Protesters May Have Been Right To Chase Amazon From NYC

Protesters in Queens, NY protesting Amazon's corporate welfare M.O.  

 Despite  Amazon's vacating of its planned center in  NYC  - under pressure from strong citizen protests of corporate welfare giveaways-   we've since learned the battle against the behemoth isn't over. Not by a long shot.  In a piece from six days ago (WSJ, 'Amazon Faces Activists in Virginia, Too',  March 16-17, p. A5) we learned there is also unrest in  Crystal City (near Arlington).  In fact, protesters and activists "object to giving tax dollars to one of the world's richest companies and disapprove of Amazon's contracts with the federal government."

People, protesters and activists, are not just being ornery and trying to chase jobs away for hard working citizens.  They want to ensure the cost of any new jobs isn't more than they're really worth.  I mean, seriously, a community like Queens, New York,  is really going to plop $3 billion into Jeff Bezos' lap just to get 25,000 drone jobs?    What do I mean by drone jobs, and why don't we have quality jobs instead?

Let me answer the last question first. We have drone jobs such as I highlight below, because we have winner take all markets. These markets - according to the authors of the book, The Winner Take All Society - sustain distorted processes (namely for participation) that allow only a few real winners in the best jobs, with the best incomes. The others who participate (the majority)  do so to enrich the spoils for the few winners, while they come away with scraps.

The classic case is the newly- minted fiction author.   In the 1990s,  early 2000s this was an abiding aspiration especially for many of those (mainly men, age 50 and older) who had been downsized from corporate jobs..  Alas, their need for an income- earning novel - despite many works being of decent quality- fell victim to two forces: 1) the massive mergers of many small, independent book publishers into a few huge entities, e.g. the mega growth of Bertelsmann AG, and 2) the smashing success of the 'Harry Potter' books, which essentially "ate up" all the disposable income available to purchase other novels.    The result? Winner take all, namely Potter author J.K. Rowling:

Becoming a billionaire while the tens of thousands of would-be novelists ended up getting the dregs, or maybe not even that.   The cruelest aspect is that many critics agreed Ms. Rowling's writing wasn't even that good ("I've seen fourth grade students who write better!" was one comment I often heard) but the hype was enough to drive sales to the top.  The first movie deal ensured the success of the rest of her books, no matter what. Meanwhile, other fiction authors - many excellent - languished, because all the dollars were chasing Rowling's books.

This brings us to the "seasonal" Amazon worker Heike Geissler, whose book (Seasonal Associate)  - - relating  her inside experience of one fulfillment center (in Leipzig, Germany)-  ought to be required reading.  Especially for all those whining about the loss of the Amazon center in Queens. By all rights, given her writing ability, Geissler shouldn't have had to labor away at an Amazon fulfillment center anywhere. In a world based on rewarding actual quality and merit,  rather than winner -take -all victors who benefit from similar processes and markets, she should have been sitting pretty with a least a million euro in the bank. 

Instead we learned that after years of living hand-to-mouth on freelancer checks and translator assignments, and with two kids  to raise, she was forced to take the  Amazon job because she needed the money.  As she relates the situation: (p. 5) "You do get child benefits for the two boys, you can pay your bills, but unfortunately they don't get paid on time...you have to take the first job that comes up and get money in the bank."

She had the option of  applying for  welfare, of course, but like here in the U.S. there were way too many hoops to jump through and besides - as a proud German- she had her pride. So it was Amazon or bust.  In the Afterword to Ms. Geissler's eye-opening book,  Kenneth Vennemann writes:

"Heike plays with these insidious euphemisms, the barefaced lies of 'flat hierarchies' and 'special handling'.  Hence the ugly title, SEASONAL ASSOCIATE, the word associate here so far removed from the idea of partnership and sharing that it makes me snort with cynical laughter."

Well, it made me snort in the same way when I read Heike's book, i.e. of having to earn money from being an Amazon  tote drone.  Of course,  there are hundreds of variations on the theme of 'working for Amazon' which anyone can find by Googling. Sob stories galore, and many of which do elicit sympathy for the those who found themselves in this behemoth's grip. But as Vennemann observes -  "there have been a few undercover pieces on Amazon by journalists, but they went into far less detail."

Indeed, reading Heike's account you are right there with her as she has to work at the receiving end, unpacking boxes and entering products into the system.  Also, consuming half of her lunch break time just getting to and from the company cafeteria. Sounds like a piece of cake? Well it wasn't. It was sheer numbing hell for the weeks she spent during one holiday season.  As she describes one particularly harsh day of drudgery  (p. 100):

"You replace the Band Aids on your hands. Your thumbs, forefingers, middle fingers  on both hands now have long hangnails from all the reaching into totes and boxes and from cutting and folding cardboard. Harmless irritations but they make every movement harder."

What about relief from the endless drudgery, backbreaking hoisting of boxes, opening them etc.?Well, Heike writes there are assorted ways  the over- worked drone might find relief (p. 169):

"How far does your influence extend at Amazon? You receive inbound units and enter them into the system.  You could hide products. Perhaps not forever, but at least for a few days you could hide products from others and thus remove them from the commodities cycle.  You could damage products and pretend they arrived already damaged. …"

And so on.  Anything imagined, anything to slow down or halt the relentless, soul killing "commodities cycle" - which like the assembly line of old is remorseless in its mechanical demand for human compliance and attention.

Reading the book one has the takeaway that Heike is no dummy but college- educated and an accomplished writer to boot.  In some ways, Geissler is an atypical Amazon warehouse worker, at least culturally. .And yet, in the most important way, she appears exactly like every other Amazon warehouse worker:  How many others in the Amazon maze ought to actually be in much better jobs, say if there were no winner take all markets?

Back to the authors of that book, 'The Winner Take All Society' (Ch. 6, 'Too Many Contestants?', p. 102):

"When we assert that winner take all markets attract too many contestants, what we really mean is that society's total income would be higher if fewer people competed in these markets and chose other occupations instead."

So follow this now.  If there were fewer millions chasing first novels or other book rewards, including for trash fiction, children's books and other works, there'd be more monetary rewards to go around for fewer remaining competitors. Ditto,if there were fewer people chasing Ph.D.s who then wanted to become academics - because there simply aren't enough academic positions available. Oh, unless they want to be adjuncts - and have to patch together teaching at multiple sites, while often ending up on food stamps, e.g.

http://chronicle.com/article/From-Graduate-School-to/131795/

Then there is the following most germane point and reason why the "too many contestants"   phenomenon makes it rough for all competitors. (ibid.):

"Market incentives typically lure too many contestants into winner take all markets, and too few into other careers. One reason involves a well documented human frailty: the tendency to overestimate our chances of prevailing over our competitors."

Adding:

"The decision to compete in a winner take all market is akin to buying a lottery ticket. If you win you win many times more than if you were in a less risky career. If you lose, you earn much less."

I would suggest that many thousands of current Amazon workers are like Heike Geissler. They tossed their hats into the ring of  one or more 'winner take all'  markets- then lost the "lotto", and now have ended up packing and unpacking totes at an Amazon fulfillment center.  Just a hypothesis, it could be wrong.  But my point is that because so many fell into this backstop job, this last resort work - doesn't mean it's the only answer or best opportunity for anyone else- including those in the Queens who missed their chance because of the protests.. As even the authors of the WTAS book note, if taxes were dramatically increased there'd be much more  to fund other jobs of quality - as opposed to the current narrow band of good jobs paying well, e.g. Google  techie, banker, tenured prof, or top fiction author.

I write all this by way of Geissler's insights showing  the life of an Amazon worker  - wherever he or she is - is not sweetbread.  Hence, all those capitalist snarks who condemned Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez and others for driving the commercial giant out of Queens because of "loss of jobs" need to get a grip. They also need a better perspective on the nascent issue of corporate welfare and its toxic impact on communities.

The activist critics also miss another point, highlighted in a recent issue of FORBES (March 31, 'Reimagining Capitalism', by Randall Lane, p. 30) noting how it was a self-inflicted error on Bezos' part. As Lane writes (p. 35):

"But Bezos was bloodied just as badly (as the activists, politicians). He's worth over $130 billion (at least until his divorce settles) and Amazon is worth $800 billion. Why extract a measly $3 billion in corporate welfare from New York? In the truest Friedman sense because he has shareholders and he could."

But the point is, at least by not gouging out that huge chunk Bezos would have taken the wind out of AOC 's (and the protesters') sails.  That he chose not to also highlights the power of corporate welfare which has been growing like a cancer for over three decades.

In my book, The Elements of the Corporatocracy I had written:

"The egregious Santa Clara ruling, legally created an instant class of  'supercitizens' - and de facto 'super persons'.  Unlike the normal person-citizen, these were able to live forever, or as close to that sublime  state as de-regulating laws allowed.  They could live in multiple places at  once (branch offices), and even transmogrify themselves via mergers, etc. or 'amputate' themselves into smaller companies bearing the same overall identity, and run by a single interlocking directorate.

These 'corporate persons' were (over time) also able to access a host of special rights and privileges - not afforded ordinary flesh and blood citizens. These included: special tax-write offs, government and state subsidies, as well as deductions.(Like 'tax deferred benefits' packages for CEOs). And, in the late 20th century, a generous form of government subsidy known as 'corporate welfare'  which would extract,  on average - by late 1999- $1,186 from each taxpayer to fund and underwrite  corporate profits and projects. The ostensible reason to 'create jobs', but of course this was a rank myth .

In effect, the stage had been set for endemic and anomalous political and economic imbalance that was built into the very legal system, and manner of governance."

Given this, it's beyond pathetic WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan could have been squawking ('Welcome to New York, Amazon - Now Go Home',  p.A15):

"Here is the truth: New York's progressives weren't tough, they were weak. They don't know how to play this game."

Her solution:

"You quietly say 'yes', go to the groundbreaking, and welcome our new partner to prosperity. Then you wait. And as soon as the new headquarters is finally built and staffed you shake them down like a boss."

Oh, and be sure to:

"Go to your friends in the big New York papers and tell them, 'Amazon's cruel. The shifts are so long the elevator operators are peeing in bottles. And when Bezos dropped his wallet the receptionist broke her back picking it up for him."

Ha, ha and ha! Real funny, but typical of Noonan's cluelessness in this case. But in fact the real cruelty of the Amazon work load is laid not on elevator operators or receptionists but the "associates"" who daily have to load up tons of crap in fulfillment centers, to dispatch to demanding consumers.  Associates like Heike Geissler.

For all those now whining about the loss of those "precious" jobs I invite you to read her book, which offers a stark portrait of self-estrangement, instability, and loneliness on the modern-day assembly line. Like many similar earlier works we see the clash between a worker’s individuality and the brute facts of life in the warehouse, which is what drives the book. Heike's book is also far more literary in style, as she appeals to the likes of Gertrude Stein, Emil Cioran, and Mónica de la Torre  for historical perspective, and to make sense of the tedium that overwhelms her each day. .

As with other, earlier accounts, Geissler exposes many of the horrors of the job, but what her book reveals, above all else, is how working in a place like Amazon erodes one’s sense of self.  One begins with an individuality, an identity - and above all-   dignity and self- respect. One ends up as a cipher, a drone,  an unthinking cog. From the start, Geissler highlights this erosion, switching between the first and second person—a means of distancing herself from the events she chronicles. Although the self she describes is, in fact, her, it is also not her.  The latter in the sense that -  as a single temp worker subject to the immense power of a global corporation —Heike Geissler ceases to exist. For example, the Heike Geissler of literary acumen and uncommon insights into the world of capitalist drudgery and 'profits over people' .

As she writes in the book’s opening pages, “[You’ll] realize that your trouble and suffering are by no means specific to you, but astonishingly generic. Yes, you are generic.”  

In the end, AOC and her fellow Queens NY protesters and activists were right to send Bezos and Amazon packing, despite what those like Noonan claim.  Yeah, they lost maybe 25,000 jobs but spared those 25,000 from becoming ciphers and Amazon drones.  Now that $3b saved can be used for health care clinics, free child care and civic improvements as well as  basic income for those who need it, and might have been impacted by the absence of those mind-numbing jobs. 

See Also:

Corporate America | Economic Policy | Government

New Yorkers Were Right to Oppose the Amazon Deal

by Larry Beinhart | February 23, 2019 - 7:11am | permalink

Excerpt:

 "Most Amazon employees race around warehouses looking for goods, then put them in those custom Amazon boxes, with computer printed labels, then take them to the loading dock, constantly under the pressure of clocks that say they have to fill so many orders an hour. According to Glassdoor.com, Warehouse Associates make $14 an hour. If they work a 40-hour week, 50 weeks a year, that's all of $28,000.."

AND:

Wealth Inequality

There’s Plenty of Wealth to Go Around — It Just Doesn’t