Why I Don't Boycott Amazon
Amazon is evil, so we must boycott them, shop local instead. But has anyone though this through really? Local stores suck also.
I worked a lot of retail, warehouse, labor, and light manufacturing jobs while I was in high school and college. I shop places and talk to the employees. I have done some research so see this stuff professionally. I have kids who have jobs for restaurants, delivery services, small businesses.
Business owners vary, but across industries, are generally awful, awful people.
Most business owners are smart enough to not tell you their politics, or post the salaries they pay their employees. So: how do you know your favorite cute local store isn’t full of Nazis who pay their people minimum wage? Because, a lot are.
Local Stores Are Not
Almost all stores buy from distributors, or aren’t local at all and are part of corporate chains. There’s a whole sort of franchise that tries to make this unclear, has only one location in a whole city, and every one has their own website. All to obscure the fact they are not cute locals, but faceless corporate entities.
Where do they get their products? Well, good luck finding out. It may well be considered a trade secret. So unless all your shopping is with certified Fair Trade places, where’s your money going? You don’t know. Often, from horrible giant corporate entities.
Political Opacity, But Right Leaning
Let’s take just one example: you should use the local hardware store (as I do) vs a a big box (Lowe’s, Home Depot) or Amazon, you aren’t using a local hardware store. They are all, 100%, franchisees of big chains. Ace and True Value are biggest. And they are pretty reliable RNC contributors if that’s something that bugs you. Here for one example is how much that True Value donations per political party
Ace has toned things down more, but except for 2016, always donates more to R than D causes and parties. And man did they outdo themselves in 2012: Ace Hardware donations per political party
Labor Practices
How many whistleblowers do you hear of who get in huge trouble for their efforts? A lot. And that’s at big corps mostly. Now, consider you are one of two employees being worked to death at the local shop. Gonna file an EEOC claim? There’s no such thing as anonymity there, I think the boss can guesses who it is.
The reason we need new minimum wage laws is not for the McDonalds, but for every stupid little shop we cannot bring political pressure against individually. Minimum wage is very common. So common that anyone who doesn’t pay that advertises it loudly. Now, look at the We’re Hiring signs in shop windows; how many say the starting wage?
Carbon and Congestion
It is hard to do the math with some of the industry opacity, but driving to businesses to shop is a carbon disaster. And, many of the surveys I’ve seen talk about individual car trips. How does stuff get from factory to distributor to store? Not rickshaw.
Diesel trucks. Which idle on delivery. BIG trucks for each and every store, even when it’s hideously inconvenient or inefficient to stuff a 54 foot trailer into the alley, or quaint downtown street. I have unloaded more than my fair share.
My inclination from the little data we can see is that we’re making out a lot better with things like Amazon distribution centers and direct delivery.
Which segues into how it gets better. They already are pretty good at electrification — that’s what we call moving from fuel-based systems to electric drive — for in-warehouse lot ops, for being no idle, and otherwise making things efficient.
Amazon for one has promised zero-carbon-cost customer shipping by 2030. We can influence, and monitor them. Their influence could be positive, and get the people who deliver to them to be more carbon (and people) friendly as well.
We are up in arms about working conditions. But… ever worked a warehouse job? I have. Amazon warehouse workers have benefits, and indeed pay more than the competition. It’s shitty, it’s not enough, but it’s better than the typical faceless warehouse, which is why people work there, and has already changed for the better.
We Can Apply Pressure
I feel that generally, the scale means attention that means good. Much more so in my personal experience than we are ever gonna be able to influence individual shopkeepers, smaller chains, and invisible-to-consumer organizations.