[Terese Coe]

Originally Posted by Gail White

Yes indeed. We are going full circle back to the Victorian era, when the man who could get the most work out of the paupers for the least amount of food got the contract to run the workhouse.

Precisely, Gail!

[Quincy Lehr]

And actually, while I'm on it, Michael, the whole "anyone could compete" with Amazon really does fall flat when one realizes that the economy of scale still matters. The internet changes things to an extent, but late-capitalist political economy is largely what it was twenty years ago--except that the plutocrats have an even greater share of the wealth!

[Janice D. Soderling]

I know I said I was through with this debate but Post 18 is such an excellent example of the downdumbing of reasoning abilities that it should be addressed.

Firstly Mr. Palmer, in a previous post, challenges me to explain a statement which I have not made. Then he returns and tries to answer it for me. And in his argument he supports the very notions that I introduced in the thread i.e. the danger of consolidation of goods and/or services into the hands of monopolies (a situation in which one company controls an industry or is the only provider of a product or service) and oligarchies (a small group of people who together govern a nation or control an organization, often for their own purposes).

a) he suggests that such consolidation as Amazon represents frees him from the excessive fuel expense that driving to an independent bookstore entails.

ExxonMobil[ is one of the largest publicly traded companies by market capitalization in the world, having been ranked either No. 1 or No. 2 for the past 5 years, and is the second largest company in the world by market revenue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil

b) Quote: … Amazon ['s ] goal is to make money on sales, not anything else--Bezos wants to be the point of sale for the world,

c) Quote: Perhaps you imagine a world in which Amazon gains a total domination of the market and then cuts us off Soviet-Bread-Line-Style.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lange-MigrantMother02.jpg

The following post refers to TechniDirt. I'd like to also refer to it; today's post (April 18) http://www.techdirt.com/user/mmasnick which indicates the intention and ideal use of the Internet which most certainly speaks against the idea of one or some few actors controlling it.

In providing a system for manipulating this sort of information, the hope would be to allow a pool of information to develop which could grow and evolve with the organisation and the projects it describes. For this to be possible, the method of storage must not place its own restraints on the information. This is why a "web" of notes with links (like references) between them is far more useful than a fixed hierarchical system. When describing a complex system, many people resort to diagrams with circles and arrows. Circles and arrows leave one free to describe the interrelationships between things in a way that tables, for example, do not. The system we need is like a diagram of circles and arrows, where circles and arrows can stand for anything.

I'd like also to suggest some further reading picked after a quick search through my bookshelves (possibly available on Kindle): The Culture Industry by Theodor Adorno, Democracy and the Marketplace of Ideas by Erik Åsard and W. Lance Bennett, The Marketing of the President by Bruce I. Newman, Om Televisionen (English title On Television) by Pierre Bourdieu. None of these are new, but all are worth reading still.

I daresay this topic—control of the media and information industries—will become even more topical as the American presidential campaigns move out of first gear.

Anyone who doesn't have bubble wrap inside their skull ought certainly to see the reason to strive to control information content and availability.

Finally a quote about Adorno's book mentioned above:

…He argued that the culture industry commodified and standardized all art. In turn this suffocated individuality and destroyed critical thinking. At the time, Adorno was accused by his many detractors of everything from overreaction to deranged hysteria. In today's world, where even the least cynical of consumers is aware of the influence of the media, Adorno's work takes on a more immediate significance. The Culture Industry is an unrivalled indictment of the banality of mass culture.

Add to that the fearsome thought of having access only to trivial and/or brainwashing information, and worse, believing there to be nothing else.
I'll bet you a dollar to a stale doughnut that if you took a poll of the general public (or of the Tea Partygoers) and asked them the origins of the national motto "In God We Trust," most would vaguely believe it came with the constitution.

[Janice D. Soderling]

I happened to think of another book that might be of interest. Democracy and Its Critics by Robert A. Dahl. A polyarchy, which is a nation-state that has certain procedures that are necessary for following the democratic principle) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyarchy ; among these conditions is that citizens have access to alternative sources of information that are not monopolized by the government or any other single group (p. 233 in chapter 17).

Ponder the idea of media control by a group such as the inane Tea Party or some anti-democratic religious sect.

[G. M. Palmer]

Quincy--I said the article was interesting, not necessarily canon.

The interesting thing about Amazon is that it actually allows for more independent booksellers as it functions also as a printing press. There is a great resistance among the indie, small, and micro-presses (at least the ones with booths at AWP) to engage in ebook publishing (notably, however, Red Hen just came out with an ebook of Ernie's 60 Sonnets). This is to their peril.

I certainly believe Amazon could abuse their power to limit the availability of texts (see what Smashwords did recently regarding certain forms of erotica). This is on the same scale with what Google could do with the information they have on hand.

The problem, though, is that it's not in their corporate interest to abuse that power--not to the extent you imagine, Ms Soderling (if we're being formal). Certainly it is in their interest to reduce competition (that's what people do) but if they went from product distributors/information providers on the general populace end (and ad agency on the business end of Google) to product/information restrictors, their business would dry up overnight.

Perhaps it is possible for Amazon & Google to get too big for their britches and want to take over the world.

I doubt it, though.

Corporations aren't governments, even if they do their best to try to run governments.

Their interest CERTAINLY is in manipulating our behavior but to turn a profit, not to oppress us, advance an ideology (unless it's to make money), etc.

[Janice D. Soderling]

This seems to me to be relevant to this thread.

http://www.utne.com/mind-body/gay-mo...m_medium=email

In a situation where the presidental candidates are funded by big business and religious organizations, it is hard to believe that the funding doesn't come with an agenda.

If one of these groups is prone to censor the covers of magazines, what else would they desire to censor? What kind of legislation would they desire to overturn and replace?

Just asking.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Read this and watch this terrific video. Do it.

http://www.utne.com/The-Sweet-Pursui...eet-Books.aspx

[G. M. Palmer]

Romney knows that he can't play up his Mormonism if he wants to be president. Too many conservatives think all Mormons are evil devil worshippers.

Honestly, reading the article is just sad. People are so ignorant. They remind me of the folks calling for George Zimmerman's blood--only these folks have gotten a chance to act on their idiotic beliefs. Violence is simply not the answer.

It hardly addresses the Amazon problem, though. Amazon isn't run by Mormons. Amazon's "ideals" are to make money, not participate in a theocracy.

[Quincy Lehr]

Erm... Zimmerman shot a man (well, a teenager) armed with Skittles. If violence is indeed not the answer, tell that to the family of Trayvon Martin, who have insisted, not unreasonably, on the rule of law.

Where I found your recent posts... lacking, though, had to do with a lack of sense of how political economy works--perhaps in turn rooted in a generally benign notion of capitalism. Yes, Amazon deigns to allow independent booksellers to use its site, but one pays through the nose to do so. It's not terribly surprising in that regard, but the fact remains. Where the company itself is concerned, working conditions are often like this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_971851.html

And as for Amazon's "interest" in not screwing customers, did you ever drive a GM-produced vehicle from the 1970s? Sure, the Japanese and Germans made inroads in the American market due to the manifest $#ittiness of American cars specifically designed to become obselescent after a few years, as it wasn't as if independent auto producers stepped into the gap. No, to work the analogy, if Amazon slips, it'll be Barnes and Noble stepping in. Or something of that ilk.

The thing is, we approach the economy not just (or even primarily) as atomized consumers hunting for bargains, but also as (in general) employees. Sure, I don't like shelling out $20 for softcover books any more than the next guy--and in some cases (e.g. textbooks) the prices are artificially inflated by companies who know that students will pay because they, well, have to--but praising Amazon feels a bit like praising Walmart. I'm not entirely dewy-eyed about what they're replacing, but I do recognize the human cost of capital's tendency to accumulate.

The big assumption frequently made in these discussions is that the system somehow "works," that if the intrepid businessman can suss out what the consumer wants, all will be well... as if the manufacturing of demands weren't a major part of the process, not to mention that as the past several years have made painfully obvious, the interests of the shareholders and those of the consumers are frequently out of alignment. Beyond which, the rise of freelancing in white-collar work, even as industrial-sector unions continue their nosedive, has made work for literally millions of people a matter of constant hustling. Go into a cafe in Fort Greene or Clinton Hill or Park Slope or Williamsburg and look at the glowing screens of the laptops. It won't be Facebook beaming back at you, but, more often than not, this, that, or the other project. Yes, more things are being traded, the world has been "flattened" in that dolt Thomas Friedman's maladroit metaphor... and my generation--and yours, Michael... we're roughly the same age--works longer hours with less job security than our parents. It doesn't work, not for most of us.

[Gail White]

If you remember the sixties, you know that back in the day, futurologists were extremely concerned about what we would do in coming decades with our vast accumulation of leisure time.

And look what happened...people working on laptops in cafes, as described by Quincy, and the 2-week vacation has been largely replaced by the "weekend getaway" (where you can bring your laptop).

At least if you're American. If you're French, you still get the whole month of August off every year.

God forbid we should become like the French.