Also Amazon’s shareholders do not democratically control the company, so most shareholders are beholden to the board of directors and the few very wealthy large shareholders.
While I do not propose mandatory changes, I think it would behoove us to consider how current power structures affect our freedom and the freedom of others. Amazon has a lot of power over us.
What I advocate is that, if we find the current arrangement problematic, we construct alternative power structures that are democratic in nature. And we use those power structures in lieu of centralized corporate power.
If a single democratically operated company got very large and used its power in anti social ways, I would again advocate that people consider seriously the affects of that power and change their support as needed.
I do think, however, that the “problem” of large democratically controlled powers is a better problem to have than large centrally controlled powers, so it would be an improvement nonetheless.
Ideally, the democratic corporations would also make collective decisions through a congress of rotating company representatives. This would provide some forcing function that would reduce anti social behavior in a single corporation, at the risk of trade embargoes.
We kind of already have that in that democratically elected government officials have the power to unilaterally (without corporations having a say) set laws to constrain the behavior of corporations.
Problem is most of the people don’t elect officials that do so - at least according to some people’s standards.
Also Amazon’s shareholders do not democratically control the company, so most shareholders are beholden to the board of directors and the few very wealthy large shareholders.
While I do not propose mandatory changes, I think it would behoove us to consider how current power structures affect our freedom and the freedom of others. Amazon has a lot of power over us.
What I advocate is that, if we find the current arrangement problematic, we construct alternative power structures that are democratic in nature. And we use those power structures in lieu of centralized corporate power.
If a single democratically operated company got very large and used its power in anti social ways, I would again advocate that people consider seriously the affects of that power and change their support as needed.
I do think, however, that the “problem” of large democratically controlled powers is a better problem to have than large centrally controlled powers, so it would be an improvement nonetheless.
Ideally, the democratic corporations would also make collective decisions through a congress of rotating company representatives. This would provide some forcing function that would reduce anti social behavior in a single corporation, at the risk of trade embargoes.
What do you think of that?