Unless you are living under a rock, you have likely heard the headline that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is projected to be the world’s first trillionaire in the next few years. Let’s get straight to the point: Bezos is an evil man. There is no way to ethically amass $1,000,000,000,000 in wealth. And since this blog is dedicated to inspiring others to be conscious consumers, I thought we should talk about it.
While other businesses are struggling amidst the covid pandemic, Amazon is doing better than ever. It makes sense, when people can’t leave their houses, they will need to order things online. You may be thinking so what? If they’ve got a good business model and are meeting a demand, who cares? The issue is that Amazon’s success and in turn, Bezos’s success, is built upon worker exploitation.
Several Amazon employees have come forward sharing stories of how they are forced to work in grueling conditions with no breaks to use the restroom or drink water. Medical and Physiological needs are ignored. One man shares how a doctor’s order to not put weight on his foot post surgery was blatantly disregarded as he was forced to work as usual. Workers are also held to ridiculous efficiency standards which are nearly impossible to keep up, especially if a package bursts adding cleanup time, which often occurs according to employees. One worker shares she feels she is treated more like a machine and less like a human being.
Maybe you felt like you didn’t have a choice but to support Amazon during the quarantine, but as stores begin to reopen, I highly encourage you to support local businesses instead of ordering on Amazon. I understand the extreme convenience of shopping online and receiving your item two days later with free shipping is, but if you consider what kind of company policies were put into place to make those cheap prices and fast turnaround possible, you may reconsider.
I will admit, I’m not perfect. I do, sometimes, order things on Amazon, but only after I have explored every other possible option and cannot find an alternative. Everytime I place an order I experience brutal cognitive dissonance, but it happens. I’m not here to tell you to give up amazon forever, because I understand that is not easy.
Even if we all stopped ordering from Amazon.com, it would be almost impossible to stop putting money in Bezos’s pockets. He owns or holds large shares in companies such as Whole Foods, Goodreads, IMdB, and even the Washington Post, a news source I have cited on this blog in the past. It would be very difficult to live one's life without making a ridiculously rich man even richer.
At this point I would usually wrap things up in a neat little bow and offer a solution. But I truly don’t know what to do. I can boycott Amazon and tell you to do the same, but the tech company and the cartoon rich person who owns it aren’t going anywhere. Systematic change is necessary to fix things. Just remember, whether you live in a studio apartment and barely make rent or you own a nice house in a gated community, you have a lot more in common with the worker peeing in a water bottle than you do with Jeff Bezos. Remember who the enemy is and where your solidarity should lie.
For More on Bezos's wealth and Amazon's working conditions check out these articles from Business Insider, The Guardian, and Market Watch.
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