“Elizabeth Warren — the ridiculous hustling flatbilly grifter from Massachusetts from Oklahoma who snookered the academic establishment by pretending to be a Native American while writing dopey self-help books that are so sloppy and intellectually dishonest that it’s a surprise skeezy old Joe Biden hasn’t plagiarized them yet, a political grotesque who prides herself on being in the first generation of her family to attend college but rage-tweets as though she were in the first generation in her family with opposable thumbs, as ghastly and deceitful and god-awful a sniveling and self-serving a creature as the United States Congress has to offer — is, in spite of the genuine facts of her sorry case, getting a little full of herself, and believes that as a senator, she should be above the petty “heckling” of the little people. You know, peons. Like you.”
– Kevin D Williamson. He does invective so well: “flatbilly grifter”. I am stealing that.
Dr Yaron Brook also gives the Massachusetts senator a hammering for her attack on Amazon. There needs to be more of this. And well done Amazon for not backing down.
Warren has called for Amazon to be broken up for some time. It bemuses me when I read even supposed pro-market folk calling for these firms to be “broken up”. Into what: floor paving?
Yeah, Amazon.
Why does Amazon allow sellers on its site to switch out the product in a listing without resetting all the reviews underneath that listing? As, for example, when a listing for a legitimate product which receives good reviews is modified into a listing for a BS product, which now appears to have all those good reviews?
Why does Amazon fail to show COO (Country of Origin) information in its product listings?
Amazon is deep in bed with the Chinese state, perpetuating an endless series of petty frauds against Western consumers, and getting rich in the process. I am not going to burn any resources in defending them. F*ck them.
Amazon has started to censor conservative books – but Senator Warren, and most Democrats, believe it should censor far more.
As for at least 80% of the book trade being in the hands of one company that is troubling – it gives Amazon vast censorship power, that Senator Warren believes they should censor far more is not a defence for the censorship they already practice. But “anti trust” is not the answer to this – or to the problems with Social Media.
To those people calling for the break up of Twitter, Facebook and Google-Youtube – how would it be a better to have lots of companies censoring non leftists, rather than three companies doing it? It is the censorship, not the number of companies, that is the problem. And the source of the censorship is the EDUCATION SYSTEM – which is turning out generations of vermin (the word “vermin” is quite justified) who infest the companies they go to work for, pushing “Woke”, Frankfurt School of Marxism, doctrines.
Breaking up the companies will not change that – not as long as both the schools and universities are as they, dominated by Frankfurt School Marxism. Breaking up Amazon is not going to change that.
As for Mr Jeff Bezos himself – he knows perfectly well that Frankfurt School Marxism “Woke” doctrines are total nonsense, but he allows his “Washington Post” newspaper to push these doctrines (Critical Race Theory, Third Wave Feminism, the Trans Cult for CHILDREN, and so on) – and he allows his staff at Amazon to censor conservative books (although not as much as Senator Warren would like.
Mr Bezos believes that if he plays along with the left they will leave him, and his vast personal wealth, alone.
I think Mr Bezos is mistaken – and he will end up like the Duke of Orleans (the richest man in France) after the French Revolution. But there we go – I suppose it depends on whether Marxism or Fascism (“Stakeholder Capitalism”) wins out.
I would remind Mr Bezos (and J.P.) that whilst Fascism is not Marxism, it is still not very nice – after all Senator Warren supports “Stakeholder Capitalism” (Fascism), her view of the Corporate State most likely does not include Mr Bezos at the top of it.
Unless “top of it” means “his head on top of the Corporate State – stuck on a pole”.
Most sensible ways to deal with the near monopoly that Amazon has would be to stop the LOCKDOWNS (which close down book stores – and in no way reduce disease), and to make taxation less unfair.
It is utterly absurd that a small “mom and pop” book store can end up paying more of its revenue in tax than Amazon does. The taxation of property and income should end (most small business enterprises file under the income tax – not the corporation tax, and corporations can set their local property tax against their corporation tax, YOU TRY ANYTHING LIKE THAT – SEE WHAT THE TAX AUTHORITIES DO TO YOU). The tax should be on SALES – not profits (which Corporations can hide), not property (which destroys small business on Main Street), the tax should be on SALES. That would be a level playing field.
Unlike J.P. I agree there is a problem – I just do not see Anti Trust (anti monopoly) as the solution. And note to Tucker Carlson – what Theodore Roosevelt did was NOT good, it was bad.
On taxes Google is a worse offender than Amazon is – for example Google openly backed the doubling of the State income tax in Arizona (to throw even more money at the far left dominated education system – the Republican response to the campaign was pathetic “we agree that the schools need more money, but this is not the way to do it…….” – once you have said “we agree that the schools need more money” you have LOST THE ARGUMENT, and anything else you say is a waste of time).
Google does not pay State Income Tax, or Federal Income Tax – but small business does, and (contrary to the lying ads that Google pays for on television) Google HATES small business and wants to wipe them out, hence the support for the doubling of State income tax in Arizona, and just about everything else Google does (including its support for lockdowns – and its censoring of Early Treatment for Covid 19).
The Milton Friedman view of Corporations is, sadly, wrong – they are not just the servants of ordinary share holders (“Aunt Agatha”) – indeed most big Corporations could not give a damn about “Aunt Agatha” shareholders. Google has vast institutional shareholders (themselves not individuals) and openly considers itself “the partner of governments” out to shape the “international community” or “world community”.
Edmund Burke had a far more realistic view of what Corporations are like (as did most 18th century writers) than Milton Friedman did in the 20th century. A big Corporation seldom stays interested in just making money – they nearly always develop a political agenda (they go after power). Especially when one remembers what sort of Collectivist indoctrination most Corporate managers had at school and university in the modern world.
Even the Business Schools started to teach Collectivism (“Social Responsibility”) from the 1970s onwards. Donald Trump belongs to perhaps the last generation of people who went to Business School BEFORE Business Schools became about teaching a certain political view of the world – in the 1960s places like Wharton School of Business were a refuge from the leftism that was starting to dominate the universities.
In the 1970s places such as Wharton School of Business stopped being a refuge – not at once, but gradually over time.
As Kissinger said – it’s a pity they can’t both lose.
Though in this case, perhaps they can !
Lots of good stuff here: “in the first generation in her family with opposable thumbs” is too good to pass up.
What or whoever is pulling Bidens strings will have zero regard for Fauxcohontas and her wacky views.
She is an utter irrelevance and everyone including Bezos knows it.
Paul Marks finds me more in agreement than Johnathan does in the OP.
In my opinion, however, Paul is not Machiavellian enough. Take this sentence:
Paul seems to think that folks like Bezos ‘play along’ only to be left alone.
I flatter myself that i am even more cynical.
By ‘playing along’ Bezos and his fellow oligarchs gain enormous power — in the short term.
It is true that they might end up like the Duke of Orleans in the medium/long term, but meanwhile they are the kingmakers.
Biden does not know that he owes the Presidency to the oligarchs, because he does not know anything anymore. But Democrats with mildly functional brains know that, if they want to stay in power, they have to keep the oligarchs happy.
Snorri Godhi – It is for those reasons, among others, that I have taken to using a specific phrase whenever I am in dialog with an Amazon representative (usually to complain about a late delivery or missing package).
At some point in the exchange I will offer this: I should have killed Jeff Bezos when I had the chance, at that party in Seattle.
No one has agreed with me, thus far, but I live in hope.
The best way to be get despised and penalised… be successful. Best way to be lauded and rewarded… be a loser – either a politician or ‘the poor’.
Amazon is ONLY successful because in order to serve its own interests and make itself wealthier, it has to serve the interests of consumers and make them wealthier. That’s how free markets work.
Nobody shops at Amazon and hands over their money because they have a gun to their head, but that’s precisely how politicians and ‘the poor’ get wealthier, by pointing a gun at the heads of the citizenry, hand over your money or else!
Snorri – the behaviour of Mr Bezos, and so many others (in what Time Magazine, hardly a “right wing” source, called a “cabal”) to RIG, sorry “safeguard”, the 2020 Presidential Election – was indeed despicable, unforgivable. Mr Bezos is not as guilty as many others – for example Mark Z of Facebook spent hundreds of millions of Dollars to GAIN CONTROL of voting in some key cities (as if the Democrats there were not corrupt enough – he wanted, and succeeded, in pushing the number of FAKE VOTES into numbers never before seen), Mr Bezos went along with all of it – and his “Washington Post” was buys covering it up to this day.
The behaviour of the establishment in covering up the origins of Covid 19 (the “gain of function” research funded by Peter Daszak in Wuhan) and then covering up (indeed SMEARING) Early Treatment, was even worse.
At this point I do not believe it matters what their motives were – perhaps they were covering their own backsides, or perhaps they really wanted a totalitarian future. If there is a Hell – they are going there.
There will, sadly, be no justice in this world.
John B. – Amazon does not make money by censoring conservative books (for example against the “Trans” Cult – which Mr Biden wishes to apply to EIGHT YEAR OLD CHILDREN, not a “conspiracy theory”, I personally watched Mr Biden say this at a “Town Hall” meeting), they lose money by doing this.
When Lloyds bank deliberately bankrupted itself by buying (already bankrupt) HSBC it was not acting in a commercial way – not a way that Milton Friedman (may his memory be a blessing – and I am not being sarcastic, I liked the man) would have predicted. Sir Victor Blank was doing a political favour for his friend Prime Minister Gordon Brown – the “Aunt Agatha” shareholders of Lloyds were wiped out, but the Corporate elite do not care about individual shareholders.
These vast Corporations are not really about what you think they are about. I wish they were – but they are not. The 18th century view of vast Corporations was correct – they tend to turn to seeking POLITICAL POWER, especially in these days when their staff are “educated” in totalitarian doctrines at school and university.
Limited Liability – which I DEFENDED for years (indeed decades).
I no longer defend limited liability. Yesterday I was looking at the “Time Path” in Kettering Market Place – on the same slab that mentions the bankruptcy of the Kettering Gotch Bank in 1856 it mentions the national limited liability Act.
The United Kingdom became the leading economy in the world WITHOUT this Act – and the Gotch family DESERVED to be wiped out financially, they had managed the bank very rashly and they deserved to harvest what they had planted.
The next generation did not end up on the street – Alfred Gotch became an architect (ironically known for designing bank buildings) and Thomas Gotch became a painter – a very good one.
I think that J.P. would agree that the world would NOT have been a better place if the Gotch family had been been bailed out and the next generation (Alfred and Thomas) become bankers.
Investing in shares is seen as meaning no obligation to make sure the company behaves in a rational way “I own less than 0.1% what can I do?”) that is not a rational economic system.
The economic system supported by the Economist magazine and the rest of the international establishment – where ownership and control are not linked, DOES NOT MAKE SENSE.
Corporate Managers making wild decisions – because they do not care if the enterprise exists in the next generation (or assume it will be bailed out) is not good.
I repeat – Mark Zuckerberg (of Facebook) spent almost half a BILLION Dollars, gaining control of the voting process in certain key cities (as if the Democrats who controlled these cities did not already have a history of corruption – but they could not produce the sheer volume of Fake Votes he wanted – he, and others, took Vote Rigging to an “industrial scale”) and he was not the only one. The “cabal” (as Time Magazine, which ADMIRES them, called them) spent billions of Dollars “safeguarding” the 2020 Presidential election – they blatantly violated the Election Laws of many States (for example on Mail In ballots) and their money made the COURTS (the JUDGES) bow down and kiss their boots.
America is truly damned – damned to Hell. I suspect we all are.
Ferox: so you approve of busting up a firm because a senator’s hurt feelings and you dislike where it makes money (entirely legally, I should add). Let’s just say I am deeply unimpressed by your response. How about arguing about the principle here that calling for anti-trust hit jobs on firms because they defend their tax arrangement is outrageous?
Paul Marks: Amazon has started to censor conservative books – but Senator Warren, and most Democrats, believe it should censor far more.
Indeed. What Amazon did – given its share of the market – is bad, and hopefully, will encourage some consumers to take their custom elsewhere, which is what should happen. But Amazon does not force me to change my choices at gunpoint. A government can do so.
John Lewis: She is an utter irrelevance and everyone including Bezos knows it.
I am not sure how irrelevant she is. She is calling for a wealth tax and busting firms she does not like, just as some amongst the Trumpie GOP members of the House and Senate have done; and her behaviour adds to the narrative and helps move the Overton Window about what is discussable. By talking the way she does, she influences opinion. Smacking down socialist nonsense is always a worthwhile activity.
JohnB: The best way to be get despised and penalised… be successful.
Thread winner.
Paul:
I’d like to stress that i did not speculate about the motives of the oligarchs.
I only said that it is (arguably) in the short-term interest of the oligarchs to enforce wokeness.
The Establishment (and not only in xxi century USA) has a way of acting in its own short-term interest, independently of the conscious motives of members of the Establishment.
I agree that one has to have skin in the game, and the current system falls short in this respect.
But what about private pension funds?
The Danes want to privatize the entire pension system. Are you against that?
Other Rob: did you really get that chance at a party in Seattle? 🙂
Johnathan:
The tech oligarchs can do so too, by leveraging the government.
And not just the US government: any government in any country in which the tech oligarchs can affect elections.
(But we’ll see how the fightback plays out in Poland, Hungary, Florida, etc.)
JohnB:
Needless to say, that is not equally true of all countries.
I suppose that you are British? although it is not universally true even in Britain.
Come, come… if suborned U.S. administrative/regulatory Fourth Branch satrapies can fragment AT&T like plate tectonics did Pangaea, surely Amazon et al. could find themselves in bellbottom crosshairs.
Government may not suffer competition (see Bastiat), but –regardless of their K Street bagmen– private-sector commercial enterprises do.
“Monopoly” (one producer/seller), “monopsony” (one consumer/buyer) jointly reflect undue economic concentration, an invariably exploitative incentive hijacking societal resources to benefit a predatory few.
We understand the dangers of grifting States’ dead-hand, considering “honest Government” a prima facie oxymoron. Yet action must eventually trump words, or what’s Heaven for?
I apologise for misunderstanding you Snorri – I did not examine closely enough what you were saying. There was careless of me – I can be a rash old man at times (“old man in a hurry” is the saying for someone one really needs to avoid, “energy of the dying” is a darker wording).
As for Senator Warren – the lady is actually quite intelligent and can write well when she has a mind to.
I suspect that Elizabeth Warren could have made it in academia (certainly she never had my problem of moral scruples – E.W. was always very flexible ethically), without pretending to be Native American.
I am not sure what the point of the OP is. The quote isn’t that witty or interesting. I clicked the link – “Elizabeth Warren Is a Ridiculous, Power-Hungry Crackpot”. Ya, we know.
Anyway, Paul Marks is on absolute fire in this stream.
I’d love to see a lot of the comments Paul makes in this thread expanded upon into full posts. His comment about limited liability and about the link between ownership and control is particularly interesting and worth exploring.
I also echo Ferox’s apt comments.
Johnathan Pearce,
Where did Ferox say that Amazon should be “busted up” (what does this even mean?)? Where did Ferox say that Amazon should be busted up “because of a Senator’s hurt feelings”? Where did Ferox say he “dislikes where it makes money”? Your response to Ferox is so off-base and strange to me.
We can discuss whether or not Amazon is a monopoly. We can discuss whether or not Amazon should be broken up and/or other action should be taken. Unless you already have all the answers, in which case I’ll be on my way.
It’s always the right time to do the right thing. I think government action should be taken against Amazon for a wide variety of reasons. You may disagree. Okay – we can have a discussion about that.
But if Senator Warren wants to use some bullshit excuse to do what I view as the right thing, I’m not going to complain.
Johnathan Pearce,
I realize that there are diverse opinions among the Samizdatistas – and that’s something I appreciate.
In recent months I have seen many comments from Paul Marks in which he discusses a change in his views on corporations – including in this thread. I consider myself to be firmly in Paul Marks camp on this general matter regarding corporations and their impact on society and, specifically, liberty (this encompasses many specific issues).
Speaking for myself, I think corporations pose a real threat to human liberty, especially as time accelerates in the new millenium. For many reasons.
One reason: there are de jure rights and there are de facto rights. Corporations are able to trample on de facto rights – and that’s exactly what they are doing.
Johnathan – you are right that Amazon does not have the ability to force you to do anything. On the other hand, Amazon is more powerful than most countries on earth. If not for Elon Musk a book on covid with “alternative information” would have been successfully blacklisted by the corporations. You may not consider this a reason to change law surrounding corporations. I agree. But this situation with the attempt by Amazon to blacklist a book is just one straw. There are quite literally billions of such straws. The world is changing and the legal right to do X does not matter if you lack the opportunity to exercise that right.
Negative rights – yes, I understand. That’s the key, perhaps. But I have not forgotten a goal: let a thousand flowers bloom. If there’s only one flower and no legal rights are violated… I consider this a problem.
Shlomo Maistre:
Indeed. Part of the problem with corporations these days is that nobody is responsible for anything. Rather than being owned by people, the bulk of the shares are held by “institutional investors” who appoint as board members the same 30-something know nothing bozos who perpetrate outrages from the executive suites. How else could Gillette lose over $18 Billion as the result of one commercial without anybody being fired?
But I might. Reasons matter and establishing lèse-majesté as precedent is asking for trouble.
Another major problem that is emerging in the age of globalization and the internet with regards to corporations is national allegiances.
I have talked about this before on Samizdata.
US corporations own US politicians. But, in contrast, in China the CCP owns corporations either legally or… effectively. This applies both to Chinese corporations and to foreign corporations (whether German or American or British or Russian etc) who wish to operate within China.
China is the largest market on earth in every. single. industry. Every major corporation must operate there to remain competitive. China is becoming a tech leader in many fields.
So lets recap. American politicians report to American corporations. US corporations own American politicians. And all corporations operating in China report to the CCP. Anyone see a potential issue here?
US politicians are accountable to US corporations and US corporations are accountable to CCP.
For me, avoiding the transgression of negative rights is not the sole goal of policy. Reality is real. National security is real. Technological supremacy is real. Air supremacy (in war) is real. National interests are real. War can be real. Power, struggle, industry, manufacturing, incentives, conflict, alliances, and supply chains matter.
Oh, also, six corporations run almost all the major Fake News Media outlets in the USA. I’m sure China has absolutely no influence over these corporations. No wonder the American populace is so well informed! And it’s not like the Fake News Media is misrepresenting the news to gin up tension between different ethnic groups at all or anything like that!
The sooner Amazon and Google are broken up the better. Maybe you are not yet aware of the elephant in the room, but corporations are not friends of liberty. They are friends of China and the Woke SJW mob. Corporations are the bi**hes of CCP and the Woke Mob. Two pimps – one to decimate our industry, technology advantage, and financial solvency (China) and the other to decimate our culture, stability, and harmony (SJW Woke mob). Corporations have no choice but to obey their pimps.
We need to provide an exit opportunity for these ladies because this pattern is going to destroy our way of life in the West.
Let me requote a samizdata quote of the day.
Fascism is the organised attempt to introduce socialist planning with the consent of big business
– Edward Conze (1934)
Understand this isn’t just something government does to big business, it’s also something big business does to government. Big business isn’t an unwilling victim being run by John Galt, it’s a willing participant run by people like Bill Gates & Jeff Bezos. People respond to incentives, and big businesses are run by people like Bill Gates & Jeff Bezos, people who remain powerful & rich when small fry businesses & the next wave of would-be innovators (currently small but potential rivals) are ‘planned’ out of existence.
Amazon is an amazing company. So was IG Farber (which went from an opponent of the NSDAP to being a donor to the NSDAP).
We see it happening before our very eyes.
Shlomo:
Other Rob:
I am on Shlomo’s side on this.
Shlomo did not say that he is going to side with Warren: he only said that he is not going to side with Amazon.
Why should he side with Amazon, when Amazon would not side with him, if Warren had it in for him??
Snorri Godhi, Shlomo Maistre: When the vast majority of my (mostly Democrat voting) gay friends were cheering on the unconstitutional persecution of the Masterpiece Cake Shop guy, I asked them a simple question – “What are you going to do, when they turn on you?”
This case is no different. If you truly believe that an unconstitutional or extra-judicial remedy is so urgently needed then man up and go commit some murders. Or whatever crimes you deem to be required by the exigencies of the circumstances. But don’t seek to have them done under color of law. That is both cowardly and self defeating as it debases and destroys that which it would purport to be saving.
Not every problem has a solution in law or politics.
@ Snorri Godhi – At the time I thought him just a hard nosed businessman pursuing a monopsony that he would never achieve. This was before Apple and before the extent to which the establishment had been corrupted became apparent.
the other rob,
You are conflating two separate issues. One issue is whether or not the action Senator Warren wants to take against Amazon is good/correct/right. The second issue is Senator Warren’s latest bullshit excuse/motivation for pursuing the action she wants to take against Amazon.
I agree with the action Senator Warren wants to take against Amazon. I do not agree with her excuse/motivation for doing so, but I’m not going to complain about it.
Your analogy does not work because you are comparing the unconstitutional persecution of Cake Man to the excuse/motivation of Senator Warren for pursuing action against Amazon.
The analogous issue to the unconstitutional persecution of Cake Man is the action against Amazon that Senator Warren is pursuing, which is why your comparison is completely flawed. We have NOT been discussing the merits of government action against Amazon. Instead, what you have objected to in this thread is that I don’t object to Senator Warren’s excuse/motivation for the action she is pursuing. The proper analogy to what you object to is NOT the persecution of Cake Man but actually the motivation for the persecution of Cake Man.
the other rob,
Um…. what? I’m not sure who you are responding to. I also have no idea why you are saying any of this.