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Q and A with Nick Couldry and Ulises A Mejias on Data Grab
In this interview with Anna D’Alton (LSE Review of Books), Nick Couldry and Ulises A Mejias discuss their new book, Data Grab which explores how Big Tech ushered in an exploitative system of “data colonialism” and presents strategies on how we can resist it.
Nick Couldry and Ulises A Mejias will speak at a public LSE event to launch the book on Tuesday 14 May at 6.30pm. Find out more and Register.
Q: What is data colonialism and how does it relate to historical colonialism?
Data colonialism, as we define it, is an emerging social order based on a new attempt to seize the world’s resources for the benefit of elites. Like historical colonialism, it is based on the extraction and appropriation of a valuable resource. The old colonialism grabbed land, resources and human labour. The new one grabs us, the daily flow of our lives, in the abstract form of digital data. And, crucially, this new colonialism does not replace the old colonialism, which very much still continues in its effects. Instead, it adds to the historically enduring process of colonialism a new toolkit, a toolkit that involves collecting, processing, and applying data.
The old colonialism grabbed land, resources and human labour. The new one grabs us, the daily flow of our lives, in the abstract form of digital data.
We are not saying there is a one-to-one correspondence between the old colonialism and the new, expanded one. The contexts, the intensities, the modalities or colonialism have always varied, even though the function has remained the same: to extract, to dispossess. And violence continues to reverberate along the same inequalities created by colonialism. We personally may even benefit from the system. We might not mind giving up our data, because we are the ones using gig workers; we are not the gig workers themselves. We are the ones who don’t get to see violent videos on YouTube, because someone in the Philippines has done the traumatising work of flagging and getting those videos removed (while working for very low wages). These are not the same kinds of colonial brutalities of yesterday, but there is still a lot of violence in these new forms of exploitation and the whole emerging social order of data colonialism is being built on force, rather than choice.
Q: Why is it important to frame Big Tech’s extraction of data to form “data territories” as a colonial enterprise? How is data territorialised and extracted?
Something central to colonialism (and capitalism) is the drive to continue accumulating more territories. Colonisers are always looking for new “territories” or “frontiers” from which to extract value. Lenin once said something to the effect that imperialism is the most advanced form of capitalism: once you run out of people to exploit at home, you must colonise new zones of extraction that also become new markets for what you are selling. That is the strategy behind data colonialism, seen as the latest landgrab in a very long series of resource appropriation.
Once you run out of people to exploit at home, you must colonise new zones of extraction that also become new markets for what you are selling. That is the strategy behind data colonialism
Data colonialism is a system for making people easier to use by machines. Corporations have, in many cases, managed to monetise that data by using it to influence our commercial and political decisions, and by selling our lives back to us (the platform can “organise” your life for you and even track and predict your health and emotions). And even where data cannot be directly monetised, accumulated or anticipated data still generates value in terms of speculative investments that build stock market value.
We are not saying that all extracted data necessarily becomes a valuable commodity. Data markets are complex and still developing: much data retains greater value when kept and used inside corporations, rather than being sold between corporations. But value has been extracted all the same through the process of abstracting human life in the form of data.
Q: Data extractivism or “social quantification” is being embedded into our lives in sectors from health and education to farming and labour. How is it reshaping society?
When the internet was not yet controlled by a handful of corporations, we were told that it could be the ultimate tool for democratisation, because it allowed the sharing of information from many to many. Today, what we have is a monopsony, a market structure characterised by a handful of “buyers” (the platforms that “buy” our data or rather acquire it for free). So many-to-many communication cannot happen without first going through a many-to-one filter, concentrating power in a few hands.
In addition to this, the people who manage this system have become quite adept at fragmenting the public into communities that mistrust and hate each other (often called filter bubbles, or echo chambers, though some prefer to think in terms of wider forces of polarisation). The original intent was to make it easier to market to these individual communities, and to do so by targeting ever more personalised content which, because it is more personalised, is more likely to generate the response that advertisers desire. But the system has spiralled out of control because it rewards the circulation of sensationalist misinformation that appeals to base emotions and promotes an us-vs-them parochialism, all while also encouraging addiction and increasing time spent on the platforms.
Q: Have there been any meaningful attempts to regulate the extraction and commodification of data? What are the dangers in it going unchecked?
In terms of regulation, governments have until recently done very little to prevent or even regulate this. Partly because it took them a long time to understand what was going on, but also because most governments have actually pursued policies of media deregulation, interfering less and less in the “free market” and giving corporations more power to act unhindered. Let’s not forget that governments are often very happy to get access to the vast datasets that commercial corporations are amassing, as for example Edward Snowden revealed a decade ago. Many think that recent EU legislation (the 2018 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), new legislation such as the Digital Services Act and the recently approved AI Act) provides counter-examples, but we have some doubts. The GDPR depends on the mechanism of consent, and our consent is often obtained through market pressures. Meanwhile the newer EU legislation, when it comes fully into force, while it will impose significant inconveniences for Big Tech companies, especially the largest, is not designed to challenge in a fundamental way the trend towards ever more data extraction and the expanding use of AI. Its goal rather is to help data and AI markets work more fairly, which is very different.
Unless we do something to stop its advances, the emerging social order will ensure that there is no living space which has not already been configured so as to optimise data extraction and the wider operation of business logics.
There is no doubt a role for regulation, but it is unlikely ever to be enough, because it does not think in terms of changing how we live, of reimagining a whole interlocking social and economic order that favours corporate over human interests. Unless we do something to stop its advances, the emerging social order will ensure that there is no living space which has not already been configured so as to optimise data extraction and the wider operation of business logics. As such, it will be just the latest stage in the ever-closer relations between colonialism and capitalism.
Q: What are the inequalities or power asymmetries that data exploitation introduces, and how do they connect to or reinforce existing inequalities?
Data colonialism entails a form of data extractivism that has one main purpose: the generation of value in a profoundly unequal and asymmetrical way whose negative impacts are more acutely felt by the traditional victims of colonialism, whether we define them in terms of race, class and gender, or the intersectional of those categories.
In traditional Marxist terms, we think of exploitation and expropriation as something happening to workers in the workplace. In data colonialism, exploitation happens everywhere and all the time
If we think in traditional Marxist terms, we think of exploitation and expropriation as something happening to workers in the workplace. In data colonialism, exploitation happens everywhere and all the time, because we don’t need to be working in order to contribute to this system. We can in fact be doing the opposite of working: relaxing and interacting with friends and family. But the extraction and the tracking are happening nonetheless.
The reason why increasingly fewer areas of life are outside the reach of this kind of exploitation is because the colonial mindset tells us that data, like nature and labour before it, are a cheap resource. Data is said to be abundant, just there for the taking, and without a real owner. In order for it to be processed, it needs to be refined with advanced technologies, just like previous colonial resources. So, our role is merely to produce it and surrender it to corporations, whom we are told are the only ones who can transform it into something useful and productive. The more data we surrender, for instance, the smarter AI can become, and the more capable of solving our problems. This premise is of course deeply flawed, because it is based on an extractivism model, and because it results in an unequal order where a few gain, and most of us lose. But it is a premise that is being installed increasingly into how the spaces of everyday life (from the home to the workplace, from education to agriculture) are being organised.
Q: Taking inspiration from existing movements, what strategies of resistance can citizens mobilise against Big Tech’s commercialised datafication?
In the final chapter of Data Grab, we discuss many examples of these kinds of movements. One such example is Los Deliveristas Unidos, a group of gig food delivery workers, mostly immigrants, who work in New York City. They successfully organised to demand better working conditions and a minimum wage. Not all their demands have been put into action, but their example demonstrates that people can confront platforms and push for reform.
The project of decolonising data must be able to formulate solutions that are not only technological but social, political, regulatory, cultural, scientific and educational.
Examples like this suggest that a decolonial vision of data is already being mobilised, and it requires encompassing not one mode of resistance, but many. The project of decolonising data must be able to formulate solutions that are not only technological but social, political, regulatory, cultural, scientific and educational. And it must be able to connect itself to struggles that seemingly have nothing to do with data, but that in reality are part of the same struggles for justice and dignity. That is why many creative responses to data colonialism are coming from feminist groups, from anti-racist groups, from indigenous groups: we can and must learn from these rich responses. And with the Mexican feminist scholar Paola Ricaurte we have set up a network, the Tierra Común network that aims to do just that.
We are hopeful, that decolonising data can become not a movement that is co-opted by certain parties and individuals for political gain, but a larger, pluriversal, global movement of solidarity where regular human beings can reclaim our digital data and transform it into a tool to act on the world, instead of a tool for corporations to act on us.
Note: This interview gives the views of the authors, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Read an interview with Nick Couldry about the book, “Are we giving away too much online?” from March 2024 for LSE Research for the World.
Watch a short video, What is data colonialism? with Nick Couldry on LSE’s YouTube channel.
Main image credit: Andrey_Popov on Shutterstock.
Bezos Cuts $50M Check to Celebrity Admiral as Washington Post Flounders
Retired Navy four-star Adm. William McRaven — highly paid leadership guru, business consultant, and special operations commander — received a $50 million “Courage and Civility Award” from richest-person-on-Earth Amazon founder Jeff Bezos this past week. Actress Eva Longoria received the other half of the $100 million grant: the exact amount the Bezos-owned Washington Post lost last year before cutting nearly 10 percent of its staff.
For Bezos, the Post’s financial woes are mere pocket change. (With his net worth of $200 billion, covering the Washington Post’s financial deficit would be the equivalent of a person making $100,000 a year paying $50 to save over 200 jobs.) All of which is ironic given that Bezos says his motivation for buying the newspaper was “stewardship.”
“Support of American democracy through stewardship of the Washington Post, and financial contributions to the dedicated and innovative champions of a variety of causes,” Bezos said in 2018, demonstrates his “investment in the future of our planet and civilization.”
Now, he is focused on repairing America’s descent into division, searching for leaders who “aim high, pursue solutions with courage, and always do so with civility.” The three-year-old award follows Bezos’s vow to donate most of his fortune toward reducing inequality and combating climate change.
Bezos is also a growing defense contractor who sat on the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board during the Obama administration, an advisory panel that McRaven was also on at the same time. The admiral — famous for overseeing the mission that killed Osama bin Laden, and for his commencement address at the University of Texas where he told graduates to start by making their beds — retired in 2014 and has been making a killing in the civilian world. He sits on the board of oil giant ConocoPhillips, is senior adviser to investment firm Lazard, and on the federal advisory board of Palantir, the Pentagon contractor founded by billionaire Peter Thiel. McRaven has also parlayed his military career into paid speaker and bestselling author of motivational titles like “The Hero Code: Lessons Learned from Lives Well Lived” and “The Wisdom of the Bullfrog: Leadership Made Simple (But Not Easy),” paper-thin books that each dispense featherweight advice on civil life.
All of this has turned the friendly admiral into a multimillionaire, making hundreds of thousands of dollars annually from board membership, publishing, and speaking. He holds $2 million worth of stock from ConocoPhillips according to a January 17 Securities and Exchange Commission filing. As chancellor for the University of Texas System, he raked in $2.5 million, making him the highest-paid public university official in the U.S. in 2018. He is represented by the Washington Speakers Bureau and the Celebrity Speakers Bureau, where his fees range between $50,000 and $100,000 per speech. He owns two homes: one in Alexandria, Virginia, and another in Austin, Texas, worth some $5 million, property records reviewed by The Intercept show.
“Man’s compassion far exceeds his greed,” McRaven writes in his book “Sea Stories: My Life in Special Operations,” one of his many treatises that sprinkles the telling of his career from the first Gulf War through the death of bin Laden.
Since 2021, the Courage and Civility Award has found five recipients, all of whom, in their own ways, have taken a stand against Donald Trump and amassed vast personal fortunes — attributes that Bezos seems to value. The 2021 award recipient Van Jones has blasted the former president for years, alongside chef José Andrés who sued the president after comments he made about Mexican Americans. The 2022 recipient Dolly Parton rejected Trump’s offer for the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and this year, Eva Longoria used her celebrity status to mobilize Latino voters against the former president.
Following this pattern, McRaven is also a very political admiral, writing multiple op-eds in Bezos’s Washington Post denouncing Trump. He has said that Trump’s criticisms of the news media represent “the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime.” In an opinion piece that took the form of a letter to the president, he denounced Trump’s own incivility. “Through your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation.”
His partisanship doesn’t necessarily disqualify him from receiving millions in a charity grant that will in theory give others a leg up in the world and level the playing field, but it does raise the questions: Why him, and why can Bezos be so generous while starving a top-tier newspaper that is clearly in need of his benevolence?
Among his duties as paragon of civility, McRaven has declared his alliance with his national security blood brothers. When Trump stripped former CIA Director John Brennan of his security clearance, McRaven jumped to his defense, daring Trump to “revoke my security clearance, too,” in the pages of the Washington Post. McRaven called Brennan, who is a vociferous Trump hater, “a man of unparalleled integrity, whose honesty and character have never been in question.”
McRaven also took to the Washington Post defending Acting Director of National Intelligence Joe Maguire, whom Trump had just fired after his subordinate, Shelby Pierson, briefed Congress that the Russian government appeared to prefer Trump over Democratic candidates for the 2020 election. CNN later reported that Pierson had “overstated” the findings of the intelligence community.
Similarly when an obscure Navy Rear Adm. Brian L. Losey was passed up for a second star, McRaven again went public, decrying Congress’s “trend of disrespect to the military.” Mr. Civility just didn’t mention why Congress blocked Losey’s promotion: Multiple investigations found he had retaliated against whistleblowers.
When it comes to national security, McRaven is deployed everywhere. He sits on the board of the Gates Global Policy Center founded by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates. He sits on the board of the Naval Postgraduate School Foundation Advisory Council. He is an honorary board member of the International Spy Museum. He is on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Retired Adm. William McRaven discusses special operations and the CIA during a daylong symposium on Sept. 16, 2015.
Photo: Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Corbis via Getty Images
The Washington Post reports that McRaven will split the money from his Bezos award between the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which supports the families of fallen service members, and the BrainHealth Project, which provides mental health resources to veterans.
The racket goes something like this: A billionaire pays a famous admiral, to pay charities that he is connected with (McRaven’s wife Georgeann is on the board of the Warrior Foundation), to pay disabled veterans, who are the victims of the failures of the national security elite to begin with. It is a modern trickle-down parable that, as always, leaves the worst off with a shiny consolation prize for sacrificing life and limb to their country.
The national security-obsessed, veteran-loving, cowboy-hat-adorned Bezos has become the ultimate commander in chief of the national security elite, an ersatz Mr. Magoo with a trillion-dollar business that actually tears at the seams of America’s mottled social fabric, decimating small businesses that, unlike McRaven, cannot survive on “courage” and “civility” alone.
Alongside Bezos, McRaven has formulated a certain conception of civility in which niceties that maintain the status quo emerge as the highest form of service. The destruction of the working class and the injuries sustained in their mad-man wars go unexamined as the admirals hand out Band-Aids. They perpetuate a certain elite consensus with regard to national security, one that drowns out every attempt to impact the societal needs like inequality and climate change which Bezos claims to address. (Bezos evidently doesn’t care that McRaven collects millions from the oil industry.)
One can read McRaven’s “Sea Stories,” review his speeches, and search through the Bezos philanthropy for a sense of who these blood brothers are, what they really believe in. But following the money is a far more telling endeavor.
Who is McRaven really? Former CIA Director and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta condensed his storied military career into a G.I. Joe caricature, writing in his autobiography “Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace” that “Bill made a big impression with his booming baritone, wide smile, and huge biceps.”
McRaven did not respond to a request for comment.
The post Bezos Cuts $50M Check to Celebrity Admiral as Washington Post Flounders appeared first on The Intercept.
If you hate Amazon, blame Rishi Sunak | David Mitchell
The online giant’s vast storage unit on the M1 is a logistical miracle – it’s a pity the lax-on-tax PM has spoiled the view
Reforesting the Earth: The Human Drivers of Forest Conservation, Restoration, and Expansion – review
In Reforesting the Earth, Thomas K Rudel draws on historical research and case studies to examine the drivers of deforestation and proposes reforestation as an urgent natural solution to the climate crisis. The book advocates for socio-political corporatist processes and local participation to enable successful forest conservation and expansion, offering useful insights for environmentalists, policymakers and activists, writes Mohd Amin Khan.
The global climate crisis poses a serious threat to the earth’s ecosystem – its biodiversity, forests, soil fertility, water quality, and atmospheric carbon concentration. The impact on nature in turn has adverse effects on the socio-economic, cultural wellbeing and health of people across the globe, with a markedly unequal distribution of these negative effects on nations and communities. In his latest book, Thomas K Rudel emphasises the need for reforestation as a natural solution to the problems of climate change.
Reforesting the Earth aims to investigate the drivers of forest destruction and the factors influencing reforestation and the expansion of forests. It seeks to comprehend the role of human activity, including socio-political corporatist processes – policies based on the inclusive decision-making and governance of an organisation relating to other stakeholders like politicians, activists, donors, farmers, foresters, indigenous groups, and landowners – in reforestation by applying an integrated, case studies-based global data analysis. The ambition is to contribute to global climate crisis alleviation through natural solutions. The book unfolds over nine chapters, four of which discuss the historical background, concepts, theories, and analysis and the other five of which cover 19 cases studies of forest gain or loss worldwide.
The author begins with historical perspectives on the current political system: the actions and events that have precipitated the climate crisis. He then considers what would be the best approach to mitigate the adverse impacts of the crisis. He grounds his argument by elucidating the ways of living of traditional societies that evinced a respectful rather than an extractive relationship with nature. After the age of scientific discovery and innovation in Europe and the industrial revolution (roughly from the late 16th century to the 18th century), the exploitation of nature became an essential aspect of modernity, paving the way to commercialism and a capitalistic society. This shift involved major transformation in terms of socio-economic and political orders and commercial activity, resulting in rapid urbanisation, agricultural expansion, industrialisation, mass migration, population growth and mass deforestation.
This shift [to modernity] involved major transformation in terms of socio-economic and political orders and commercial activity, resulting in rapid urbanisation, agricultural expansion, industrialisation, mass migration, population growth and mass deforestation.
The great economic movement in the 20th century had corresponding environmental consequences: mass deforestation, land degradation, water and air pollution, carbon emissions, biodiversity loss, and depletion of natural resources. By the 1980s, this mass destruction of forest and other natural resources began to mobilise different stakeholders in support of forest conservation.
Rudell states that when collective action has occurred, it has most frequently taken a corporatist form, at both state and societal levels. Corporatist processes involve multiple parties from different strata of society (international investors to local politicians and farmers, indigenous people, environmental activists) coming together to discuss increasing forest cover in different locations. In these discussions, the involved parties agree to compacts where some transfer funds in exchange for others’ commitment to conserving and restoring forests. The parties collaborate on these activities, holding repeated meetings throughout the process. They work together to develop and implement successive plans for forest conservation, restoration, and expansion. Through these collaborative efforts, a corporatist polity emerges. When successful, this integration of diverse groups within the forest-agriculture sector leads to an increase in forest cover and carbon sequestration. Initiatives like the Bonn Challenge and the New York Declaration are the result of collective corporatist actions in which have achieved substantial increments in forest cover and carbon sequestration over time: “REDD+ agreements promote natural climate solutions by exerting direct control over land uses in defined territories. Eco-certification schemes promote natural climate solutions by indirect means” (31).
As local participation, active monitoring, and good governance have a positive association with forest resurgence, weakening these factors can lead to forest loss.
Rudell extends his discussion on the role of societal corporatist processes by analysing 19 diverse case studies worldwide. This involves considering the major five themes within forest conservation and reforestation: avoided deforestation (Ecuadorian Andes Amazon), secondary forest expansions (New England and New Deal South in the USA, Northwest Portugal, and Northern Costa Rica), forest plantation (Congo, China, Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia, Chile, and the USA), agroforestry-based farming (rubber, cocoa, coffee, and domestic forests), and silvopastoral practices (Upper-Lower Amazon and Nigerian Sahel). Among these 19 case studies, 12 witnessed forest gain.
The spatial distribution of the case studies reflects concerns about rapid deforestation in the Global South (due to the shifting of production firms in the Global South by Northern nations, as explained in Laurie Parsons’s Carbon Colonialism). Across the case studies, all major changes in forest cover occurred during the 20th and 21st centuries, which suggests that this change is the output of recent economic expansion.
Seven of the case studies Rudel examines recorded explicit forest loss. These losses occurred in forest plantations in Congo, Indonesia, Southeast USA, silvopastoral practices in the Lower Amazon region, and the agroforestry-based farming of rubber and cocoa in all seven. These seven case studies recorded forest loss, which can be explained by a lack of local participation in conservation programs, monitoring, and reporting, combined with weak governance resulting in corruption. As local participation, active monitoring, and good governance have a positive association with forest resurgence, weakening these factors can lead to forest loss: “Forest cover has increased in places with societal and state corporatism. It has not increased in places where states and governance have been weak or where crucial actors such as state officials or local landholders have not become participants in sectoral agreements to preserve or restore forests” (185).
Rudel advocates for the improved surveillance of forests through remote sensing, providing land rights to indigenous and local communities, eco-certification, encouraging a polycentric approach in governance, and institutionalising landscape changes and social movements of conservation to ensure reforestation projects succeed.
In conclusion, Rudel suggests that the climate crisis can be mitigated through reforestation and forest expansion with the effective engagement of socio-political corporatist arrangements. This is only possible through strong participation in forest conservation programmes and initiatives led by local and indigenous communities, environmental activities, local political parties, and both national and international non-governmental organisations. Furthermore, Rudel encourages normative changes such as reducing the demand and consumption of forest products and consequently forest losses. Similarly, declining beef consumption, seen notably in the US from 84 to 58 pounds per capita (1970-2020), holds promise for reforesting old cattle pastures. If this trend spreads globally, driven by increasing vegetarian identification in countries like India, China and the US, cattle ranchers may convert some pastures to forests. This reflects the successful reforestation observed in Costa Rica during the 1990s).
He advocates for the improved surveillance of forests through remote sensing, providing land rights to indigenous and local communities, eco-certification, encouraging a polycentric approach in governance, and institutionalising landscape changes and social movements of conservation to ensure reforestation projects succeed. The book is a valuable resource for a broad spectrum of readers, including environmentalists, climate activists, conservationists, sociologists, geographers, economists, and policymakers, as well as anyone interested in understanding and contributing to natural climate solutions to address the ongoing global climate crisis.
Acknowledgement: I am thankful to Monika and Anna D’Alton for reviewing the final draft of the book review and providing valuable suggestions and feedback which notably increases the readability of the book review.
This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Image Credit: SOMRERK WITTHAYANANT on Shutterstock.
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How Amazon Is Ripping You OffShopping on Amazon? Stop! Watch...
How Amazon Is Ripping You Off
Shopping on Amazon? Stop! Watch this first.
Amazon is the world’s biggest online retailer. This one single juggernaut of a company is responsible for nearly 40% of all online sales in America. In an FTC lawsuit, they’re accused of using their mammoth size, and consumers’ dependence on them, to artificially jack up prices as high as possible, while prohibiting sellers on Amazon from charging lower prices anywhere else.
They’re accused of using a secret algorithm, codenamed “Project Nessie,” to charge customers an estimated extra $1 billion dollars,
If this isn’t an abuse of power that hurts consumers, what is? So much for all of those “prime” deals you thought you were getting.
Project Nessie isn’t the only trick Amazon has been accused of using to exert its hulking dominance over the online retail industry — leading to higher prices for you.
Much of the FTC’s antitrust lawsuit centers around the treatment of independent merchants who sell items on Amazon’s online superstore — accounting for 60 percent of Amazon’s sales.
Amazon allegedly uses strongarm tactics that force these sellers to keep their prices higher than they need to be. Like barring them from selling products for significantly less at other stores — or else risk being hidden in Amazon’s search results or having their sales stopped entirely.
And Amazon is accused of engaging in pay-to-play schemes and charging merchants excessive fees that end up costing you even more.
Independent sellers are effectively forced to pay Amazon to advertise their products prominently in search results. If they don’t fork over cash, then their products get buried underneath products of companies who do. This hurts sellers but also harms shoppers who have to parse through less relevant products that may be more expensive or lower quality.
And to be eligible for the coveted “Prime” badge on their items — which is considered crucial for competing on the platform — independent sellers are pushed into paying Amazon for additional services like warehousing and shipping, even if they could get those services cheaper elsewhere. If sellers forgo trying to qualify for Prime, their goods apparently become harder for customers to find.
When all of these extra fees are added up, Amazon takes around a 50 percent cut of each sale made by a third party. It’s projected that Amazon will earn around $125 billion from collecting fees in the U.S. in 2023, most of which get passed on to you.
By charging all of these extra fees and stifling independent companies from selling their products for less elsewhere, Amazon is using its dominance to essentially set prices for all consumers across the internet.
And when you combine Amazon’s control of ecommerce with all of the other industries it has entered by gobbling up companies — such as Whole Foods, One Medical, and MGM — you’re left with a behemoth that simply has too much power.
This is all part of a much larger problem of growing corporate dominance in America. In over 75% of U.S. industries, fewer companies now control more of their markets than they did twenty years ago.
The lack of competition and consumer choice has resulted in all of us paying more for goods because corporations like Amazon can raise their prices with impunity. By one estimate, corporate concentration has cost the typical American household $5,000 a year more than they would have spent if markets were truly competitive.
This power isn’t just being used to siphon more money from you. A giant corporation has the power to bust unions, keep workers’ wages low, and funnel money into our political system.
It’s a vicious cycle, making giant corporations more and more powerful.
But under the Biden administration, the government is making a strong effort to revive antitrust law and use its power to reign in big corporations that have grown too powerful.
We must stop the monopolization of America. This FTC lawsuit against Amazon is a great start.
Hijacked: How Neoliberalism Turned The Work Ethic Against Workers and How Workers Can Take It Back – review
In Hijacked: How Neoliberalism Turned The Work Ethic Against Workers and How Workers Can Take It Back, Elizabeth Anderson argues that neoliberalism has perverted the Protestant work ethic to exploit workers and enrich the one per cent. Magdalene D’Silva finds the book a compelling call to renew a progressive, socially democratic work ethic that promotes dignity for workers.
Hijacked: How Neoliberalism Turned The Work Ethic Against Workers and How Workers Can Take It Back. Elizabeth Anderson. Cambridge University Press. 2023.
Find this book: 
Elizabeth Anderson’s excellent 2023 book Hijacked was published the same month Australian multi-millionaire Tim Gurner said:
“Unemployment has to jump … we need to see pain … Employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them … We’ve gotta kill that attitude…”
America’s Senator Bernie Sanders rebuked Gurner’s diatribe as “disgusting. It’s hard to believe that you have that kind of mentality among the ruling class in the year 2023.”
Ironically, Gurner’s comments favouring employees’ objectification and employer coercive control show just what Hijacked says is: [T]he ascendance of the conservative work ethic… (which) tells workers … they owe their employers relentless toil and unquestioning obedience under whatever harsh conditions their employer chooses …”(xii).
Indeed, “neoliberalism is the descendant of this harsh version of the work ethic … [i]t entrenches the commodification of labor … people have no alternative but to submit to the arbitrary government of employers to survive.” (xii).
Anderson defines neoliberalism as an ideology favouring market orderings over state regulation […] to maximise the wealth and power of capital relative to labour
Anderson defines neoliberalism as an ideology favouring market orderings over state regulation (xii) to maximise the wealth and power of capital relative to labour (272) where the so-called “de-regulation” of labour and other markets doesn’t liberate ordinary people from the state; it transfers state regulatory authority to the most powerful, dominant firms in each market (xii).
Hijacked follows Anderson’s prior writing on neoliberalism’s replacement of democratically elected public government by the state, with unelected private government by employers. Like other work ethic critiques, Hijacked explains how Puritan theologians behind the work ethic dismissed feelings with contempt for emotional styles of faith worship (3).
Hijacked explains how Puritan theologians behind the work ethic dismissed feelings with contempt for emotional styles of faith worship
The original work ethic proselytised utilitarianism (19) but with inherent contradictions between progressive and conservative ideals (14). Early conservative work ethic advocates included Joseph Priestley, Jeremy Bentham, Thomas Malthus and Edmund Burke (Chapters 2 and 3) who aligned with the new capitalist, manager entrepreneur classes and “lazy landlords, speculators and predatory capitalists” (65) who claimed they exemplified the work ethic (127).
The work ethic split into conservative and progressive versions which Anderson distinguishes by class-based power relations, rather than competitive markets
The work ethic split into conservative and progressive versions which Anderson distinguishes by class-based power relations, rather than competitive markets, as conservatives “favour government by and for property owners, assign different duties to employers and employees, rich and poor” (while expecting) “workers to submit to despotic employer authority” (and) “regard poverty as a sign of bad character … poor workers as morally inferior” (xv).
Progressives like Adam Smith (130-135) supported “democracy and worker self-government. They oppose class-based duties … and reject stigmatization of poverty” (xvi). Anderson traces this “progressive” work ethic to classical liberals like John Locke (Chapter 2), Adam Smith (132-135), John Stuart Mill (Chapter 6) and progressive, socialist thinkers like Karl Marx (Chapter 7) who stressed how paid work should not alienate workers “from their essence or species-being…” (209) but express their individuality, as “[t]he distinctively human essence is to freely shape oneself…” (209).
Marx applied Mill’s emphasis on the importance of individuality, which Anderson links to the Puritan idea that our vocation must match our individual talents and interests (206) whatever our economic class.
Furthermore, Locke “condemned the idle predatory rich as well as able-bodied beggars” (65). Marx applied Mill’s emphasis on the importance of individuality, which Anderson links to the Puritan idea that our vocation must match our individual talents and interests (206) whatever our economic class.
Yet our worthiness now had to be proved (to God) by ‘work’ that entailed: disciplining drudgery (9), slavery (10, 259), racism (97-99), exploitative maltreatment of poor people (106) and industrious productivity (52) which became conspicuously competitive, luxury consumption (170).
Conservatives (Chapters 3, 4) secularised these ideas so the “upper-class targets of the Puritan critique hijacked the work ethic … into an instrument of class warfare against workers. Now only workers were held to its demands … the busy schemers who … extract value from others cast themselves as heroes of the work ethic, the poor as the only scoundrels” (65).
Anderson doesn’t idolise Locke, Smith, J. S. Mill and other early progressive work ethic advocates like Ricardo (Chapter 5) by highlighting harsh contradictions in their views. For example, within Locke’s pro-worker agenda were draconian measures for poor children (61) such that Anderson says Locke’s harsh policies for those he called the idle poor, contain “the seeds of the ultimate hijacking of the work ethic by capital owners” (25).
[Anderson’s] scrutiny of both left and right-wing support of the neoliberal conservative work ethic complements other critiques of the left-wing origins of neoliberal markets.
Anderson criticises the perversion and reversal of the work ethic’s originally progressive, classical liberal aspirations “and successor traditions on the left” (xviii). Her scrutiny of both left and right-wing support of the neoliberal conservative work ethic complements other critiques of the left-wing origins of neoliberal markets. Anderson also says the conservative work ethic arose in a period of rapidly rising productivity and stagnant wages, “when market discipline was reserved for workers, not the rich” (108).
Yet it was the progressive work ethic that culminated in social democracy throughout Western Europe by promoting the “freedom, dignity and welfare of each” (242). Marx was so influenced by the progressive work ethic espoused by classical liberals, his most developed work on economic theory apparently quotes Adam Smith copiously and admiringly (226). Anderson thus contends that criticism of social democracy as a radical break from classical liberalism – is a myth, as ideas like social insurance “developed within the classical liberal tradition” (227).
However, “Cold War ideology represented social democracy as … a slippery slope to totalitarianism … the title of Friederich Hayek’s … Road to Serfdom, says it all” (226).
Social democracy declined worldwide in the 1970s and 1980s when neoliberalism arose and the conservative work ethic returned with the elections of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher
Social democracy declined worldwide in the 1970s and 1980s when neoliberalism arose and the conservative work ethic returned with the elections of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher (Chapter 9). Social democratic centre-left parties like the US Democrats and the UK’s Labour Party (293) didn’t counter neoliberalism’s conservative work ethic, as “the demographics of these parties shifted… from the working class to the professional managerial class” (257), seduced by meritocracy ideology in a competitive race for (their own) superior status (257). Anderson’s observation complements Elizabeth Humphry’s research on how Australia’s Labor Party and labour union movement introduced vanguard neoliberalism to Australia against workers, in the 1980s.
[Anderson] argues the focus on efficiency and aggregate growth neglected workers’ conditions and plight as neoliberal work (for welfare) policies degrade people’s autonomy and capabilities
Anderson recognises the success of some neoliberal policies in the US’s economic stagnation in the 1970s, like trucking deregulation, emissions reduction trade schemes and international trade liberalisation (285-287). However, she argues the focus on efficiency and aggregate growth neglected workers’ conditions and plight as neoliberal work (for welfare) policies degrade people’s autonomy and capabilities because “the most important product of our economic system is ourselves” (288).
Hijacked’s last chapter recommends social democracy renewal and updating the progressive work ethic “to ensure … every person … has the resources and opportunities to develop … their talents … engage with others on terms of trust, sympathy and genuine cooperation” (298). Employees could be empowered through worker cooperatives (297).
A gap in Hijacked’s analysis is a lack of clear definition of “work.” Anderson doesn’t distinguish between “employment” in a “job,” and rich elites’ voluntary, symbolic “duties,” like those of Britain’s “working royals” who call their activities “work”.
Another dilemma is whether economic class power struggles can change peacefully, noting Peter Turchin says we’re facing ‘end times’ of war and political disintegration because competing elites won’t relinquish power.
Nevertheless, Hijacked is compelling reading for everyone on the left and the right who needs employment in a paid job to survive, so today’s neoliberal conservative work ethic no longer gaslights us to believe our dignity demands our exploitation.
This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The LSE RB blog may receive a small commission if you choose to make a purchase through the above Amazon affiliate link. This is entirely independent of the coverage of the book on LSE Review of Books.
Image Credit: Daniel Foster on Flickr.
New wave of Black Friday “Make Amazon Pay” strikes and protests in 30+ countries
Global Amazon workers take action on one of online retailer’s busiest days of the year
Tomorrow on Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year – then on through the weekend and onto Monday, Amazon workers will stage strikes and protests in over thirty countries around the world, in a massive day of action coordinated by the Make Amazon Pay campaign.
Christy Hoffman, General Secretary of UNI Global Union, said of the wave of action:
This day of action grows every year because the movement to hold Amazon accountable keeps getting bigger and stronger. Workers know that it doesn’t matter what country you’re in or what your job title is, we are all united in the fight for higher wages, an end to unreasonable quotas, and a voice on the job. That’s what workers in Coventry are striking for, and that is why workers around the world are standing up to Make Amazon Pay.
The global day of action is taking place for the four Black Friday in a row. In previous years, thousands of workers went on strike at facilities throughout Germany, France, Spain, the UK and Italy; garment workers’ took to the streets in Bangladesh; US workers organised walkouts; civil society allies held demonstrations projecting the Make Amazon Pay logo at Amazon headquarters all over the world and projecting “pandemic profiteer” onto Jeff Bezos’s mansion; and climate activists blockaded Amazon warehouses in three European countries.
Co-convened by UNI Global Union and Progressive International, Make Amazon Pay brings together over 80 unions, civil society organisations, environmentalist groups and tax watchdogs including Greenpeace, 350.org, Tax Justice Network and Amazon Workers International. The groups have united behind a set of common demands that Amazon pays its workers fairly, respects their right to join unions, pays its fair share of taxes and commits to real environmental sustainability.
Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla, co-General Coordinator of the Progressive International, said
From the warehouses in Coventry to the factories of Dhaka, this Global Day of Action is more than a protest. It is a worldwide declaration that this age of abuse must end. Amazon’s globe-spanning empire, which exploits workers, our communities and our planet, now faces a growing globe-spanning movement to Make Amazon Pay.
The day of action will include:
- Warehouse worker and driver strikes in the UK, Italy, US, Spain and Germany
- Climate activists in at least seven countries – Japan, Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, Italy, United Kingdom and Canada – protesting at Amazon Web Services (AWS) facilities to call out Amazon’s ‘greenwashing’, its data centres’ growing climate impact and electricity consumption, and AWS’s contracts with fossil fuels companies
- Thousands of workers rallying to protest in more than ten Indian cities
- Bangladeshi Garment workers take mass action in Dhaka to demand a minimum wage of $209 per month, an end to police harassment, which has seen trade unionists killed, and demand that Amazon signs up to the Accord on Fire and Building Safety
These actions reflect the widespread criticism of Amazon’s corporate practices. According to a comprehensive 2023 UNI Global Union survey, Amazon’s intense performance monitoring has inflicted stress, pressure, anxiety, and a sense of mistrust among its employees across eight key countries. The survey reveals alarming statistics: 51% of employees report adverse health effects; 57% cite deteriorating mental health due to Amazon’s intrusive monitoring. This has led to increasing scrutiny from lawmakers and the public, with US Senator Bernie Sanders investigating the company’s “abysmal safety record.”
A new report by the U.S.-based National Employment Law Project (NELP), Amazon’s warehouse workers receive significantly lower wages compared to other workers in the sector and considerably less than average earnings in their corresponding U.S. counties.
In a landmark move, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 17 state attorneys general have launched a lawsuit against tech and retail giant Amazon.com, Inc., accusing it of maintaining a monopolistic grip on the market through a series of anti-competitive practices.
Stuart Appelbaum, President of RWDSU, said:
This global action underscores the urgent need for Amazon to address its egregious labour practices and engage in fair bargaining with its workers. Our collective actions are gaining momentum, challenging Amazon’s unfair practices and advocating for workers’ rights and a sustainable future for all. Together, we can Make Amazon Pay.
Nazma Akhter, President of the Sommilito Garments Sramik Federation and Progressive International council member, added:
In Bangladesh, garment workers make the clothes that Amazon sells and profits from. But Amazon doesn’t even recognize us as its workers nor sign the Accord on Fire and Building Safety to keep our factories safe. That precarity leaves us open to even more abuse: dangerous working conditions, a minimum wage below the $209 per month we are demanding, and trade unionists attacked and killed by police. We make Amazon’s profits and together with our brothers and sisters around the world, we will Make Amazon Pay.
Irish Senator Lynn Boylan:
Amazon is failing our planet. At its current rate, Amazon won’t reach its stated 2040 net zero target until 2378. In my country, Ireland, Amazon’s hunger for relentless expansion will contribute to us exceeding our carbon budget with plans for three new data centres, whose insatiable demand for electricity drives up demand for gas. The unbridled expansion of data centres has raised alarms, with EirGrid warning of grid instability and the risk of rolling blackouts. Across the world, Amazon Web Services is deeply involved in different phases of oil production, focusing on pipelines, shipping, and storage for oil and gas companies. It’s time to Make Amazon Pay for its environmental damage.
Teamsters member Jessie Moreno at the Manchester summit
Jessie Moreno, Amazon Teamsters member from Local 396 in California:
Amazon workers are taking action around the globe to fight for the good jobs we deserve. In the U.S., my Teamster siblings and I are on strike against Amazon’s unfair labor practices. We have taken our picket line across the country and now we’re joining our colleagues from around the world to demand respect, fair wages, and a workplace where our health and safety are a priority. Amazon is no match for the power of its workers united.
Moreno’s union has been on strike against Amazon for more than 150 days. Watch his interview with Skwawkbox at last month’s Make Amazon Pay summit in Manchester here.
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