Wouldn’t a Blakeley argue that the vast wealth of a Bezos type is attributable not just to the large customer base, which of course he would like to double, but also to the “exploitative” margin earned on each item sold? If the margin were closer to zero, ie he paid a “fair” price to his Chinese manufacturers and a “fair” wage to his workers across the globe, rather than squeezing both to the bare minimum he can get away with, then the vast wealth generated by an Amazon would be shared rather differently as between owner, producer and worker.
Bezos would probably still be super, if less, rich since, say, 100 billion sales at a 10 cent margin is still a lot of money but the other human contributors to the value chain would be richer when not being “exploited”. And then these better rewarded contributors would then contribute more rapidly to the wealth generating circle by becoming customers themselves.
In truth I suspect that the Amazon business model is already one based on huge sales at thin margins (as opposed to a LVMH based on a relatively small number of sales at a huge margin) but I can see the Blakeley line of attack: it’s not about keeping everyone else poor but about an unfair division of the wealth generated.
Well, sorta - except of course Amazon has run at a loss for many of its years of existence. What exploitation then? The other issue is that this "owner, producer and worker" misses the fourth player - the consumer. And Amazon has undoubtedly been beneficial to the consumer. One - entirely reasonable - estimate has it at 0.1% to 0.2% off the inflation rate each and every year for two decades. That's off the entire, whole economy, inflation rate. All consumers are better off by 2 to 4% of their entire lives as a result of Bezos/Amazon. That's, umm, a lot. $750 billion a year? For US alone?
If I may play devil’s advocate for a moment.
Wouldn’t a Blakeley argue that the vast wealth of a Bezos type is attributable not just to the large customer base, which of course he would like to double, but also to the “exploitative” margin earned on each item sold? If the margin were closer to zero, ie he paid a “fair” price to his Chinese manufacturers and a “fair” wage to his workers across the globe, rather than squeezing both to the bare minimum he can get away with, then the vast wealth generated by an Amazon would be shared rather differently as between owner, producer and worker.
Bezos would probably still be super, if less, rich since, say, 100 billion sales at a 10 cent margin is still a lot of money but the other human contributors to the value chain would be richer when not being “exploited”. And then these better rewarded contributors would then contribute more rapidly to the wealth generating circle by becoming customers themselves.
In truth I suspect that the Amazon business model is already one based on huge sales at thin margins (as opposed to a LVMH based on a relatively small number of sales at a huge margin) but I can see the Blakeley line of attack: it’s not about keeping everyone else poor but about an unfair division of the wealth generated.
Well, sorta - except of course Amazon has run at a loss for many of its years of existence. What exploitation then? The other issue is that this "owner, producer and worker" misses the fourth player - the consumer. And Amazon has undoubtedly been beneficial to the consumer. One - entirely reasonable - estimate has it at 0.1% to 0.2% off the inflation rate each and every year for two decades. That's off the entire, whole economy, inflation rate. All consumers are better off by 2 to 4% of their entire lives as a result of Bezos/Amazon. That's, umm, a lot. $750 billion a year? For US alone?
As I said, I was playing devil’s advocate!