The New Republic -The Shadow Empire That Fuels Amazon’s Dominance
Legal director Sandeep Vaheesan publishes a story on the foul-play of Amazon’s giant web of third party sellers and subcontractors, fueling unfair business practices.
By any definition, Amazon is a giant. In the fourth quarter of 2022, it tallied staggering global sales of nearly $150 billion. In the United States, it owns 110 warehouses and employs more than one million people—making it one of the largest private-sector employers in the nation. It is the largest provider of cloud computing services in the world. Yet these figures do not do full justice to the enormity of its power. Like a modern empire, Amazon is hegemonic. Consider the millions of nominally independent sellers on Amazon who are at the mercy of the corporation and subject to its grip. This firm controls far more than what it directly owns or possesses.
With federal antitrust action against Amazon rumored to be coming soon, trustbusters and the public should recognize that merely breaking up the corporation will not be sufficient. Reining in Amazon requires challenging its domination through contracts and surveillance—the tools through which it has supercharged its awesome power. Last month, the Federal Trade Commission proposed to ban noncompete clauses for all workers. This is a welcome and overdue rule that the Open Markets Institute (where, full disclosure, I work), the AFL-CIO, Public Citizen, and many other labor and public interest groups petitioned for in 2019. It is an important move in the right direction, but much more remains to be done against unfair contracts and practices. As Amazon shows, it is several steps ahead. Anti-monopoly enforcers such as the FTC must target Amazon’s extraordinary control of businesses and workers beyond its corporate boundaries.
The bluish-gray Amazon delivery vans are a familiar sight in American cities. Tens of thousands of them are on the road every day. Based on their livery, one could reasonably believe the vehicles are owned by Amazon and their drivers are employees of Amazon, much as UPS owns its iconic brown trucks and employs their drivers.
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