No, Amazon is not the cause of social wreckage

See ‘Fulfillment’ Review: Those One-Click Woes by Marc Levinson.

Fulfillment

By Alec MacGillis
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 384 pages, $28

Excerpt:

"The trouble is, Amazon is not an ideal frame at all. By sharing with us the heart-rending stories of individuals struggling in the face of economic change, as well as examples of Amazon’s alleged abuses, Mr. MacGillis indicts the company for trends that began well before Jeff Bezos’s brainchild was born. The author’s claim that Amazon has “segmented the country into different sorts of places, each with their assigned rank, income, and purpose,” is a bit far-fetched. I’m no great fan of the Seattle-based giant, whose heavy-handed ways have enabled it to dominate important parts of the U.S. economy. But Mr. MacGillis’s attack is almost enough to make one cry a tear of sympathy for it.

Let’s stipulate: In recent years, U.S. workers with graduate degrees have enjoyed, on average, higher pay; those employed at the federal minimum wage haven’t had a pay raise since 2009. Over that same period, homeowners in Syracuse, N.Y., have on average seen the value of their property rise by about 25%, while homes in Silicon Valley appreciated five times as much. Anyone with the wherewithal to purchase an S&P 500 index fund in 2009 and reinvest the dividends has enjoyed a gain of roughly 450%, a bonanza the less fortunate could not share.

These unhappy trends, though, predate Amazon. The number of factory production jobs, which allowed many working-class families to own homes and educate their children, peaked back when Jimmy Carter was president. The share of private-sector workers whose working conditions are protected by union contracts has been falling since Dwight Eisenhower’s day."