To think Amazon is the future and should be bought by the state

[GoldfishParade]

This isnt meant to be a polarising discussion, more a debate. Theres lots of talk about supporting local businesses and not "feeding" Amazon. But in addition to the obvious advantages Amazon brings for people on low income, people living remotely, people who struggle to get out, doesnt Amazon also serve as a platform for small businesses to sell their stuff?

Instead of fighting Amazon, shouldn't we be embracing it as the future of retail, and instead think about how our high streets can be revolutionised to move away from retail and to be more about services and community spaces?

I even think Amazon should be franchised out to states so it becomes a public service. Or maybe ambitious states could copy Amazon's model and get rid of the post office and replace it with a kind of post office/Amazon hybrid.

I just cant help but think with shop owners that although I feel upset for them that they are struggling, we do also have to move with the times: and the times want 24h delivery and huge choice.

Maybe the old high street is dead and instead of trying to fight off the inevitable we should be looking at creative ways of bringing the high street back to life which totally break away from the old shop-focused model.

What do you think?

The state would merely fuck it up.

@LindaEllen

I understand what people are saying, but this of course depends on Amazon management wanting to 'sell to the state'. The state cannot force someone to sell their business just because it's successful, surely?

And if Amazon UK was bought by the state, there's nothing to stop Amazon (Germany) or Amazon (Ireland) exporting to the UK via their own websites, is there? Or do people think the UK govt should buy other countries' Amazon's too? Or maybe we should buy the entire Global chain on Amazon companies?

The state cannot force someone to sell their business just because it's successful, surely?

Of course not.

I don’t get the basic logic of this thread either.

Does "the state" even have the billions it would cost to buy UK Amazon??

So many words, so little fact or meaning.

So little comprehension.

I have read some batshit ideas on here over the years but this is one of the more batshit ones. YABU.

Love your disruptive thinking OP but not going to happen ....

@MayYouLiveInInterestingTimes

It would now, in the context of a society that wants a two-level system of the most basic services for the poor and everything else paid for. We still have motorways that are paid for by the state. We used to have a telephone system that worked, for everyone. We used to have a postal system - that's probably the best equivalent - that worked for everyone no matter where they were in the country. We used to have an NHS system that worked. Now all these things have been run down in the name of privatisation, and that is where the decline in quality stems back to.

All of our taxes? How much of our taxes have gone straight back into the private purses, via tax breaks for rich companies, housing benefit paid to private landlords, utilities and bus companies all put back into private hands, train companies put into private hands, bailouts for the banks? Private companies in Britain = private profit, public losses. It's been impoverishing the state as a whole for years and now there really isn't much left.

Ah the good old days that never really existed.

Roads with no traffic on them as hardly anyone had a car.
Good old BT with its monopoly on phones and the joy of a party line.
A postal system where things would take a week to arrive but you had to put up with it as their was no alternative.
And the good old nhs without all the advances in medicine that have been made in the last 50 years. Can’t get pregnant no baby as no fertility treatment, heart problems die of a heart attack as no pace makers, common childhood cancers 80% death rate as no working treatments now over 80% cure rates for those same cancers. I could go on but you see all these advances need paying for and they were never factored in by Bevin. the nhs as it stands today bears little on what resemblance to the 1948 model.

Wondering if OP will return.

I totally agree with you about Amazon and the high street. The Amazon model works great in 2020 and isn't going anywhere. And I'm absolutey sick to death of hearing people moaning about the death of the high street and keeping bank branches open and boycott Amazon all over my local Facebook pages. That ship has sailed. The high street isn't dying, or doesn't have to, it just needs to transform.

Take my small London commuter town. Facebook full of people who are set in their ways constantly going on about bank branches closing, shop local, boycott Amazon etc. Meanwhile there's a thriving cafe/food culture springing up, even with covid and more places converting to social spaces and places where you can take a laptop. I always worked from home and now there are several 1000 extra people here doing the same thing. I buy everything I need, pretty much, in terms of physical goods from Amazon, or other online retailer (there are many, people seem to forget), including clothes and shoes, now they are so easy to send back and swap sizes. I haven't needed to go into a bank branch for about 15 years, and have no desire to.
I understand about older people who don't use internet banking but why not help them with that rather than just accept it, or tell them they can do it all at the post office.

But I still want to go out and eat and socialize and meet people and be part of a community. That's where the high st comes in - experiences that you can't buy on Amazon. So coffee shops, restaurants, bars, pubs, community centres for classes, shared work spaces post covid so people can get out of the house with their laptops. Our high st is thriving in this way - the knitting shop now offers weekly crochet/knitting classes and has a coffee shop, shops have converted to cafes. Other shops host classes and coffee mornings. Food shops have become delis and greengrocers offering tasting sessions and cooking lessons. The local cafe does gin tasting evening. Barbers and hairdressers offering shaves, massages, beauty treatments, classes. You can't get your haircut or a tattoo on Amazon. Transformation not death. and of course, everyone needs a good old fashioned corner shop for emergency ingredients and light bulbs etc that even Amazon will take a day to get to you.

I like this model and I am fine with it. I don't see how any state, or even a bunch of them could afford to buy Amazon though and yes, it would rapidly become shit if part of the public sector - look how ridiculous is is that I can get my prescription medication from a host of online pharmacies within 24 hours when it takes the NHS 2 weeks to get it to me at my GPs pharmacy and it costs me 3 X more.

@thedevilinablackdress

I don't know why HMRC haven't enforced the law or maybe there are too many exploitable loopholes. I'm not a tax expert. And re. the going to the toilet thing, of course I understand staffing levels at checkouts etc. but the onus should be on supervisors and managers to manage, not staff. The nuance of the power dynamics matter I guess. Maybe I just had some terrible bosses in the past.

Of course it’s on the managers to manage. They manage their staffing levels and having people in necessary places by knowing exactly who they have where at all times.

They can’t just have people fucking off whenever they feel like it even if it is a genuine reason, otherwise they’d turn around and their shift would be in chaos.

If Carol needs to go to the loo she needs to ask, so the manager can find someone to replace her temporarily if necessary. It would be extremely unlikely they would say no; it’s just basic courtesy so the shift can run smoothly.

I read OP’s original post as asking the bigger question which is about more than just nationalization. It goes without saying that no country can nationalize a global multinational, the question is how do we re think public services to make them as efficient as the successful private enterprise. As poster above says what makes the NHS so precious that it’s ok for them deliver a prescription in two weeks when the privately run pharmacy can do it in a day. Everyone laughs about councils being slow and inefficient and it taking 3 people to dig up a manhole, 1 working and 2 watching and all that. Even when public bodies award contracts to private companies, they can’t oversee those properly and hold the contractors to account. So public bodies, not only are woeful and doing the job, but even worse at overseeing someone else do it. The same contractors are held to account and seem to be able to deliver when contracted by private companies.
Why do public sector bodies get away with so much inefficiency.

@sst1234

I read OP’s original post as asking the bigger question which is about more than just nationalization. It goes without saying that no country can nationalize a global multinational, the question is how do we re think public services to make them as efficient as the successful private enterprise. As poster above says what makes the NHS so precious that it’s ok for them deliver a prescription in two weeks when the privately run pharmacy can do it in a day. Everyone laughs about councils being slow and inefficient and it taking 3 people to dig up a manhole, 1 working and 2 watching and all that. Even when public bodies award contracts to private companies, they can’t oversee those properly and hold the contractors to account. So public bodies, not only are woeful and doing the job, but even worse at overseeing someone else do it. The same contractors are held to account and seem to be able to deliver when contracted by private companies. Why do public sector bodies get away with so much inefficiency.

Sorry to say, it’s because they are public sector. Put a government in charge- even a Tory government it seems - an d no one cares how much waste, inefficiency or cost is involved.

Windy and rainy and someone asking on the C board if they can meet a friend outdoors, sitting.

How can people not be more angry about this?

Hahaaa do you have any idea how much that would cost?

@Proudboomer As you say, the treatments available on the NHS are not the same, so it’s unfair to imply a claim that increases in treatment are a result of changes in economic model. They’re the result of scientific developments, much of which has actually been carried out previously under public economic models. For the rest, what we are paying for them is something that is not reflected in costs. The cost is rarely calculated in financial terms, as thsy simply have no place in and would not suit the prevailing ethos, but in social and environmental terms the costs are clear. They include increases in socially enforced use of facebook and other social media, enforced sale of private information, the number of people who still have no internet access being ignored, the destruction of our environment on packaging and transport, the destruction of local economies, huge amounts of centralisation and the slow abandonment of out-of-urban, eventual out-of-London areas, zero hour contracts, reduced employment rights, required extra work for free, low pay which doesn’t pay for rent let alone mortgages, and a vast increase in the relative wealth of the already-rich. This is what inequality means. We have required large numbers of people, and those in specific groups, to give up so much so that a few rich and trendy groups can have many more unnecessary silver spoons. For more and more of us it just is not worth it, costs outweigh any gains that many do not see anyway, and further pressure in that direction does not work socially. It also directly results in low social cohesion, unbalanced and uneven distributions of rights, justice and power, thereby increasing tension and conflicts, and creating corrupt political spheres.

@sst1234 I read it as being about the need for public infrastructure in IT just as much as in other comms / transport sector, as many IT people are calling for. The reason why private sectors are more "efficient" than public sectors, where they are which is actually not all that common, is because the true costs which are universal to that service are instead born by the individual low-status working poor rather than society as a whole.

I dread to think what utter utter chaos would be wrought be a nationalised Amazon. If you want people to be able to shop online, conveniently and efficiently, leave it alone.

Im sorry to say I dont think that would work very well TBH! Nationalised Industries dont seem to have the "edge" ifyswim. Amazon is often denigraded by many ,but the paradox is its success.Nearly everyone finds it easier even out of Lockdown to order online .A few clicks and all done .Had 2 parcels to return ,my printer was playing up .Called their "Bot" and many ways to return them !Conversely most shops need a receipt /plus lots of queuing .

If ever there was an example needed of public sector incompetence (especially local authorities), look no further than Croydon council, about to go bankrupt.

And an example of corporate skulduggery - Amazon's (alleged) screwing over of the smaller businesses that supply through it : news.sky.com/story/amazon-hit-with-antitrust-charges-by-eu-regulators-12129148