The struggle to reconcile our use of Amazon with our hatred of big corporations is a constant mental, even emotional, struggle, especially when facts like this are plopped in front of us:
Money is power, and companies like Amazon suck this economic power out of local communities and concentrate it far away.
The author of this piece does a nice job of struggling with the layered problem that is Amazon. I say "layered" because it afflicts the individual, the community, the nation, and the globe.
That being said, I squint at her application of the principle of subsidiarity to economics. The principle of subsidiarity is a political concept, not an economic one.
The biggest problem we have today is the (successful) effort by businesses to use politics in their economic pursuits. This blurring of the spheres (i) exacerbates the inequality that is bad enough already in capitalism and (ii) results in legal thievery by the economically rich and politically connected against everyone who isn't both rich and connected.
I'm not sure it makes sense to blur the two realms in our effort to get rid of the blurring, but otherwise, it's a compelling essay. It even offers a few good responses to the problem (I love the idea of barter), even if, I fear, they don't amount to much.
Sometimes, a small thing is the only thing we can do. The fact that it's small doesn't mean we shouldn't do it.
Jane Clark Scharl
