How Socialism Can Save the Publishing Industry

Here. Amazon is destroying the bookselling and publishing industry as we know it. It is now an effective monopoly and is using its monopoly power the same way all monopolies do. I like this idea a lot. Amazon needs to burn.

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5 thoughts on “How Socialism Can Save the Publishing Industry”

  1. I suppose a right wing counter-argument would be that it’s evolution. Pretty much, monopolies like Amazon, Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, McDonald’s etc.. have driven “mom and pop” anything out of town. Also, the destruction of local farms (also playing into the monopoly thing) in other nations has fueled illegal immigration. The destruction of family farms here has had it’s obvious consequences, like bland and toxic food.

    1. It’s an unfortunate thing that mom and pop has been driven out of towns! Each state and town was like it’s own mini country with it’s own food and farm production! You could say that every country in the world has it’s own unique cuisine thanks to mom and pop being in their country and not being driven out when said cuisine was being formed in said country. If Mom and Pop was never there, then the entire food of the world would be the exact same! Every country has it’s own type of cuisine and food production thanks to the fact that a mom and pop place was allowed to be in the local town and village as far back as 1100 BC….

  2. Well, evolution can be stopped. That’s what the European countries have done. Amazon is already starting to jack up shipping and book prices. I knew this would happen. All monopolies do this. And they are abusing their monopoly power by dictating terms to publishers that disadvantage them as these publishers are now Amazon competitors. Yes, Amazon is now a publisher.

    1. Are they perhaps jacking up prices because their shareholders finally told them they have to make a profit instead of continuously investing and expanding (and consequently becoming ever more bloated)? I’ve heard there are issues along those lines, and it has manifested itself in a drop in share prices.

  3. Perhaps better ways of doing it (than what the linked article suggests) are slapping them with an antitrust ruling, closing down the tax loopholes it unfairly exploits, and governments not giving them special favours when it comes to setting up shop in the name of helping the economy.
    And, of course, ordinary folks like us taking our custom elsewhere. Some of the articles about Amazon on this blog have at least made me think that bit harder about genuine alternatives to Amazon. (I don’t know if Alibris is very good as an alternative, but there are plenty of other examples?)
    I am not sure price controls are really going to be helpful especially to those of us with limited means. True, the best way of buying cheap books is to go second-hand (which I do plenty of) but for the few I want to buy new, I’d either have to wait or hope the library can get it in. Also, I wonder how much price controls in and of themselves are very strongly socialist- they do not imply social ownership of the means of production as such.

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