Amazon is the most prominent symbol of internationalization; which has played a main role in ceaseless de-naturalization of this planet. Jeff Bezos achieved what no man could but in turn caused a serious outrage among a large group of people. A global movement has started with an aim to make Amazon pay for its serial abuse of environment and work force. The members of this movement include amazon’s warehouse workers, labor unions, environmentalists, human-rights organizations, and global citizens from around the world.
One of the members of US congress, Ilhan Omer has supported this movement and openly called Jeff Bezos’ tax avoidance, a theft. According to the reports, Jeff paid 1.2% tax rate on his income, while average businesses in the US pay 21%. Reports also highlighted that Jeff paid 0% tax in 2017 and 2018
Alliance To Make Amazon Pay For Corporate Irresponsibility
They globally highlighted how Jeff and Amazon kept siphoning the wealth from society without improving the wages for low-level workers. And on top of that, the tech giant was reportedly skipping on tax as well. There are more than reasons for the protestors to be mad at Bezos.
The treatment of workers at Amazon is becoming clearer with the time. Earlier this year, some workers brought guillotine outside Jeff’s house to demand raise and now they have formed a global coalition with strong support. One of their ally is Progressive International is a global body that organizes, empowers, and activates such movements that meant for progressive change.
The wealth of Jeff Bezos is increasing with the screams of low-level workers but no decisive action has been taken by or against the tech giant. This movement is a way of uniting all those who support the idea of making tech giants pay an equal amount of tax as everyone does. The united group has shared its 23 demands in 5 areas in a PDF file on their website. These demands are mostly about changing tech giant’s policies and government laws; which are two interrelated factors that can support each other’s fault.
Taking Down the Amazon
During the Black Friday sales, Amazon enjoyed one of its glorious shopping days while thousands were out in the streets protesting Amazon’s facilities. The warehouse workers from 15 different countries joined hands to bring down the tech giant.
The coalition is rapidly gaining momentum by trying to match the kind of power Amazon uses to assert its dominance. They projected their slogan on Amazon’s symbols of capitalism around the world including Jeff’s 20 million dollar Washington mansion.
This show was to amplify their voices against the tech giant because seemingly the attention is less than the severity of issue. The predictions of Karl Marx about the collapse of capitalism have been coming around rapidly. He said that the market will doom itself which is happening with large corporations taking huge chunks of business with themselves while leaving peanuts for the low-scale businesses and individuals.
The problem is not with the ideology of capitalism it is how humans were implementing it. Capitalistic forces took control of the economy and distributed it unjustly which led the rich to become richer and poor to get poorer just like Marx feared.
Amazon is the same capitalistic force that thought it was just ‘marxism’ and nothing could ever happen to their sweet dollars. However, the many parts of the world is now exposed to the horrible face of the tech giant which was widely hidden before or simply ignored by its supporters. This movement is not like any other periodic movement like make billionaires pay act. It is here to stay active and loud as long as Amazon makes a humane decision. It has to increase workers’ wage and pay according to equal tax rate in order to be clear of the heat.
Shots Fired At Jeff Bezos
It does not make sense for Amazon to avoid not pay taxes while earning tens of billions of dollars each year. Reportedly, Jeff’s wealth grew by 70 billion USD during the pandemic when entire airline companies were going bankrupt. It is such an alarming situation that if a there was any serious legal system in any corner of the world, it would have arrested Jeff Bezos immediately. Gravity’s CEO Dan Price challenged Bezos that if his small business can pay taxes on time, what is Jeff’s excuse?
An activist against capitalism and supremacy mentioned that it would not matter even if Jeff pays tax on his entire net worth. He would still be the richest person in the world, which tells a lot about what happened with capitalist economy.
The Make Amazon Pay movement is aiming to fix the damage by proposing a new legislative power to reduce Amazon’s hold of the market. It might seem radical to most but it has been necessary for those suffering from Amazon’s relentless exploitation of failed capitalism.
The movement wants to provide a different and business friendly world. One where interests of the masses will be greater than the interests of corporations; the development and economic activity will lead to reconstruction of environment rather than destruction; and markets will be controlled by democratic departments (sic: which could also be corruptible depending on the political party in control). They have started with Amazon because the tech giant has been failing in the accord of professional equality.
