On the centenary’s day of the second administration of President Donald Trump, a Tabloid of DC abandoned a land in the punchbowl of the oligarchs by reporting that Amazon would begin to list the cost of Trump prices alongside higher prices. The Kerfuffle that followed is not a fraction as discobulating as most of the other news linked to Trump such as the horribly disturbing saga of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, or the dissociative moment that the president deemed foreign films “a national security threat”.
Unfortunately, this makes a neglected dimension of the history of Amazon’s transport much easier to miss: the poorest Americans, more and more dependent on these retailers for the reduction of Tercheap, who themselves depend on the cost of deception of China. While Trump’s prices should increase prices, these consumers are found with few other options on the private market for affordable and easily available goods – which should be considered a monstrous failure of our current capitalist system.
In the predictable Hours that followed the history of tabloid, the wave was treated. The president called Jeff Bezos while the White House called the proposal “a hostile and political act”. Amazon published two declarations, the first clarifying that the plan “was never a consideration for the main site of Amazon” and the second saying that the idea “has never been approved and will not occur”.
“The team that manages our low-cost Amazon Ultra transport store had envisaged the idea,” said the spokesperson in the first Amazon statement, referring to the new TEMU megamall of the company he launched in November.
After the categorical clarification of Amazon, Trump described Bezos as “good guy”, “very nice” and “formidable” before going to an event in Michigan to celebrate his 100th day. “He solved the problem very quickly,” said the president. And while he was heading for the Midwest, the Oligarchy Day was back on the right track.
The choice of Amazon’s words, in his declaration that his transport team had the idea, is what attracted my attention first. To be fair, many wording drew my attention in this exchange, including Trump identification of the “problem” not as its prices increasing our prices, but Amazon publicly revealing that its prices increase prices. But in the first Amazon declaration, he described transport as “ultra low -cost” goods – not “imported” goods, or goods “which depend only on world supply chains”. And it is easy to imagine that Amazon chooses to use the words “ultra low cost” to capitalize on a press linked to Trump and strengthen the conscience of his new Temu offer – which would make sense, since during his first three months, most people had not tried the transport of Amazon once.
But cynical in me – and I generally agree with cynicism towards people and societies not demonstrating any limits to their personal greed or their greed for the common good – sees the word choice as a capital Freudian, a dark recall that the lowest Amazon and Trump stores of society are not possible.
It is a dog dog of a billionaire, indicating that there is nothing to do here, and there was never, because these price increases were not seen by the Amazon flag demo: white and high consumption women in the thirties and 40 years which earn around $ 60,000 per year and spend almost $ 2,660 on Amazon in a given year. Even remove 25% of this income for taxes and that Amazon’s expenses represent almost 6% of their annual income.
Instead, Haul disclosure was going to be seen by consumers whose annual expenses on the site could be closer to $ 300, and whose economic security is, for people like Trump and societies like Amazon, an abstract thought experience.
For the most vulnerable buyers in America, Trump’s prices make a disastrous situation completely unbearable. Dollar stores like Dollar General and Dollar Tree lead to the number of products at a price of $ 1, while others like only 99 cents and the family dollar have closed hundreds of stores. In 2023, the retailer at reduced prices five below became a complete cognitive dissonance with his new brand “Five Beyond”, with articles above $ 5. And the prices of the Aldi reduction grocery store have also increased in the past year.
Walmart and Target, the two most popular retailers among low -income Americans, imported an additional inventory before Trump’s prices have taken effect and have so far managed to increase prices. But more than a week ago, leaders of these companies, as well as Home Depot, told Trump that they could not last longer without increasing prices.
Christopher Wimer, director of the center on poverty and social policy of Columbia University, told Salon that “everything that increases the prices will directly injure those who live near the edge of poverty and will still aggravate an already untenable situation.” He said that the number of Americans living below the poverty line has “increased very quickly in recent years”, as the costs of food, housing and all other basic necessities are increasing.
“Everything that increases prices will directly affect those who live near poverty and aggravate an already untenable situation”
More than one in 10 American, about 37.9 million people, lived below the poverty line in 2022. In 2023, the last year, such data is available, the part of the Americans living below this line has increased again, Wimer said.
Amazon Haul was created to compete with TEMU, the digital megamall which sells directly from Chinese manufacturers, translating into caricaturally low price: $ 5 sneakers, a $ 6 foam mattress. Only one year after the launch of TEMU in the United States in 2022, Reuters said that the website had already swallowed up 17% of the electronic commercial market at a reduced price.
Temu’s success did not occur in the void, and this can reflect the remarkable refueling request fueled by the financial insecurity of $ 3 table lamps. To be fair, the popularity of TEMU is not completely linked to the rupture of everyone – the hyperactive interface of TEMU is a masterclass in gamified consumption, which makes a purchase of new socks a trip to the digital casino.
But it is also right to say that if American buyers were not so desperate for a break in high prices, Temu would not have seized a fifth of the market of the delivery in less than a year. More than half of regular application users earn less than $ 50,000 per year.
And although these deception retailers are a larger part of the problem than the solution, their absence on the American retail market leaves the poorest in the United States with practically no reliable supplier of their most basic goods.
“Looking at the wider image, it is difficult to determine any detailing or large chain to meet the needs of low -income Americans at the moment,” George Carrillo, former director of the state of Oregon and expert in social determinants of health, told Salon. “This leaves families in an impossible position, forced to make choices that are difficult to suppress essential elements such as grocery store, medical care or even public services.”
If we live in an era of capitalism at an advanced stage, and if each dimension of human experience – culture, dating, art, everything – has been traded, monetized or become inextricable because of expenses and consumption, what does it say of capitalism when the poorest Americans still cannot afford fundamental goods? Adam Smith might think he failed.
“For Smith, a good measure of national wealth was how easily the basic necessities are, how much you care about whether you have enough food to live and to survive – not only survive, but really live a significant life.”
“Looking at the wider image, it is difficult to locate any retailer or large chain to meet the needs of low -income Americans at the moment”
It’s Glory Liu, the author of “Adam Smith’s America: How a Scottish Philosopher has become an icon of American capitalism”, speaking with Sean Illing on the Podcast “The Gray Area” by Vox. His book aims to correct the modern understanding of Smith, a moral philosopher of the 18th century largely considered as the ideological father of modern capitalism. But the best -known works and ideas of Smith – the book of 1776 “The wealth of nations”, his invisible hands theory – have been diverted over the years, have been transformed into support for capitalism as a kind of good and biologically determined human or biologically determined human services that take place at any time of two or more humans exchange goods or services.
In reality, Smith was above all a philosopher, and someone you could even call a spiritual thinker. His interest in capitalism, ultimately, was rooted in his interest in morality – and how a rapid industrializing company could rightly do so.
Liu said that Smith has recognized: “There are certain types of goods that we could consider superfluous, or perhaps more than basic, such as a linen shirt.” But Smith also said that “if, in our society, a person who has no linen shirt cannot walk in public life without facing shame and ridiculous, it is a fundamental necessity,” said Liu. “And people should be able to access these cheap and abundant basic necessities.”
She continued: “When the lowest type of members of society has cheap and abundant access to basic goods so that they can not only survive, but also to live in public life without fear of shame or ridiculous, it is when a nation is prosperous.”
Buy like a billionaire: this is the now useless slogan of TEMU, offering people the opportunity to live life as a consumer without restrictions. And when you remember that these words, and all these other companies that shake the same fantasy, come from billionaires who live this reality every day, it’s insulting, isn’t it?
Cynically, it would have been an intelligent Amazon decision to publish Trump’s prices on its transport offer. In doing so, Amazon could have turned it as a sensitivity to the financial misfortunes of its poorest customers, and criticisms may not have pointed out that the company was only transparent with consumers with few other choices. Trump would have been annoyed, of course – but that too could have given him another chance to relax against the way in which American companies have become on cheap Chinese manufacturing. The point being, Amazon was not solid to submit to Trump’s will, more than activists are forced to protest in the streets. Amazon made a choice. And it is a choice that should remind all consumers, but especially those who have the least choice, that societies claiming to serve you do not see you as fully human, or at least not as human as they do.
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