Free Market; noun- an economic system in which prices are determined by unrestricted competition between privately owned businesses. The American economy is based on this capitalistic principle where businesses compete with each other for consumers, henceforth keeping prices low. A major threat to the Free Market principle would be a monopoly where competition is undermined and one business controls the whole market of a product being able to set whatever prices they want. When people think of monopolies they think that they are thing of the past like John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil or Andrew Carnegie’s steel industry, no one thinks of the American electronic commerce and cloud computing company: Amazon. In 2016 alone Amazon had 136 billion
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For the consumer, Amazon has made shopping easier and cheaper, but its’ negative effects are still visible. Amazon does, in fact have, a negative effect on jobs and wages and even other competition.
There is a common belief that Amazon is able to give exposure to third-party sellers and give them a platform to sell on that no other company could give to these small start-up companies. Amazon has more than two million third-party sellers and they accounted for approximately 40% of Amazon’s sales.(Zhu and Liu) While it is true that third-party sellers have benefited from the exposure that Amazon’s platform gives, for the third-party sellers that do not have the opportunity to sell on Amazon have suffered tremendously. In a recent documentary produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation called ‘Amazon’s Retail Revolution’ examines the effects that Amazon has on small business, especially book stores. Due to Amazon selling books at a cheaper price or even for a loss the local bookstores have not been able to lower their prices and still make a profit. This has caused bookstores in Britain to close at a rate of one per week causing these bookstore owners to lose their business and their live savings.(BBC) Small business are not able to compete with the prices …show more content…
Since Amazon has been the reason for the mass closing of retail stores and malls causing nearly 50,000 employees to be laid off.(Monica) One may say that since Amazon is a rapidly growing corporation that the need for labor will go up and the people who have been laid off could find a job at Amazon: well that is not the case. By using United States census data it was projected that Amazon would employ up to 300,000 Americans, in reality, Amazon is only employing about half that number.(Peck) While it may seem like Amazon is employing a decent amount of Americans as more and more stores and malls closing across America the unemployment rate would just keep increasing because Amazon is displacing more jobs than it is creating. With the nearly 150,000 employees employed by Amazon, approximately 120,000 are seasonal workers which mean the job is temporary. Since the job is classified as “temporary” Amazon does not have to give benefits to these workers saving the company millions, but making the job less valuable because it is said that these jobs will eventually be displaced by automation. Not only is Amazon displacing more jobs than it is producing, Amazon is also undermining wages of their employees. A report done by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance examined the effects of Amazon undercutting wages. The study concluded that In
For the consumer, Amazon has made shopping easier and cheaper, but its’ negative effects are still visible. Amazon does, in fact have, a negative effect on jobs and wages and even other competition.
There is a common belief that Amazon is able to give exposure to third-party sellers and give them a platform to sell on that no other company could give to these small start-up companies. Amazon has more than two million third-party sellers and they accounted for approximately 40% of Amazon’s sales.(Zhu and Liu) While it is true that third-party sellers have benefited from the exposure that Amazon’s platform gives, for the third-party sellers that do not have the opportunity to sell on Amazon have suffered tremendously. In a recent documentary produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation called ‘Amazon’s Retail Revolution’ examines the effects that Amazon has on small business, especially book stores. Due to Amazon selling books at a cheaper price or even for a loss the local bookstores have not been able to lower their prices and still make a profit. This has caused bookstores in Britain to close at a rate of one per week causing these bookstore owners to lose their business and their live savings.(BBC) Small business are not able to compete with the prices …show more content…
Since Amazon has been the reason for the mass closing of retail stores and malls causing nearly 50,000 employees to be laid off.(Monica) One may say that since Amazon is a rapidly growing corporation that the need for labor will go up and the people who have been laid off could find a job at Amazon: well that is not the case. By using United States census data it was projected that Amazon would employ up to 300,000 Americans, in reality, Amazon is only employing about half that number.(Peck) While it may seem like Amazon is employing a decent amount of Americans as more and more stores and malls closing across America the unemployment rate would just keep increasing because Amazon is displacing more jobs than it is creating. With the nearly 150,000 employees employed by Amazon, approximately 120,000 are seasonal workers which mean the job is temporary. Since the job is classified as “temporary” Amazon does not have to give benefits to these workers saving the company millions, but making the job less valuable because it is said that these jobs will eventually be displaced by automation. Not only is Amazon displacing more jobs than it is producing, Amazon is also undermining wages of their employees. A report done by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance examined the effects of Amazon undercutting wages. The study concluded that In