Has Bezos studied American history at all? Does he know anything about federal subsidies for railroad and canals? Does he understand the enormous government role in the creation of the Internet? There has been no point when "freedom in the economic realm" existed in the form of pure "free markets." - ThreadSky

larryglickman.bsky.social • 5 days ago

Has Bezos studied American history at all? Does he know anything about federal subsidies for railroad and canals? Does he understand the enormous government role in the creation of the Internet? There has been no point when "freedom in the economic realm" existed in the form of pure "free markets."

Reposted from Dan Froomkin/Press Watch/Heads Up News

Holy shit. Jeff Bezos is turning the Washington Post editorial page into.... the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

Comments

tc-99m.bsky.social•5 days ago

“I did it all by myself, now you should too.”

clio.bsky.social•5 days ago

How about the post-WW2 white middle-class Uber subsidies? Highways, FHA, college, public infrastructure...the list is endless.

clio.bsky.social•5 days ago

If not for social security, everyone in the boomer generation would have had to house, feed and care for their parents and they would not have extra money for all the crap Bezos, Disney and everyone else sells.

thinkingrealhard.bsky.social•5 days ago

He could ask Musk if government grants and subsidies help build businesses…

sniffit.bsky.social•5 days ago

Everyone should block the WaPo Bluesky account. Frankly, we should block anyone working for them as well.

#BLOCKWAPO

Merely bitching about them is not going to send a message.

And anyone who hasn't unsubscribed to everything Bezos is doing it wrong.

jayflogal.bsky.social•5 days ago

Very hands-off owner. His company reaps the VAST benefits of our tax dollars while also paying none itself. The grift keeps coming.

maximillianquinn.bsky.social•5 days ago

The free-market fundamentalists will never admit that American capitalism rests on the foundation of the federal government, not the other way around.

jamrock45.bsky.social•5 days ago

Him making this move is him actually admitting that capitalism (or at least his personal interests) rests on the federal government.

brokensymmetry.art•5 days ago

Well, I think you give him far too much credit, there's little chance he believes what he's saying.

wdg1108.bsky.social•4 days ago

And what you're describing is literally called "The American System."

bluesky-99.bsky.social•5 days ago

Didn’t you know? These tech bros invented it all! Nothing existed before the Apple One.

ogg921.bsky.social•4 days ago

WaPo's opinion page is going to be dedicated to "free market" & "personal liberty" propaganda? Is that what I just read?
Bezos thinks the internet doesn't talk enough about those things? WTAF?

zenosanalytic.bsky.social•4 days ago

Oh he knows; he's saying this to coverup the wholesale theft of all that public infrastructure by private wealth like himself!

He's just too frelling stupid to understand that when they're done killing that goose, not ONLY will it lay no more golden eggs, but the ones it has will disappear

jpure.bsky.social•5 days ago

He is hypocritical trash with money.

tomfodw.bsky.social•5 days ago

By assuming he doesn't know, you're avoiding engaging with his bad faith. Of course he knows or at least could easily find out. Problem is, he doesn't care. Late-stage capitalism has become, among other things, the transfer of public goods to private hands--i.e., socialization of loss, privatization

tomfodw.bsky.social•5 days ago

of profit. Along with publicistic hackery justifying such looting.

somanymonkeys.bsky.social•5 days ago

Idk, I feel like the modern welfare state has shown the ability to curtail the effects of unregulated capitalism, while retaining its power for responding to economic needs. The problem is some people forget we used to have burning rivers & bread lines because we didn't regulate social costs.

47lies.bsky.social•5 days ago

The first permanent English settlement in America, Jamestown was subsidized by the Native Americans

commonsensegoodgov.bsky.social•4 days ago

Free markets do not exist.

cptdoomdc.bsky.social•5 days ago

Bezos could not have become a billionaire in a true "free market" as defined by economists. The best analog for such a market is small scale family farming - think the Ingalls family of "Little House on the Prairie." Of course they weren't rich, but the monopolist Olesen family sure was.

mwsl.bsky.social•4 days ago

He does not. He built his empire on the back of the US Postal Service and he thinks that makes the government a sucker.

runningoutwest.bsky.social•5 days ago

He is very stupid

scotgirl72.bsky.social•5 days ago

Poorly educated and rich. Lethal combo for any country.

katiecannon.bsky.social•5 days ago

True regarding our national currency

Also, markets are laws, lawyers & court decisions all the way down:

https://youtu.be/yqTLfJS2yiE?si=3SxVxvYBPmvWH4FT

brokeshealds.bsky.social•5 days ago

He already has everything he needs for the rest of his life so he no longer cares.

feralhattie.bsky.social•5 days ago

the amazon project was to sell books to *other* people, not jeff! jorff too smart to read book, jerff look neat in wild shirt at party!

izzypuff.bsky.social•5 days ago

Wow! Your perceptive makes an insightful point...💯

enniskillen1166.bsky.social•5 days ago

The free market doesn't deliver many of his packages, the USPS does because there is no way to make money on that "last mile" in most of the US.

ngasloop.bsky.social•5 days ago

Doubtful; he's been so busy first building his online bookstore, then his rocket ship business. Who has time for an education, especially in anything included in a "liberal" arts academic discipline?
/s

h4ximus.bsky.social•5 days ago

The list goes on when you think about market failures. Household electricity and internet. Highways. Universal education. Not everything is supposed to be profitable, but they're all still necessary to modern economies. To say nothing of health insurance or retirement.

crumbledcolumns.bsky.social•5 days ago

Bezos knows all that, but he wants to be a robber baron like JP Morgan or John Rockefeller.

I for one am looking forward to the creation of Trumptowns, when the Greater Depression hits. Gonna be sweet.

djmccann.bsky.social•5 days ago

If he wanted to know those things, he would have owned a bookstore instead of whatever he actually did to make his money.

clairecloutier.bsky.social•5 days ago

He doesn't care.

mikeomalley.bsky.social•1 day ago

Was just reading an MS and talking about the Bland Allison Act and the Sherman Silver Purchase act, massive gilded age giveaways to mining companies. He knows nothing and does not let it trouble his beautiful mind

tenguleavings.bsky.social•5 days ago

Are you sitting down, Larry? Good. I'm going to go ahead and guess that Bezos has at a billion+ reasons to think that American history is whatever he wants it to be. But yes, he's definitely going to check out your book

redtriage.bsky.social•5 days ago

Welfare only works for rich people ….

cobbdouglas.bsky.social•5 days ago

By free markets he means privatization. He means government money to private companies. That’s all.

green496.bsky.social•5 days ago

Any time there's an industry with pure free market, it devolves into scams and grifts. Crypto was the closest thing in recent American history, and it is jam packed full of grifters.

piri.bsky.social•5 days ago

He has no intention of being right, this is propaganda.

henry-the-dox.bsky.social•5 days ago

Glad I cancelled WaPo back in the fall. Why can't @karaswisher.bsky.social take over?

slackermom.bsky.social•5 days ago

He thinks those ideas are underserved in the market? How the fuck does he think he got to be a billionaire? Because the markets are free - for him and his pals. Not for the rest of us. Coercion? How about being coerced to live in a country that has the most school shopping’s in the world?

slackermom.bsky.social•5 days ago

Isn’t that due to fetishization of individual rights over the health of the collective? This is beyond misguided. It’s genocidal.

georgeleigh.bsky.social•4 days ago

The mistake that mediocre people always make is to assume that if someone becomes a billionaire, they must be really smart.

clemsonfutbolfan.bsky.social•5 days ago

And freedom everywhere else, like when we used slaves to build things and harvest crops.

ziselberger.com•5 days ago

Amazon dot com wouldn't exist without the (idiotic) government "software patent" system Obvious things like "add to cart" or other basic UI functions were patented by Amazon and shielded by the government, allowing them to get so fucking big.

shepherdone.bsky.social•5 days ago

Send Bezos back to 19th Century New York or DC before municipal sewage, at least he'll know how bad his shit stinks. https://tinyurl.com/mw6j5twe

openingmyeyes.bsky.social•5 days ago

how much does amazon rely on the USPS?

cinichol.bsky.social•4 days ago

omg

djwyszynski.bsky.social•5 days ago

He understands - Amazon got $10B from the NSA a few years ago. He doesn't care.

videokid.bsky.social•5 days ago

Amazon also gets a ton of specific tax breaks at both the state and federal level the no other company gets. He doesn’t actually want a free market and he is using this as a smoke screen.

bellhistory.bsky.social•4 days ago

Not even Adam Smith called for a completely unregulated economy with no role for government

himynameisdave.com•5 days ago

socialism for me but not for thee

bluememe.bsky.social•5 days ago

A prerequisite for a belief in libertarian principles is a willful ignorance of the role of government and laws in creating the conditions under which “free markets” can exist.

bellabld.bsky.social•5 days ago

He has, he knows. He just doesn’t care.

mskathleenquinn.bsky.social•4 days ago

I think we can safely answer all those questions "no." He reads the Wall Street Journal and prefers it, and probably feels if he is going to keep losing a shitload of money on a newspaper he probably now regrets buying, it should at least be one he likes to read.

askgma.bsky.social•5 days ago

He’s bought and sold

wscotgrey.bsky.social•5 days ago

He should find a bookstore.

larryglickman.bsky.social•5 days ago

I'm sure it will never happen but I really do wish that he would read my book on the history of the idea of "free enterprise."
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300238259/free-enterprise/

grendelsnacks.bsky.social•5 days ago

With respect, I think it's naive to engage with Bezos' framing of this move as principle-based. He's providing cover for removal of editorial independence so that his asset better serves his needs. We can look forward to output that blatantly fails the "personal and market freedoms" smell test.

larryglickman.bsky.social•5 days ago

His message enacts pretty much precisely the pattern I track in Chapter 6, "Faith in Free Enterprise." Rather than turning to history or defining his terms, Bezos highlights his belief and confidence--in short, his faith--that "free markets are right for America."

larryglickman.bsky.social•5 days ago

In 1941 the economic historian Herbert Heaton wrote of the need "to destroy (if that be possible) the popular notion that until the Fourth of March, 1933 [the date of FDR's inauguration], the United States was the land of laissez faire." Quoted on p. 241 of FREE ENTERPRISE

larryglickman.bsky.social•5 days ago

In his 1943 study of Massachusetts, the historian Oscar Handlin wrote, "From the very first organization of the Commonwealth in 1780, the state actively and vigorously engaged in all economic affairs of the area, sometimes as participant, sometimes as regulator." [Also quoted on p. 241]

larryglickman.bsky.social•4 days ago

In my book, I describe the last time there was a great debate about public spending, in the late 1950s. Senator Joseph Clark (D-PA) put it well in 1959, and I don't feel that we've moved much beyond these characterizations of public spending as inherently bad and private spending as inherently good.

larryglickman.bsky.social•4 days ago

For a time, Edwin L. Dale, Jr. covered the public spending beat for the New York Times. Here is one of his articles about that debate from 1960. Would be nice to see high profile advocacy of public spending to contest the DOGE view, especially now that many Americans are suspicious of Musk.

smintheus.bsky.social•5 days ago

It would be overly generous to describe the economic thinking of Bezos and the other MAGA billionaires as sophomoric.

lisamw.bsky.social•5 days ago

Ship him a copy!

redtriage.bsky.social•5 days ago

They guy owns a book store…

bsviggy.bsky.social•4 days ago

His own fucking business relies upon the USPS

merri24.bsky.social•5 days ago

he doesn’t care. As long as he and his latest Bimbot get what they want, he’s all good.

robrakove.bsky.social•5 days ago

He'd have to remember his earlier exemption from sales tax at least?

tompaine1.bsky.social•5 days ago

United We Stand.

@tompaine1.bsky.social
@50501movement.bsky.social
@peoplepowerunited.bsky.social
@indivisible.org

rappahannockannie.bsky.social•5 days ago

This sounds worse than WSJ to me. It's not even ideological, it's sheer selfish pandering.

spouti.bsky.social•5 days ago

Today, the Internet does that job. Poorly.

driveswiftly.bsky.social•5 days ago

And his own company relies heavily on favorable contracts with the USPS!

bluedott13.bsky.social•5 days ago

He doesn’t care. He’s richer and therefore smarter and better. /sarcasm alert for the 2nd sentence

bluestatedon.bsky.social•4 days ago

Or the enormous subsidies the federal govt provided for the development of our space program. Does he think that Boeing and North American and Douglas and IBM footed the entire bill for their work on the Apollo program themselves?

ihaveaquestion4u.bsky.social•4 days ago

In this instance I think it means freedom to not pay taxes.

susej1950.bsky.social•5 days ago

Demasiadas ayudas federales son la prueba de la entrega de Jesús por parte de Judas. Los judíos se salen con las suyas y Poncio Pilatos se merienda el pastel.

angeleyesnyc.bsky.social•5 days ago

If he is so committed to free markets, Bezos must vigorously oppose Trump's tariffs. Right? 🤣🤣🤣

grantanderson.bsky.social•5 days ago

"Free markets" the eyes of people like Jeff bezos means unfettered, unregulated capitalism, where there are no barriers to prevent him from using his economic power to simply take all the rest of the wealth. Because apparently he thinks he doesn't have enough.

mrtox.bsky.social•5 days ago

Ahh the adorable myth of billionaires buying things to save free speech in America

jenebbeler.bsky.social•5 days ago

Of course he hasn’t. Bc these dudes in their midlife crises all need to believe that their billions is merely a reflection of their superior ability.

curiouscloud.cc•5 days ago

He obviously hasn't heard @timothysnyder.bsky.social's opinion of 'free markets' vs free people, or just disagrees.

I prefer free people vs free markets 👍

It'd be awesome if there was an outlet full of authors expounding/promoting Dr Snyder's view of freedom.

williamsb1971.bsky.social•5 days ago

Jeff “self made” himself in a vacuum

profsecchi.bsky.social•5 days ago

And let’s not forget that those subsidies were in the form of massive land grabs and the removal and genocide of Native peoples. These people do not have even a basic understanding of the past, it’s self-serving lies and fake history all the way down.

tinisoli.bsky.social•5 days ago

These guys think history was just a prelude to their heroic, world-transforming arrival. Sure, government had its time but now Mark, Elon, and Jeff are here! We just need to trust them! And of course this is what every wannabe ruler has thought of themselves for thousands of years.

johncraighammond.bsky.social•4 days ago

In Bezos's world, free markets created the internet, huh?

brooklynsjames.bsky.social•5 days ago

capitalismhurtsall.bsky.social•5 days ago

biknmusicmama.bsky.social•5 days ago

Short post: “we are turning our Op-Ed pages into one of those bad videos the right wing makes, every day.”

exaktscience.bsky.social•5 days ago

Yes. And he doesn’t care, because all that matters to him is getting richer and protecting his class interests

drhonor.bsky.social•5 days ago

Says the dude literally standing on the podium with the guys who just bought the government.

heykarlin.bsky.social•5 days ago

Of course he knows all that. He doesn’t give a shit.

rickjemmett.bsky.social•4 days ago

The malignant libertarians who now control the 🇺🇸 government seek an end to civil society. This is the plan. Your question indicates that you think they have some level of interest in New Deal sociopolitics. They don’t. This is now an Ayn Rand Utopia.

They prefer that most of us are dead.

larryglickman.bsky.social•4 days ago

A scary thought!

boringtrans.bsky.social•5 days ago

I feel like while all this is true— we just also have to accept that he means that’s it’s acceptable to break up unions and have his employees choose between pay penalties or getting a UTI.

mpoessel.de•4 days ago

Not only subsidies. There's the AT&T monopoly on long-distance telephony, after all, as far from the free market as you can get. Created much of today's communication infrastructure, from transistors to comm satellites to the principle of cell phone connections.

rbretired.bsky.social•5 days ago

Excellent. He is right

jurfo.bsky.social•5 days ago

I think there’s a good chance that Bezos knows exactly what he’s talking about.

gueneuera.bsky.social•5 days ago

The entire fortunes of him, Elon and their ilk are dependent on the Federal government, not to mention the largely peaceful post-WWII world order brought about by our strong alliance with Europe (and scientific advances like vaccines). These people are dangerous, greedy ignoramuses