We live in a time when we have everything, but we are trapped in a life of nothing

In just over two decades, Amazon has risen to become the world's largest Internet company, the second-largest private employer in the United States, and its "fulfillment centers" for warehousing and transportation have spread around the world, completely reshaping the way people live.

In today's sandwich book, we'd like to share with you New Classic's nonfiction book, "Keeping the Order." Using Amazon as a lens, Alec McGillis captures life in the shadow of a tech oligarchy, showing an America that is geographically and classically divided by capital. Through a panoramic view, the book also shows that the upstream and downstream of the e-commerce industry, from industrial workers to ordinary buyers, are all caught in the slave trap of surveillance capitalism

We live in a time when we have everything, but we are trapped in a life of nothing; We get 30-minute takeout at the click of a button, next-day delivery of digital products, the convenience of seven-day returns for no reason, but lose the dignity of labor, the freedom of choice, the right to public participation, and the connections and human feelings that once existed in the neighborhood.

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618 is coming, and it's not just us who love online shopping, it's Americans.

Americans may not know Mona Lisa's smile, but they will all be familiar with another smile

Amazon logo smile.

The "American version of Taobao", founded less than 30 years ago, has become one of the world's largest online shopping sites.

Its founder, Jeff Bezos, is also known for his love of laughter, but he is better known for his fortune of hundreds of billions of dollars.

How rich is Bezos?

In 2019, Bezos and his wife divorced, and after paying the most expensive divorce settlement in history, a "breakup fee" of $38.3 billion, he was still the richest man on the planet at the time.

Amazon founder: Jeff Bezos

According to statistics, one in two Americans uses Amazon.

From your POTS and pans at home to the latest smart speakers, you can arrive the next day in just one click.

Abundant products, low prices, fast delivery, easy return service, who can not love this kind of online shopping?

But there is a sneaking sense that something is wrong with the business model.

For example, journalist Alec McGillis, who has worked for many years in the old media Washington Post and the New Republic, won the Robin Toner Award and the George Polk Journalism Award two industry awards, and is still active in the front line of American news reporting.

In his decades-long career, there is one thing he has persisted for more than a decade, and that is the investigation and research of Amazon.

He talked to drivers, deliverymen and sorters employed by Amazon, interviewed third-party sellers and manufacturers, and delved into the world of politicians and executives to write a nonfiction book called "Fulfilling Orders."

This is not a business inspiration story, but the reverse story of how one company has grown into a capital behemoth that has elevated the nation, and how this behemoth has gradually eroded the lives of all of us.

It's not just the story of Amazon or America, it's probably the story of our future.

01 Sweatshop

They call themselves a tech company, but they're really a sweatshop.

-- Laura

Warehouse worker Hector's wife

Amazon is the second largest private employer in the United States, but it is also one of the most demanding.

Hundreds of thousands of people work for Amazon.

A significant number of them were once middle-class, with high-paying white-collar jobs. But the economic downturn has brought them from cubicles to workshops.

How much money can you make working at Amazon?

After years of low wages, Amazon proudly announced in 2018 that it would raise wages for its 250,000 US warehouse employees and 100,000 seasonal workers.

The minimum wage for workers was raised to $15 an hour.

If you compare that to the federal minimum wage, that's a decent amount, twice as much.

But in fact, as early as a decade ago, General Motors workers were making $27 an hour.

Reporter McGillis also found that even the $15 figure does not apply to many workers.

You first have to meet the high intensity conditions in warehouses and factories.

If you're a forklift driver unloading trucks in an Amazon warehouse, you have to --

Working a 10-hour shift;

Unload a truck in 15 to 20 minutes;

There was only a 20-minute break;

The 20-minute break includes your bathroom break;

For 10 hours, he was monitored by supervisors, surveillance cameras, wristbands on his hands.

If you're a night porter in an Amazon warehouse, you have to --

Four all-nighters a week;

From 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.;

Standing in front of a conveyor belt for 12 hours (not a single chair in the entire warehouse);

Moving hundreds of loads per hour, keep the side with the bar code facing up;

Some cargo may weigh up to 22 kilograms;

For each shift, it's 19 kilometers.

If you do all of the above, congratulations on your full salary.