A dark journey into the American Amazon

The future of giant corporations predicted by cyberpunk has arrived, but instead of fiber-optic mohawks and implanted electronic eyes, we're looking at drones delivering dog food and productivity wristbands that will get you fired if you pee too often. In his new book, "Keeping Orders", Alec McGillis takes readers inside the bleak new world that Jeff Bezos and Amazon have created.

Jeff Bezos is a self-proclaimed Tolkien fan, and the man who hangs between the pages of "The Bill of Lading" bears less in common with Aragorn or Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings" than with Sauron. Sauron is a remote, faceless, all-powerful warlord whose decadent influence has spread across the globe. McGillis doesn't spend much time trying to understand the background or inner world of the richest man on the planet; "The Track" is more interested in exploring the vast inferno machine Bezos built and following the personal journeys of the Americans caught up in the gears of that machine.

McGillis's skills as a journalist (he was a senior reporter at ProPublica) are on full display in "Keeping the Bill," which elegantly interweaves the personal histories of those who live in what he aptly calls a "national landscape of inequality" with the big events and manipulations of politics and markets that shape that landscape. "What is done above, what is done below", as the old and mysterious proverb goes, the macro affects the micro; The invisible hand and those who guide it leave their fingerprints on our lives. Like all good detectives, McGillis thoroughly cleaned up the prints and used chalk to outline (sometimes literally) the bodies as part of his investigation into how Amazon is changing America.

The book is divided into sections titled with words such as "Isolation," "Cardboard," and "shelter" (as well as "taxation"). Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of Amazon's business and operating practices, from delivery and messaging services to political lobbying, as well as the company's institutional aversion to paying taxes and its impact on communities across the country. The story involves different parts of the country, particularly Washington, Seattle, El Paso, and Baltimore, which are used throughout McGillis's writing. He provides evidence for his investigations by tracking individuals to understand the views of business owners, workers, activists and politicians who work with or against companies. Each chapter has a character like the poet Virgil in the Divine Comedy, guiding us through a different cycle of hell.

The book's fourth chapter, "Dignity," shows McGillis's ability to talk about things from tree to tree. The narrative of this chapter revolves around Sparrow Point, Maryland, once the crown jewel of the American steel industry. From the perspective of a former Bethlehem Steel employee in Sparrow Point, McGillis compresses 131 years of labor history, racial tensions, white flight from Baltimore, the collapse of American manufacturing, and the devaluation of blue-collar jobs. The story of Bethlehem Steel and Sparrow's Corner also highlights an important point in the book: Amazon's greed for the public good and disregard for morality are nothing new.

The real innovation of this enterprise, however, is that it creates layers of intermediaries that keep people and communities at a distance from each other, and makes Amazon the ultimate middleman. McGillis details the dystopian working conditions at Amazon's warehouses: vending machines stocked with amphetamines that ease the pain of standing for more than 10 hours per shift; There are strict limits on bathroom breaks, which can leave workers holding their heads for hours; In the face of algorithms that monitor productivity, employees can be fired at any time for falling even slightly behind. Not to mention the threat of physical harm and death from unsafe working conditions, which McGillis addresses in several harrowing chapters. Amazon's work culture has alienated not only workers from each other, but also managers from employees, outsourcing the task of firing to a computer program that doesn't care that someone is late because their dog died, or that they worked a little slow last Tuesday because their kids kept them up all night.

This sense of distance, which occurs on a micro level in warehouses, also extends to the way Amazon treats other businesses and cities. One chapter focuses on El Paso, where the authors interview independent office supply business owners who see how Amazon has used its changing price points (which are sometimes used to sell counterfeit goods) to force competitors either to be priced out of the market or to sell only through Amazon's platform and lose a chunk of their business to its share of profits. The book examines how Amazon has used its dual role as seller and marketplace to muscle its way into local governments and cultures, encouraging people to buy local goods through its website - which prevents them from making face-to-face connections with local goods companies. Doing business is one thing, but being seen as the way you do business is another. Why only sell cars when you can be the road for cars?