Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States
&gt; the warehouse worker is neither seen nor heard by the customer; at least at Walmart, you go to a store and you see the workers — you know they exist.<p>This made me think of the movie &#x27;The Island&#x27; where in one scene, somewhere in the beginning of the movie, they show us the work our protagonists do in their community. There are tubes coming out of the wall on one side of the room and out the other; tubes which have a flowing liquid inside which the protagonists and their friends are trained to perform an action on, which is essential for some kind of process.<p>Only later do we find out the awful purpose of these tubes.<p>There is an increasing level of alienation that is hard to describe to anyone who has been lucky enough to be a labor aristocrat for most of their lives. I honestly think everyone around us is capable of so much more. Our current system, through Intellectual Property types such as copyrights and trade secrets, has made it hard to ascend &#x27;intellectual ladders&#x27; because the intellectual ladders used by those in power have kicked them away (after they were used by them). In other words: there is a lack of diversity of methods and approaches and opportunities due to the commodification and privatization of knowledge (i.e. technology and science overall). [1],[2]<p>I believe the human needs for growth and play are foundational to a happy society, and in modern society, those needs go massively unmet, and the working class is being squeezed and squeezed like never before (not to mention the workers in the global south who I would argue are exploited to an even greater extent [3]).<p>It&#x27;s also ironic that Amazon calls their production facilities &#x27;Fulfillment Centers&#x27;, because the most important people they do not create &#x27;fulfillment&#x27; for are their workers... you know, the people who are actually creating all the value:<p>&gt; If class is a social relation and the working class is made and remade daily, that formation is increasingly happening inside the massive structures that house Amazon’s warehouses, where workers face capital embodied in the whir of machinery and barking managers and the beeps of the scanner in their hands, prodding them to pick up the pace. It is happening in the parking lots outside, where people smoke and linger and chat and dread.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25753856" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25753856</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tribunemag.co.uk&#x2F;2019&#x2F;01&#x2F;abolish-silicon-valley" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tribunemag.co.uk&#x2F;2019&#x2F;01&#x2F;abolish-silicon-valley</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;anti-imperialism.org&#x2F;2012&#x2F;09&#x2F;18&#x2F;understanding-and-changing-an-interview-with-zak-cope-author-of-divided-world-divided-class&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;anti-imperialism.org&#x2F;2012&#x2F;09&#x2F;18&#x2F;understanding-and-ch...</a>