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Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America by Alec MacGillis, Stefan Alexander MacGillis
tigerlillymelody's review against another edition
3.25
The way this book looks at Amazon is interesting no doubt. Not only does it track the way that Amazon as an economic juggernaut affects everything from federal policy down to daily quality of life of people in associated with the organization, but it also chronicles the political and social changes that happened before and during Amazon’s rise to prominence that allowed Amazon to make the changes in our society that it has. I think the breadth of the reporting in this text is genuinely impressive. I’m only knocking it a star because I felt that sometimes it kind of fell into “good old days” kind of rhetoric especially when describing medium and small towns nostalgically, though I am and have always been a city babe so grain of salt I guess.
alexcribbs's review against another edition
It was fine, just not grabbing me as an audiobook.
todd___'s review against another edition
5.0
Fulfillment is a fantastic exposition of the impact of Amazon on US cities, suburbs, and exurbs. Like the best non-fiction in recent history -- Evicted, Say Nothing, etc. -- MacGillis does a great job of highlighting and creating emotional investment in personal stories while connecting those stories to larger trends.
The subtitle here is perfect: Amazon and its success has created winners and losers across America. Wealth continues to concentrate across individuals, companies, and locales. The few winners in power continue to exacerbate this immense imbalance. The many losers, whether the be in gentrified neighborhoods or hollowed-out small cities, suffer in a country that has more enough resources for them if they were distributed equitably. It's a sad story, but an absolutely necessary one to understand modern America.
The subtitle here is perfect: Amazon and its success has created winners and losers across America. Wealth continues to concentrate across individuals, companies, and locales. The few winners in power continue to exacerbate this immense imbalance. The many losers, whether the be in gentrified neighborhoods or hollowed-out small cities, suffer in a country that has more enough resources for them if they were distributed equitably. It's a sad story, but an absolutely necessary one to understand modern America.
algorithm0392's review against another edition
4.0
4.5/5. Important read as Amazon continues to gobble market share in retail, cloud, and beyond. Puts a face to the human impact of the company’s hockey stick growth — almost feels like modern muckraking in some senses.
More thoughts TK.
Shoutout to Enxhi’s rooftop and pool for a wonderful setting for this Fourth of July read (and the fireworks).
More thoughts TK.
Shoutout to Enxhi’s rooftop and pool for a wonderful setting for this Fourth of July read (and the fireworks).
trippalli's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.75
Very informative. Amazing all the evil and manipulative things Amazon did to force small businesses to join them even losing money and often going out of business, and how they used those partners to skimtactics and what to sell from subject matter experts then sold the same thing over promoting their version of the item. And on and on... So many injuries and deaths at Amazon warehouses too. Terrifying.
The last sentence confused me a bit..a guy quits dealing illegal drugs and takes an Amazon job instead. Is it a comparison. Ironic, or something else?
Immensely informative but a bit dark, with good reason.
The last sentence confused me a bit..a guy quits dealing illegal drugs and takes an Amazon job instead. Is it a comparison. Ironic, or something else?
Immensely informative but a bit dark, with good reason.
alexisrt's review against another edition
5.0
As the title and cover indicate, Fulfillment is about Amazon--but only partly. It's about the overall changes in the US economy, its winners and losers, and the prices we've paid.
MacGillis' basic thesis is fairly simple: deindustrialization, offshoring, and industry consolidation has created an economically polarized America, where a few cities have outsized success while many smaller ones lag behind. He delves in particular into Baltimore, which has suffered major economic and social dislocation, and Seattle, which has gone from being a provincial city to a wealthy tech powerhouse. The winning cities price out all but the wealthiest residents, leading to angry arguments about who "deserves" to live there. The losers don't have high paying jobs, and residents cannot afford to move. (Mobility in the US has decreased in recent decades, which lends support to MacGillis' narrative.)
In MacGillis' telling, no one is really off the hook, which I appreciated. There's a particular tendency these days to hew to Other People Are the Problem, and he doesn't do that. In Baltimore, Bethlehem Steel management was largely to blame for the failure of Sparrows Point (contrary to a popular narrative that it was about lazy unions), but unions were not blameless. Politicians across the political spectrum fail voters and workers with their competition to offer tax incentives to large corporations. Everyone's afraid to stop because other states and municipalities won't, but the end result is enormous subsidies to the corporations who need it least.
There's certainly a great deal more to say--MacGillis is really interested in the personal stories behind change, and they do take up a fair bit of the book. There's a lot more he could have added to flesh out the story behind the story--more business type reporting, antitrust, mergers, offshoring. I do feel that these stories had a larger point, though, which is to show the scope of economic change. When a factory closes, you don't just lose 500 jobs. Those 500 workers no longer have money to spend, and it ripples outwards. When local businesses are killed, it doesn't just affect them. When local department stores shutter, we spend our money online, taking money out of the community--and making our smaller towns and cities less attractive places to live. (The story of the Bon-Ton would have hooked in well to how Macy's has become the only major department store chain in much of the US.)
Progressives aren't off the hook. Seattle residents fell prey to Amazon's narrative about taxes and homelessness, and repealed a tax to pay for homeless services. Washington state is one of only 8 without an income tax, relying instead on regressive taxation, which lawmakers have admitted they won't change because of tech. The urban progressives on the ascent in the Democratic Party have also hurt their own cause by clustering in bubbles and dismissing small town and rural voters. (As a small-city Democrat, I've rarely encountered people as self-satisfied as the urban progressive.)
I'm really not fond of "economic anxiety caused Trump" narratives, which always have to do a dance around the immediate reasons many people voted for Trump. Thankfully MacGillis doesn't fall into the same traps as much of the news media. Instead, he suggests, economic changes created fertile territory for Trumpism, rather than a simple link. I found this a much more satisfying narrative: rather than simply suggesting people became more conservative because they thought it would improve things, it allows for a place where economic conditions leave people open to cultural explanations and anger.
As for the Amazon workers? Well some of them die. Two of the cases MacGillis covers were just down the road from me in Carlisle. And it mostly seems Amazon considers this the cost of business.
MacGillis' basic thesis is fairly simple: deindustrialization, offshoring, and industry consolidation has created an economically polarized America, where a few cities have outsized success while many smaller ones lag behind. He delves in particular into Baltimore, which has suffered major economic and social dislocation, and Seattle, which has gone from being a provincial city to a wealthy tech powerhouse. The winning cities price out all but the wealthiest residents, leading to angry arguments about who "deserves" to live there. The losers don't have high paying jobs, and residents cannot afford to move. (Mobility in the US has decreased in recent decades, which lends support to MacGillis' narrative.)
In MacGillis' telling, no one is really off the hook, which I appreciated. There's a particular tendency these days to hew to Other People Are the Problem, and he doesn't do that. In Baltimore, Bethlehem Steel management was largely to blame for the failure of Sparrows Point (contrary to a popular narrative that it was about lazy unions), but unions were not blameless. Politicians across the political spectrum fail voters and workers with their competition to offer tax incentives to large corporations. Everyone's afraid to stop because other states and municipalities won't, but the end result is enormous subsidies to the corporations who need it least.
There's certainly a great deal more to say--MacGillis is really interested in the personal stories behind change, and they do take up a fair bit of the book. There's a lot more he could have added to flesh out the story behind the story--more business type reporting, antitrust, mergers, offshoring. I do feel that these stories had a larger point, though, which is to show the scope of economic change. When a factory closes, you don't just lose 500 jobs. Those 500 workers no longer have money to spend, and it ripples outwards. When local businesses are killed, it doesn't just affect them. When local department stores shutter, we spend our money online, taking money out of the community--and making our smaller towns and cities less attractive places to live. (The story of the Bon-Ton would have hooked in well to how Macy's has become the only major department store chain in much of the US.)
Progressives aren't off the hook. Seattle residents fell prey to Amazon's narrative about taxes and homelessness, and repealed a tax to pay for homeless services. Washington state is one of only 8 without an income tax, relying instead on regressive taxation, which lawmakers have admitted they won't change because of tech. The urban progressives on the ascent in the Democratic Party have also hurt their own cause by clustering in bubbles and dismissing small town and rural voters. (As a small-city Democrat, I've rarely encountered people as self-satisfied as the urban progressive.)
I'm really not fond of "economic anxiety caused Trump" narratives, which always have to do a dance around the immediate reasons many people voted for Trump. Thankfully MacGillis doesn't fall into the same traps as much of the news media. Instead, he suggests, economic changes created fertile territory for Trumpism, rather than a simple link. I found this a much more satisfying narrative: rather than simply suggesting people became more conservative because they thought it would improve things, it allows for a place where economic conditions leave people open to cultural explanations and anger.
As for the Amazon workers? Well some of them die. Two of the cases MacGillis covers were just down the road from me in Carlisle. And it mostly seems Amazon considers this the cost of business.
sara_shocks's review against another edition
4.0
Really thorough examination of how Amazon embodies and exacerbates late-stage capitalism