and why Socialism matters.

This one is about a Yanis Varoufakis theoricism, which argues that Amazon’s business model represents a shift from capitalism to “technofeudalism”, because Amazon operates as a “cloud fiefdom,” where the algorithm replaces market mechanisms. This means to act like the Soviet Union’s state planning agency, Gosplan, which managed the production and distribution of goods without relying on market prices, but the difference is that Amazon doesn’t work form common good but for the private profit of a “cloud overlord”. 

Jeff Bezos is the “feudal lord” who owns the digital infrastructure (cloud capital), and users are “serfs” producing data that increases the value of this capital, while businesses are “vassals” paying rent to Amazon to access customers.

Varoufakis posits that because Amazon acts as a centrally planned system—rather than a free market—it should not be treated as a private enterprise and suggests it should be transformed into a public utility, often implicitly or explicitly calling for the expropriation or socialization of this digital infrastructure.

Because these algorithms act as centralized planners, Varoufakis argues that this digital infrastructure should be “socialized,” meaning taken out of private hands to be owned by society, making it a public service rather than a tool for extracting “cloud rent”.

The Amazon algorithm is a powerful, privatized planning tool that has killed market capitalism, and to restore fairness, that “planning” power must be taken over for the public good.