Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos made a staggering $74 billion in 2020, despite the U.S. entering its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. And the combination of COVID restrictions and holiday shopping season has wreaked havoc on small businesses as shoppers turn to Amazon Prime for socially distanced gift-giving.

Amazon just keeps getting bigger and bigger—and this isn’t good for workers, small businesses, or democracy. But, as Amazon critic Stacy Mitchell argues, “This is not about us as consumers; we’re not going to solve this problem by changing our shopping habits.” So how can we stand up to big corporations like Amazon?

Today, Stacy Mitchell joins us on the show to talk about Amazon’s dominance, antitrust law, and how and why Amazon and other big tech giants should be broken up through government regulation.

Stacy Mitchell is co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, where she directs the Independent Business Initiative. She is the author of Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses (Beacon Press, 2007) and was recently profiled in the New York Times for her analysis of Amazon’s power and her leadership in building a broad coalition to challenge it.

Cover photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash