Why Shopping Online is a Money in Politics Issue (Q&A)

We know there are hidden costs to shopping online. When we shop locally in brick-and-mortar stores, a higher percentage of our dollars stay in the community. In contrast, e-commerce giants like Amazon have knocked out local businesses, driven down wages, and amassed economic and political power that they can use to increase their profits at our expense.

There are also specific consequences for The Inland Empire, an enormous and densely populated region that spans much of San Bernandino and Riverside Counties in Southern California and is also the country’s logistics hub, packed with warehouses. I spoke with Sky Allen, executive director of Inland Empire United, an organization that seeks to build people’s power to build community-driven solutions, about how giant retailers’ presence affects people and the political dynamic on the ground.

Meaghan Winter: What should people know about the Inland Empire?

Sky Allen: We’re the largest logistic hub in the country and possibly the world. Something like 40% of the nation’s goods go to Los Angeles, in Long Beach, and then they get moved to our region to get dispersed to the rest of the country. So, over a billion square feet in our region is covered by warehouses.

The Inland Empire is larger than some states, and has nearly 5 million people living within it, and it takes hours driving from one point to the other. It has suburban areas, with rural areas, mountains, deserts. In terms of our economy and in lots of different ways, this region is distinct from coastal areas like LA. We arguably have more in common with battleground states than with LA or the Bay Area.

The warehouses here impact our air quality, our housing market, education, jobs, everything. It becomes the dominant issue for everything. We have some of the worst air quality in the country. We have really high childhood asthma rates. The density of warehouses exacerbates the housing crisis in California, because so much land is either occupied by warehouses or is less attractive for buyers because of the proximity to warehouses. In terms of employment, there’s not a lot of upward mobility if you work in a warehouse, so we have a more limited job market, so much of the available employment is in warehouses. So, these warehouses have become an issue that defines us.

We’ve gotten to a point where you’ll have neighborhoods where one side of the street is just completely warehouses, and the other side of the street is completely lined with residential communities, schools, plant nurseries. These warehouses are not a separate part of the community. They’re right next door.

Meaghan: Can you tell me how the presence of these warehouses affects the political power dynamic on the ground?

Sky: One of the really stark dividing lines is between most people that are living and working in the area and the local decisionmakers in elected and appointed office. At this point, people living here, from all different sectors, across party lines, agree that it’s gotten past the point of the warehouses being helpful for our community. However, when a warehouse project is in front of a planning commission, city council or a board of supervisors, the project is almost always passed and moves forward.

All this shapes our elections. The new warehouse projects benefit the construction companies, the developers, and it certainly benefits big businesses that move their products through these warehouses.

We’re talking about Amazon, we’re talking about Walmart, we’re talking about some of the biggest businesses in the world who have a direct interest in seeing these projects get approved. So, those businesses pour a lot of money into our elections, either directly or indirectly, to incentivize that their projects continue to be built. So, there’s a real imbalance between what people are asking for and what is actually happening here.

Meaghan: Is there anything you want to say to people who are living in regions of the country not affected by these warehouses and are buying from these companies that ship through these warehouses?

Sky: We need to have more of these conversations. You know, the whole takeaway of David and Goliath story is that David won. So, I think that the more that we have these conversations, even though it sometimes feels like we’re shouting into the void. Money in politics is a bigger conversation than it was a couple years ago, and that’s important.

I also want to say that ideas about unionizing at an Amazon warehouse and about holding big companies accountable, whether it’s Target or Home Depot, with the boycotts do carry weight. It’s important that we continue to keep an ear to the ground and listen to our community. I don’t know that there’s necessarily an ask right now, but I would definitely say shop locally when you can and if you see opportunities to stand in solidarity with workers, take them.

Meaghan: It’s hard not to feel like we’re stuck in this oligarchy, and whatever these big companies want, they’re going to get. What are your thoughts on that?

Sky: Yes, absolutely, the conversation has changed over the years from how we can stop the warehouses to how we can make them less harmful, because most of us don’t think we can get a moratorium on new developments. But if we’re talking about companies like Amazon and Walmart, they have the resources to do things that are beneficial for the people who actually live here.

We can ask these companies: What benefit are you bringing the community while you’re also extracting something from the community? Local groups are now pushing for those community agreements rather than moratoriums on new warehouses. There are definitely some radical optimists who are hoping that we can pass moratoriums in particular areas. I don’t know, from a policy making perspective, that there’s enough of a governing agreement to pass anything like that. But community agreements can be reached and buffer zones where warehouse building is restricted can be expanded.

There are a lot of people across the nonprofit sector working on this. There are organizations like the Black Worker Center, and the Warehouse Worker Resource Center. At this point, the warehouses are connected to everything, so we have coalitions, faith groups, working on this, and a candidate pipeline that tries to get local candidates who want something different to run and win.

Meaghan: How do people in the community respond to the political dynamic?

Sky: I think for people that are not terribly political, there is either a deep frustration or a resignation around the issue. I think we can empathize with that. When we talk about money in politics, we tend to think really big picture. At the local level, there are actually so many small things that we can do.

For example, our state legislature a couple years closed pay-to-play loopholes. There are policies that we can enact to make it harder for people to just pay their way into getting deals. We can make it so that if you contribute a certain amount of money, you need to wait a couple years before you can vote on something related. We can tighten disclosure laws, so, at the very least, the amounts of money that pour in will be transparent. It takes money and time to set up these things, but they’re not partisan, they’re structural, and these changes can go a really long way.

There are all these good ideas that people have explored, and in the context of Citizens United and campaign finance, we need to not get so caught up in the big, massive, federal things that need changing that we lose the small scale opportunities that we have to make change locally, because local reforms end up building and allowing us to create those big changes.

Meaghan: With everything that’s happening, how are you coping?

Sky: I’m trying to do the normal human things of trying to get a decent amount of sleep at night, going on walks outside, allowing myself time to not work and be with family, to recharge a little bit.

It’s challenging. We know, generally speaking, these problems we’re facing are too big to just solve in a day’s work, and particularly in a moment like this. The ICE raids are not things that you can just tuck away and then move on from.

But if we don’t allow ourselves to rest, then we don’t allow ourselves joy, we can’t keep working. So, I’m trying to find moments of rest and joy for myself and also facilitate that with the staff and the movement spaces that we organize.

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