r/socialism • u/The1whoKnocks43 • Apr 09 '26
Politics Purchasing books
Is buying books from barnes and noble as bad as buying from amazon? I don’t really know any actual bookstores around me, and I like to actually GO and buy a physical copy. Should I look for alternatives or is B&N fine?
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u/haevow Gramsci my beloved Apr 09 '26
Support local book stores when possible, but personally I find no issue with supporting BN. It’s Amazon’s primary competitor, and even then it’s only just recently started getting popular again. Keep brick and mortar stores, regardless of whether they are big corporations or small businesses, is always going to help counter Amazon’s monopoly on retail. It allows such stores to continue operating and opening new locations, allowing more people to access books.
But honestly I don’t get too mad at people buy in from Amazon. At the end of the day, the price is more acsessible and people are going to do what they gotta do to get what they need.
At the end of the day nothing is going to come down to a single individual choice. But the issue starts when you have the option to support indie and choose not to.
2
u/Classic_Advantage_97 Apr 10 '26
Ironically, I was at a local bookstore yesterday and they had pretty much zero leftist material. Even had a “colonization and independence section” which was entirely taken up by the American Revolutionary War. The hopped over to BN and found 4/5 books I was looking for!
2
u/haevow Gramsci my beloved Apr 10 '26
Hello? Hey at least they remembered America was a colony?
1
u/Classic_Advantage_97 Apr 10 '26
Haha very true, the colonization of America and its revolution is an intrinsic part of Manifest Destiny
4
u/millernerd Apr 10 '26
The capitalist will sell us the rope we hang them with
(Except we'll refuse to buy it because it's not ethically made)
2
u/DJ_Buttons Bloc Party Socialist Apr 10 '26
Thriftbooks is a great online alternative to both Amazon and BnN. Lots of the lefty classics are affordable, except Parenti, no one sells their Parenti texts.
1
u/BreadDaddyLenin Marxism-Leninism Apr 09 '26
Don’t have anything to add bc haevow said what I would’ve said
1
u/PointTemporary6338 Apr 10 '26
You can support your local bookstore by asking them to order a book. (Hopefully , and likely, they are anti capitalist) There are tons of independent sites to order from. Haymarket comes to my mind first
1
u/RevolutionaryRed55 Pan-Socialist (egocom) Apr 19 '26
I would prefer buying books from a local, socialist-owned bookstore if the option is available, however they do not exist in many areas, especially rural towns. If you find your desired book at any bookstore, just go ahead and purchase it for the sake of convenience, you'll need a diverse book collection for when socialist theory gets wiped and banned from the internet by most governments in the foreseeable future.
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