When
Government Chose Who Could Compete
Competition is the foundation of every free market.
Consumers reward businesses that provide better products, better service,
innovation, and value. Government's role is best fulfilled by preserving a free
marketplace rather than participating in it.
That principle was quietly abandoned during the COVID
pandemic when government decided which businesses were "essential"
and permitted to remain open—and which were "non-essential" and
required to close. To me, that was the Great COVID Sin—not because it was the
most controversial policy of the pandemic, but because it permanently reshaped
America's retail landscape in ways that continue today.
No company better illustrates the long-term consequences of
that decision than Amazon.
Before the pandemic, the retail marketplace was already
changing. Online shopping was steadily gaining market share because
consumers—not government—were deciding where to spend their money. Then, almost
overnight, the rules of competition changed. Companies deemed
"essential," including Amazon, continued operating while thousands of
competitors could not.
Consumer demand did not respond uniformly. Airlines, for
example, remained essential businesses, yet passenger traffic collapsed because
people stopped traveling. Retail was different. Consumers still wanted
clothing, books, electronics, sporting goods, furniture, home improvement
products, and countless other goods. The difference was that many of the
businesses that normally sold those products were legally prohibited from
opening.
To be clear, this is not an indictment of Amazon. Amazon is
one of the greatest business success stories in modern American history. It has
transformed retail, lowered prices, expanded consumer choice, and improved the
lives of millions of Americans. For many families—including mine—it has become
an indispensable part of everyday life.
But while Amazon raced to expand capacity to meet an
unprecedented surge in demand, thousands of traditional
"non-essential" retailers faced the opposite challenge: downsizing,
preserving cash, laying off employees, and simply trying to survive.
The issue wasn't Amazon's success. It was the government's
market interference.
The numbers tell the story. Amazon's annual revenue climbed
from approximately $281 billion in 2019 to $386 billion in 2020—an increase of
more than $105 billion, or nearly 38 percent, in a single year. Across the
United States, e-commerce sales increased by approximately $244 billion during
2020, the largest annual increase ever recorded. At the same time, traditional
brick-and-mortar retailers suffered sharp declines. For example, clothing and
accessory stores alone lost more than $68 billion in sales, while bookstores
lost nearly $3 billion. Not every dollar shifted because of government shutdown
orders, but the scale of the redirection is unmistakable.
Some will argue that Amazon's growth—amid traditional
retail's decline—was inevitable. Perhaps. Online commerce was already expanding
rapidly before the pandemic.
But that isn't the point.
Traditional retailers may ultimately have lost market share
to Amazon through innovation, pricing, convenience, and changing consumer
preferences. They deserved that outcome if it resulted from fair competition.
What they did not deserve was to be denied the opportunity to compete.
Government didn't merely accelerate an existing trend. It
fundamentally altered the competitive process by deciding which businesses
could continue serving customers and which could not.
The issue was never who ultimately won the competition. The
issue was whether everyone was allowed to compete.
The effects didn't end when the lockdowns ended.
Between 2020 and 2025, numerous nationally recognized
retailers—including J.C. Penney, Neiman Marcus, Brooks Brothers, Stein Mart,
Stage Stores, Pier 1 Imports, and Tuesday Morning—entered bankruptcy,
liquidated, or dramatically reduced their physical footprints. Many exhausted
cash reserves, accumulated debt, lost experienced employees, and permanently
surrendered market share. Many never reopened. Others survived—but permanently
weaker.
Would Amazon have continued gaining market share without
COVID? Almost certainly. Would traditional retailers have continued facing
intense competitive pressure? Probably. But those outcomes should have been
determined by consumers—not by government deciding which competitors could open
their doors.
History will judge whether the public-health benefits of
these policies justified their economic costs. But one consequence is already
clear: government permanently altered the competitive landscape of American
retail by deciding which businesses could remain open and which could not.
Free markets don't guarantee success. They guarantee every
business the opportunity to compete under the same rules. Government's
responsibility is not to decide who gets that opportunity, but to preserve a
marketplace where consumers—not government—determine the winners and losers.
