This will probably once again cause folks to wonder if the Heritage Foundation got to me (we’ve had a lot of that lately – torture, death penalty, parental notification), but I think the gist of what Ed Kilgore says rings true.
The point is this: in the southern small-town, rural and exurban communities I know best, and among the low-to-moderate income “working family” voters Democrats most need to re-attract, Wal-Mart is considered pretty damn near sancrosanct. And if Democrats decide to tell these voters they can’t be good progressives and shop at Wal-Mart, we will lose these people for a long, long time.
Last week when I was in Atlanta with my aunt, grandmother and cousins we went to one of those gigantic mega Wal-Marts. As I walked in, I realized… you could live there. Literally. You could get enough food to feed an army, grab a dvd player and a plasma tv, get a tent, an airbed, and several days worth of clothing — in one damn building.
Wal-Mart is guilty of some horrible labor practices and has shown a capacity to be an economic pariah, but you aren’t going to get very far if you try to make people ashamed to shop there.
Wal-Mart provides a wide variety of merchandise at low prices. There is much pressure that needs to be brought to bear against them, but much like Microsoft — they have become a part of America. It’s messy, and not always fair and honest with room for much improvement, but it isn’t going away.
I don’t think small town America has any great love affair with Wal-Mart.
My parents live about half the year in my mother’s hometown in north Alabama. The local Wal-Mart has driven nearly all of the local merchants out of business and people miss them.
Like any other issue, it has to be addressed in a way that matters. The pitch shouldn’t be how to stop Wal-Mart, the pitch should be centered around how to create an environment in which small retailers can thrive.
I don’t think that the Heritage Foundation got to you, I think that you either haven’t really thought this through, or that you have taken leave of your senses. At the risk of censure, banning or other harsh responses, I would ask that you consider what is really behind all your arguments. I respectfully suggest that it is this: Wal-Mart is a large corporation. It owns a lot of stores. It owns a lot of politicians. Through its advertising and marketing heft, it owns good media coverage. It’s hardly a shock that people respond to those things. And what other choices are available?
Compare your statement that:
Wal-Mart is guilty of some horrible labor practices and has shown a capacity to be an economic pariah, but you aren t going to get very far if you try to make people ashamed to shop there.
With the statement that:
Segregation has led to some horrible thing and has shown a capacity to oppress people, but you aren’t going to get very far if you try to make people ashamed of their Southern heritage.
What’s the difference?
Um, yeah, you may need to spend some time with folks who live and own businesses in small towns. They fight like hell to keep the big box stores away. As soon as a Wal-Mart or Sam’s club sets up, the lifeblood of the town dries up, in many cases, as all those dollars that used to flow through the community get shipped to Bentonville, AK.
You recall Esau selling his birthright? This is no different. To sell your community’s birthright, its inheritance so that you can
buy cheap toilet paper and deep fried cheese
be an employee, rather than an owner of your own business
work for a company that pays so badly they encourage their employees to sign up for public assistance
Not everyone loves Wal-Mart.
What Democrat is talking about Wal-Mart anyway? Sure, they are a corrupt, heartless corporation that treats their employees as commodities to be bought and held onto only so long as their cost stays as low as possible. They view communities and the environment as a play-thing. It’s why many of us choose not to shop there and actively pursue alternatives, and I believe strongly in the power of the dollar against them, but I am also a realist who recognizes that moral outrage alone will not bring them down.
Chiefly, though, I would return to my first question. Who cares? Wal-Mart does not make it into my Top 10 issues of what is troubling America right now. Not even my Top 50. I don’t think that there is a single Democratic congressman who would put it in that group either.
Where is this coming from?
Comparing Wal-Mart to segregation. Yeah, THAT’LL WORK. Come. On.
Yes, a lot of people shop at Walmart. But as Quaker, PaulBeard and Cypher point out a lot of people have a problem with Walmart — often even as they browse its aisles because there is simply no other place left to shop in some areas. While the opposition may be a minority, it is deeply populist in nature: small town, agrarian, main street folks fighting the good fight to preserve traditional small and family businesses against a faceless, greedy, unfair, behemoth company. If the Dems played it right, they could build a much larger, broader base of support with this issue. Of course, we all know that the Dem leadership will blow it so there you go.
I am not comparing Wal-Mart to segregation, I am comparing your justifications/defenses of Wal-Mart with justifications/defenses of segregation.
You acknowledge Wal-Mart’s evils, though you use language that minimizes them, language that suggests that maybe it’s all okay if we get low prices and a lot of variety under one roof. You suggest that we should tolerate and not criticize a bad thing because it would upset people.
It is in this way that your justifications/defenses of Wal-Mart evoke justifications/defenses of other evils: segregation among them, but also pollution, sex discrimination in the workplace and the like.
You say “It s messy, and not always fair and honest with room for much improvement, but it isn t going away.” Do you believe that there will be any improvement if we simply accept it as it is? Is there some reason to believe that Wal_mart is eternal? Ever hear of US Steel?
Walmart isn’t going away, but they are certainly big enough and profitable enough that they can afford to keep their own employees off the public dole.
The issue isn’t making Walmart go away, it is to stop subsidizing walmart, via welfare or by giving them tax breaks.
The most intense political opposition to Wal-Mart comes from small business owners driven out of business in small towns across America. Many of these folks are Republicans – Main Street Republicans – and they see Wal-Mart as the beneficiary of shady eminent domain laws, environmental wavers and corporate welfare. Some towns like Danville, KY, take especial pride in keeping Wal-Mart out and maintaining the viability of their historic downtowns. Danville is a very Republican town with a Republican newspaper, but the opposition to Wal-Mart there is palpable.
Yes, I know Wal-Mart is evil, but I still shop there because it’s convenient & cheap. I know I’ll always be able to find what I’m looking for and it will be reasonably priced.
because there is simply no other place left to shop in some areas.
It’s certainly true in my experience. Wal-Mart, in concert with other large chains, has managed to shut down many of the independent clothiers in my town, and a number of the independent pharmacies…and I live near a major metro area. I hate to think what it’s like in a rural area.
Neither particularly true in my experience. Wal-Mart is a big business and they only put stores in places where there are enough people and income to sustain them. The typical Mainstreet Kansas, pop 2,000, won t see a Wal-Mart (unless its actually metro Topeka). This is especially true now as Wal-Mart is essentially only building Super Wal-Marts.
False, in fact. The town where my grandparents live is an hour from the nearest major metro region, and has a population of 975 (up 1.2% in the last five years!). Yet they have two Wal-Marts within 20 minutes’ drive. If you bump the drive to 35 minutes, there are four stores, and six within an hour’s drive.
Shoot, even in the relatively small town where I live, there are two Wal-Marts less than fifteen minutes away, and bumping the drive to 30 minutes increases that number to five or more (I’ve honestly lost count), including at least two Supers. Not to mention the four Targets and two or three K-Marts.
…there is also a concerted big media left wing campaign to destroy Wal MArt. Witness major movies. My last vacation to Seattle, got into a friendly argument with a scruffy hippie type in downtown Seattle handing out anti Wal-Mart brochures.
Yes, because scruffy hippie types certainly represent big, corporate media (which, incidentally, are demonstrably not left-wing), and also major movies. Methinks you need to provide better evidence, because that entire paragraph is one extended non sequitur.
frame,
“because there is simply no other place left to shop in some areas.”
” While the opposition may be a minority, it is deeply populist in nature: small town, agrarian, main street folks fighting the good fight to preserve traditional small and family businesses against a faceless, greedy, unfair, behemoth company’
Neither particularly true in my experience. Wal-Mart is a big business and they only put stores in places where there are enough people and income to sustain them. The typical ‘Mainstreet’ Kansas, pop 2,000, won’t see a Wal-Mart (unless its actually metro Topeka). This is especially true now as Wal-Mart is essentially only building Super Wal-Marts.
As to the oppositon. Agree there is some populist oppositon, but there is also a concerted big media left wing campaign to destroy Wal MArt. Witness amjor movies. My last vacation to Seattle, got into a friendly argument with a scruffy hippie type in downtown Seattle handing out anti Wal-Mart brochures.
Dugger
Concordian,
Whatever heinous villainy the left suspects re Wal-Mart, being a poorly managed business is scarcely one of the menu items. So there is no sensible explanation for them putting or even just maintaining TWO Wal-Marts in an area of 975 population. I will flatly state you are wrong. I invite you to give me the address and prove me wrong. I will so state if I am wrong. My contention is that there is a substantial population block and employment base within close proximity to those Wal-marts (if there are two) and that you are flat wrong. Otherwise, I can only assume you are BSing and passing along leftist gas..
Here’s your big chance to prove a Rove certified poster wrong. Have at it. Give me the adress and we will research and see if the demographics are not more, much more than you suggest.
Dugger (Big Corporate Media is LEFT Wing just look and listen. perhaps they are not enough left wing for you)
Dugger also seems to believe that there are no small, independently owned businesses in metro areas, so Wal-Mart’s appearance in those areas can’t affect them. This is also untrue.
As for “witness major movies,” all I can think of is one word-of-mouth reliant documentary. What are the other major movies? Furthermore, what constitutes “major”? Is Tom Hanks currently filming the Steven Spielberg-directed project “Wal-Mart is Evil”?
But y’know, free enterprise and all that. I’m not going to tell people to stop shopping at Wal-Mart, but I’m going to ask that all Wal-Mart shoppers refrain from ever again complaining about the welfare state and the many other attendant consequences of poverty.
There is a point here that Wal-Mart is contributing to the homogenization of American culture, but that is more an intellectual debate rather than a political one.
The fact is, people shopping at Wal-Mart save money. A conservative columnist recently referred to a study that said Wal-Mart had saved shoppers $260 billion since 1985. No government program can match that.
For the average family, given a choice between defending one’s ideals and a little extra money in their pockets is no choice at all.
Quaker,
That Wal-Mart probably added 400 jobs to an already depressed economy. In addition, it allowed the ALREADY low salaries of the current residents to go further by offering food, drugs and other essentials at lower prices. Undoubtedly some smaller businesses were squeezed out and thats sad, but the truth is that the Wal Mart was probably a much better thing in the county for many more people – than the depressed status quo.
Dugger
That would make them, like, 120 or 130 years old. Ain’t medical science great?
Some historical perspective -
The same people complaining about WalMart now complained about Marshall Field and Rowland Macy’s “department stores” in the late 1800’s. Small town newspaper editors attacked catalog houses like Sears and Montgomery Ward as leeches on their economy. Hostile merchants spread rumors that Sears and his partner A.C. Roebuck were African American in an attempt to repel white customers.
A good paper titled “WalMart and the politics of American Retail” can be found here -
http://www.cei.org/gencon/025,04992.cfm
That’s a separate topic for another day.
My only purpose was to weigh in on the exchange between you and Concordian about the kinds of towns where Walmart puts its stores.
Short answer: big ones and itty bitty ones, too.
I guess I could have made myself more clear by saying something like “similar complaints were made…”. Thanks professor.
BD,
“Dugger also seems to believe that there are no small, independently owned businesses in metro areas, so Wal-Mart s appearance in those areas can t affect them.”
Didn’t adress it one way or the other. I know the Wal-Marts down here in metro Atlanta are full of poor people buying cart loaded of stuff. Doubt me. Check one out in north Cobb or Cherokee.
Seems to me the issue is at least complex. We would still be in the nineteenth century if we didn’t allow for commerical competition and for the better run, better managed business to win. OTOH, a fair question is what to do when and if they become monopolistic? You’ll hate this, but imo the problem for our larger society is not the good old ‘mom and pops’ being driven out of business (sad but a fact of life), but the fact that other major retailers are unwilling to fight Wal-mart in lower populated areas.
Dugger
We have Alco for that.
I think people need to come to grips with the reality that “reasonably priced” means “good for my wallet, but bad for the wages of non-unionized-in-this-lifetime-if-Walmart-can-help-it Walmart employees, bad for Chinese laborers, bad for the wages and labor practices of would be American competitors, bad for tax payers who foot the bill for subsidies for Walmart and a sizable percentage of its employees who can’t survive on what they are paid, bad for the thousands of illegal immigrants Walmart was concealing to the point of locking them in the stores at night, bad for all the mom and pop stores Walmart displaces, and so on…” BTW, for every 1 job Walmart creates, it costs the local economy 1.5 jobs, not to mention the increased cost due to loss of wages and benefits, much of which is supplanted by tax payer funded assistance.
It’s not that Walmart does certain “questionable” things compared to many other businesses (anybody want to talk about the textile industry and the slave labor they employ all over the globe). It’s that Walmart is the largest employer in the world and changing their practices will have a much more profound effect than chasing smaller fish with similar ethical shortcomings. Getting Walmart to behave like a responsible corporate citizen would not only help their employees, it would ripple out to all their suppliers, including, maybe, even th Chinese.
Sorry if that sounds “leftist.”
http://alternet.org/walmart/
http://www.workertimes.com/ltribune/index.html
Dugger, oddly enough I don’t feel any need to go handing out information about where my family lives just to prove a point to you. I have no incentive to lie. I don’t personally shop at Wal-Mart, but I’m fine with the fact that people do, as long as they’re aware of the consequences. Something else will replace Wally World eventually, as always happens.
The only _possible_ incentive I might have to lie is to make you look bad. I don’t need to lie to do that. Quoting you is usually sufficient.
Concordian,
OK by me, but you gave a ‘personal’ example as a means of proving a key point (Wal Mart driving out small businesses in a very small town). It seems only fair to question you on the location of this now anonymous Wal Mart (not your family) which helps you make a point.
BTW, I sometimes assess businesses and do market studies involving extensive demographics as my retirement job and am quite aware of what businesses look at before they locate in an area. I remain deeply skeptical re your example, but if you don’t wish to provide details, I will drop it.
Dugger
I don’t begrudge you the skepticism, but like I said, I have no particular motivation to lie about it. If it makes you feel any better, my graduate studies are in planning, with emphasis on retail location. So I’m pretty well aware of the issues involved in locating a business as well.
I maintain that what you said earlier (i.e. that a town of 2,000 people won’t see a Wal-Mart) is demonstrably untrue, and that it is demonstrably true that Wal-Mart runs other businesses off, or at the very least makes a concerted effort to. By way of a personal, and provable example, when a Wal-Mart opened off Central Avenue in Charlotte (where I used to live), independent Pike’s Pharmacy nearly closed. They only survived from the income generated by the soda shop they also run. Why? Becuase Wal-Mart used prescription drugs as a loss-leader, and they were successful in shutting down two other local pharmacies that I’m aware of. Mr. Pike is, I’m happy to say, still in business, and Wal-Mart has raised their prices to something like his, now that they’ve done away with most of the competition.
I’m not making a judgment. That’s just the way they do business. Make of that what you will.
You also provided no proof any any kind of vast left-wing media campaign against Wal-Mart, nor did you provide anything to back up your assertion that the opposition to Wal-Mart is not populist in nature.
“… a concerted big media left wing campaign to destroy Wal MArt. Witness amjor movies.”
Witness major movies? You don’t know shit Dugger. Do you know who is the biggest distributor of movies in America? It isn’t one of the studios, it’s Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart accounts for 37 percent of all DVD sales in the country. Hollywood studios are not out to destroy Wal-Mart and neither are the major media hardware corporations — like Sony and GE — that own them. The studios are so utterly beholden to Wal-Mart as a retail outlet for their products that the studios are now greenlighting movies based on Wal-Mart sales figures. Forget the box-office. If a film sells well on DVD at Wal-Mart you can bet there will be a sequel.
Here’s another map showing a Wal-Mart within 30 miles of Oberlin, Kansas, pop. 1,994.
“The typical Mainstreet Kansas, pop 2,000, won t see a Wal-Mart (unless its actually metro Topeka).”
Dugger, you really don’t know shit.
Here’s a map showing TWO Wal-Mart locations within 20 miles of Edgerton , Kansas (zip code 66021), projected population in 2008: 1,750.
Here’s another yet another map showing FOUR Wal-Marts within 100 miles of Tribune, Kansas, pop. 835.
So even if you live in a town in Kansas with less than a thousand people you can find a Wal Mart in any direction within an hour and a half of where you live. How far would you drive to save money on your prescriptions Dugger?
Here’s the correct link for the Oberlin, Kansas map
Ellsworth Kansas looks to me to be in the near dead center of Kansas. It has a population of 2,965. There are 13 Wal-Marts within a 100 mile radius of Ellsworth.
Here’s another one for you Dugger. If you live in Hoxie Kansas, 242.4 miles from Wichita, the closest town with a population over 50,000, there is a Wal-Mart a mere 33.56 miles away in nearby Colby. Hoxie has a population of 1,244. Colby has a population of 5,450. The nearest city to Colby with a population of more than 50,000 is Pueblo, CO, 257.5 miles away.
“We would still be in the nineteenth century if we didn t allow for commerical competition and for the better run, better managed business to win.”
And yet Wal-Mart drags us back to the 19th century with low-wage, non-unionized, relatively unskilled labor with little if any of the kind of long term benefits that lead to the growth and stability of a middle-class. This isn’t suprising since Wal-Mart takes advantage of ultra-wage, non-unionized, unskilled labor in other countries to sell so many of its products at such steep discounts. It accelerates a race to the bottom that requires a multifaceted approach to halt and reverse. One place to start is a trade policy that encouraged unions and environmental rules rather than one that discouraged them.
Concordian,
What I’m actually saying is that Wal-Mart will not locate in an area where the only population is say a town of 2,000. (see destruction of frame below) They might technically be in a town of 2,000 but in a metro area of 200,000 or as in Quakers Wal-Mart, it was a small town but a growing county of 25,000 on a major regional roadway. And I’m not saying there is an orchestrated campaign, but definitely a campaign to get Wal Mart. And I’m saying Wal Marts decisions are not based on driving Mom and Pop out of business but in succeeding at their own business. There is a diffrence.
frame,
You are just too easy. My serious advice to you is think first, type second. Thats: THINK FIRST, TYPE SECOND. Your very first example. Go back to your map. Hit the little button that makes the scale smaller. Bingo. See Kansas City and Topeka? Know anything at all about demographics? Edgerton is a suburb of Kansas City. Do you want to relook any of your other ‘killer’ examples? Would it be better if I didn’t embarrrass you further?
Dugger
Oliver, I have news for you: You’re getting older.
Anyone who is not a socialist before he is 30 has no heart; anyone who is still a socialist after he is 30 has no head.