The Wal-Mart You Don't Know

Fast Company magazine ^ | november 2003 | charles fishman

[em2vn]

A gallon-sized jar of whole pickles is something to behold. The jar is the size of a small aquarium. The fat green pickles, floating in swampy juice, look reptilian, their shapes exaggerated by the glass. It weighs 12 pounds, too big to carry with one hand. The gallon jar of pickles is a display of abundance and excess; it is entrancing, and also vaguely unsettling. This is the product that Wal-Mart fell in love with: Vlasic's gallon jar of pickles.

[Dead Dog]

Seriously, the quick end to this is to outlaw slavery. Domestic (already done) or Outsourced. We have to recognize communism and socialism as slavery, and outlaw it.

Walmart would still exist, but their ability to squeeze suppliers would be a bit more ethical in it's result.

If you want to ruin walmat, outlaw fatchicks in spandex and squeeling undisciplined lawn monkeys from public. THAT would destory Walmart.

[TopQuark]

which tradeed the incomes of hometown merchants for --- for the lower cost of private goods.

sends the town's money to Bentonville AR.

Not at all: only the amount of profit that local merchants used to have is "sent out" -- and not to Bentonville AR but all across America.

In fact, the consumer in that town can now, for the first time, get some of those profits also --- by buying a stock in Wal-Mart.

[1066AD]

Narrow aisles, poor lighting for starters. There's lots of other places to shop if you live in a big city area. I do a lot of shopping via the web/mailorder.

[TopQuark]

Yah, fast company if for corporate social climbers and wannabe CEO's.

Americans used to take pride in the unparalleled social mobility we always had in this country. Not any more: climbing is a sin now. Success is to be avoided at all costs. Even conservatives on this board do not recognize when they sound like socialists.

And, when socialists like Willie Green, take out all stops and use FR for socialist propaganda, hardly anybody notices. Nice.

The type that use Capatialism as an excuse.

Ahhh, sweet class envy.

[only1percent]

To band together and refuse to do business with a particular retailer is anti-trust, and the executives who arranged it would go to prison.

However, for individuals simply to decide what it's worth to sell a product and not to sell for less than that -- that's something that plenty of higher-end consumer-goods manufacturers do all the time. (This is why there is so much crap and relatively few high end brands at Wal-Mart -- it's not that Wal-Mart doesn't want high-end brands in their product mix, it's just that they won't mark down their wholesale prices to a level Wal-Mart is willing to pay.)

I actually think Wal-Mart has less power than most non-high-end consumer goods companies think it has. If it was willing to weather a hard year or two, Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola (to name two) could probably break Wal-Mart. They simply won't be able to keep their customers if they can only offer Huggies and not Pampers, or Pepsi but not Coke.

[Dead Dog]

I don't think we are really in disagreement, however, you may have misunderstood my target. Fast Company, from what little I've read, seems to be another CEO worshiping mag. It's not so much pro capitalism so much as a pro celeb. status. I'm under the perception that it is more about flavor of the month business fads then un-changing principles that make capitalism work.

"The type that use Capitalism as an excuse" is a knock on those who strive to "Be Somebody" at the expense of "Doing Something". These are the people who use Capitalism as a clean word for Corporate Strip Mining. They aren't good capitalists.

Even conservatives on this board do not recognize when they sound like socialists.

Don't forget that many of these so called "capitalist" are big time lefties like Soros, Buffet, and that Progressive insurance nutter. Hillary Clinton herself was on the BOD for Walmart, Starbucks and Apple (IIRC). These people aren't capitalists.

No, it isn't "sweet class envy", but a sincere concern for the state of corporate governance. I personally love big corporations. We need more Microsofts (even though Gates is a lefty) and Toyotas. I see Fast Company, as promoting more Global Crossings, Enron, Tycho's and other misinterpretations of Shareholder Value. Capitalism used to destroy capitalism.

Everyone loves that line from Wall Street...."Greed is good". Unfortunately they forget that it was Oliver Stone speaking through Michael Douglas. A left wing caricature of the free market. Greed isn't good, the ambitious and efficient creation of wealth is.

[ServesURight]

BUMP for a later read.

[TopQuark]

Thank you for your nice and informative post. Your points are well taken.

Fast Company, from what little I've read, seems to be another CEO worshiping mag. I admit that I knew nothing about Fast Company, and the article made me confused: finding Wal-Mart at the root of outsourcing is not forgivable even for an MBA student, and it sounded like something Hillary would think and say.

But you make a good point: nowadays even the top corporate management is Leftist, so I should stop seeing this as a contradiction.

I agree with the points you made but would like to emphasize that it is wrong in principle to look to corporate management to provide moral leadership. It is not supposed to. These institutions have not been designed for that purpose. Corporate management is supposed to make money for the shareholders while being bound, not propelled, by ethical norms. The norms themselves were to be cultivated by two other institutions: the family, thoroghly destroyed by now; and the church, which is almost destroyed in Europe and is on the defensive in this country. I would suggest that, because all vacua are filled, the duty abrogated by the church and the gamily has been pleaced, absurdly, onto the shoulders of the corportate bosses: even the management textbooks routinely summon them to be the engines of the social change.

We live in very dangerous times indeed.

[honeygrl]

proctor and gamble sell so many different products sold at walmart, they could very well break walmart all alone.

[RaginCajunTrad]

You missed the whole point of my posts.

I took economics and economies of scale. I am talking aethetics, what WM does to a small town aesthetically and how it treats its employees.

If we look simply at the dollar, WM is a winner. There are some things that are priceless and I wouldn't sell my soul or the aesthetics of a small town for.

[TopQuark]

You missed the whole point of my posts.

I don't think so. Nor do I think that making a groundless accusation of someone, calling that entity "predator" is aesthetical or, more importantly, ethical (it's one of the commandments, you know).

Economics covers also the dimension to which you refer as "aesthetics:" social value of one's actions. These indeed differ: you may enjoy better standard of living but miss the "community feeling," for instance. Here a private value increased at the expense of the social value.

Social values are attacjed to public goods, which the markets do not provide and which must be provided by the governments. Where business actions create undesirable consequences is precisely the place for regulation. That requires benefit-cost analysis.

This is not what you engage in, however. Without even understanding the benefits of Wal-Mart and who the receipients are, you simply demonize that company. Not only it is ethically problematic, but you also contribute to the attack from the left that is now focused on one of the last American institutions standing --- corporations.

It's your choice which side to be on. Standing with the crowd is very popular nowadays: declare everyone else "fat cats," "elites" --- and you have a million friends. Beats being right, of course. Or even reading a book to learn what the h-ll you are taling about.

[TopQuark]

W-M is a metatisizing cancer that cannot be treated, not even with a heavy dose of radiation.

Welcome to The Socialist FReepers Club, comprised of the most conservative of all commies.

[TopQuark]

proctor and gamble sell so many different products sold at walmart, they could very well break walmart all alone.

SO why doesn't it? P&G is one of the best-managed companies around.

[TopQuark]

I took economics and economies of scale.

So, where do you keep them, in the garage? That's too far for when you need them.

I am also pretty sure you did not take "economies of scale" in college.

[RaginCajunTrad]

When one performs predator acts, one is usually a predator. The history is there, at least in my town and in neighboring towns. It cannot be denied.

I am anti-regulation and would not support government regulation of WM. However, that does not make WM a "white knight." I simply point out the negative truths about WM as experienced in my area. There is more to life than lower costs and material goods.

[TopQuark]

The history is there, at least in my town and in neighboring towns. It cannot be denied.

Perhaps. But your rendition of history can and should be denied.

However, that does not make WM a "white knight."

That is not how YOU treat it. Failing to be a hero is not a sin; failure to be a white night in business is not a moral failure either. If you were simply to say that there are social consequences in conflict with private actions of Wal-Mart, I would agree and see no need to reply.

That is not what you do: you defame a million of hard-working honest people who provide a valuable service to this country. And you do that without exhibiting even a single evidence that you have familiarity with the subject matter.

There is more to life than lower costs and material goods.

Yes, and they are to be dealt with by institutions other than corporations. Not only is your blame unfounded --- it is misplaced: you have a problem not with Wal-Mart but with the VALUES of your fellow citizens that vote with their pocketbooks in favor of Wal-Mart. As I said earlier, those values are shaped by family and church, not Wal-Mart or other corporations.

[RaginCajunTrad]

You must be a WM manager.

[TopQuark]

You must be a WM manager.

And you must be an amoral thick-skinned creature that thinks that people are motivated only by their material gain. I have provided extensive details to identify the source of my disagreements with your statement. Anyone but a moron would think that I am guided by anything but principle.

But I am not surprised at all by your statement: with the same ease as you defamed a million of Americans working for Wal-Mart you now tried to smear me.

So stop lamenting the destruction of the Main Street: you are the main perpetrator. Morality did not stay with you in the same house for the night, let alone your soul or mind.

I shall not be writing to you again: I do not wrestle with pigs.

[RaginCajunTrad]

"you defame a million of hard-working honest people who provide a valuable service to this country."

I am not defaming a million hard-working honest people. I have friends who work at WM. My wife worked for WM. I take exception to the WM corporate strategy, not the everyday WM employee, a number of whom in my town used to have their own businesses and couldn't compete with WM. In fact, I feel I am defending the vast majority of WM employees for the fact that their corporate structure is not treating them as they should.

I would agree that the small townspeople have no one really to blame but themselves. They could have been loyal and shopped at the locally-owned businesses.

"If you were simply to say that there are social consequences in conflict with private actions of Wal-Mart, I would agree and see no need to reply."

I agree, maybe I should let you be my editor.

[RaginCajunTrad]

Case closed.

You have not refuted one point of the article or many of my anecdotal experiences.