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I live less than a mile from a 24 hour WalMart Super Center and shop there frequently and at all hours of the day and night for price and convenience. I passed a stack of 27" flat screen TVs last night priced at $150 -- no doubt assembled by Asians eager for good pay and the chance to escape the rural poverty and isolation they were born into.

Despite the competition from WalMart -- and in some respects because of it -- within two miles there is also a Target, Kmart, Albertson's, four traditional grocery stores, a large mall anchored by four department stores, a Borders with a Barnes and Noble nearby, a twenty screen movie theater, a Staples and an Office Depot, two big box electronics retailers, and a wide range of other stores in several strip centers.

Large retailers have adapted to WalMart by copying as much of it and its business methods as they can and distinguishing themselves where they cannot. Small retailers have survived by specializing and offering more products in their niche than WalMart and other large general retailers. This has spurred more retail choices, more and better products, and lower prices. We accept this as normal, but I know better. When I summon up my earlier selves from decades past, I recognize anew the staggering prosperity and good fortune that Americans have made for themselves -- and WalMart is part of that.

Small retailers have survived by specializing and offering more products in their niche than WalMart and other large general retailers.

You've put your finger on it exactly. What I've seen in the small towns which Wal-Mart is supposed to have "destroyed" is that Stein is right - the sudden price cut in all consumer goods has the effect of raising everybody's disposable income. This means that now that people can spend a lower fraction of their income on Pampers and cereal, they have more money left over to buy baseball cards, quilting supplies, specialized auto parts, used video games, personal computer peripherals, gourmet foods, and so on.

The canny retailers have opened boutiques instead of general-merchandise stores. Wal-Mart sells everything, but they don't sell the highest quality of anything, and they don't sell the complete range of anything. A thousand niche markets have suddenly sprung up, and everybody now has the money to afford niche goods.