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As long as there is viable competition in the marketplace, Walmart will be marginally acceptable..
It's size allows it to leverage buying power to negotiate those low prices.

At a certain point, however, the economic power of any company can become such that no viable competition exists any longer..
That is called a monopoly..

Some companies in the past have used unfair business practices to enhance that economic power, destroy competition, and seek such a monopoly..
Standard Oil was once such a company..
The Taft Hartley Act was passed specifically to deal with monopolies and Big Oil was the first...

Recently, Microsoft has felt the legal ramifications of public perceptions that it was trying to unfairly compete and create a monopoly in the Computer Software market...
That perception was not just an American phenomenon, but an International one..
Microsoft is still dealing with the repercussions in Europe..

Walmart has to walk a very fine line in the business world..
Too much market share can bring unwanted attention, even though it may be unwarranted attention..
Then again, it may be warranted..
It may be that Walmart thinks they can do some sort of refinement of the Microsoft strategy..

I am not saying that Walmart is necessarilly a "villian" here..
It does however, have the potential of becoming one..

The Taft Hartley Act was passed specifically to deal with monopolies and Big Oil was the first...

You mean the Sherman Anti-Trust Act...Taft Hartley is a labor relations piece of legislation passed in 1947.

Wal Mart's a boon to its shoppers and the bane of labor unions - especially in the grocery trade. That's the segment that has really felt the pinch since the emergence of Super Centers a few years ago.

And yes, like Standard Oil, IBM, Microsoft - all of whom were perceived as being bad because they were big - Wal Mart had better play the necessary political games in DC and the 50 state capitals.

Wal-Mart is so far from a "monopoly" that any discussion of the subject in this context is just plain silly. The most dominant retailer in U.S. history -- the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P Supermarkets) -- only managed to attain a market share of something like 25% of the retail industry back at its peak in the 1930s and 1940s. A&P barely even exists these days, and no retailer has ever gotten close to that kind of market dominance since then.

At a certain point, however, the economic power of any company can become such that no viable competition exists any longer.. That is called a monopoly..

Not so! A monopoly exists when, and only when, government grants you special legal powers to lock out competition and forbid consumer choice.

The medical business is a monopoly. Wal-Mart is not.

In actuality, economists have proven that the 'evils' of big oil existed in the minds of corrupt Washington politicians. Big oil actually lowered the cost of gas and oil, efficiently providing it at low costs to millions of consumers. The net result of 'anti-monoplist' legislation was to re-direct millions of dollars from effieceint provision of goods and services to line the pockets of lobbyists and politicians of both parties. Of course, the leftist 'history' textbooks and teachings in our anti-capitalist, anti-business schools teach the exact opposite.