Posted on 03/28/2008 5:26:14 AM PDT by Clive
In Wal-Mart We Trust
Who did the most to help victims of Hurricane Katrina? According to a new study, it was the company everyone loves to hate
Shortly before Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast on the morning of Aug. 29, 2005, the chief executive officer of Wal-Mart, Lee Scott, gathered his subordinates and ordered a memorandum sent to every single regional and store manager in the imperiled area. His words were not especially exalted, but they ought to be mounted and framed on the wall of every chain retailer -- and remembered as American business's answer to the pre-battle oratory of George S. Patton or Henry V.
"A lot of you are going to have to make decisions above your level," was Scott's message to his people. "Make the best decision that you can with the information that's available to you at the time, and above all, do the right thing."
This extraordinary delegation of authority -- essentially promising unlimited support for the decision-making of employees who were earning, in many cases, less than $100,000 a year -- saved countless lives in the ensuing chaos. The results are recounted in a new paper on the disaster written by Steven Horwitz, an Austrian-school economist at St. Lawrence University in New York. While the Federal Emergency Management Agency fumbled about, doing almost as much to prevent essential supplies from reaching Louisiana and Mississippi as it could to facilitate it, Wal-Mart managers performed feats of heroism. In Kenner, La., an employee crashed a forklift through a warehouse door to get water for a nursing home. A Marrero, La., store served as a barracks for cops whose homes had been submerged. In Waveland, Miss., an assistant manager who could not reach her superiors had a bulldozer driven through the store to retrieve disaster necessities for community use, and broke into a locked pharmacy closet to obtain medicine for the local hospital.
Meanwhile, Wal-Mart trucks pre-loaded with emergency supplies at regional depots were among the first on the scene wherever refugees were being gathered by officialdom. Their main challenge, in many cases, was running a gauntlet of FEMA officials who didn't want to let them through. As the president of the brutalized Jefferson Parish put it in a Sept. 4 Meet the Press interview, speaking at the height of nationwide despair over FEMA's confused response: "If [the U.S.] government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis."
This benevolent improvisation contradicts everything we have been taught about Wal-Mart by labour unions and the "small-is-beautiful" left. We are told that the company thinks of its store management as a collection of cheap, brainwash-able replacement parts; that its homogenizing culture makes it incapable of serving local communities; that a sparrow cannot fall in Wal-Mart parking lot without orders from Arkansas; that the chain puts profits over people. The actual view of the company, verifiable from its disaster-response procedures, is that you can't make profits without people living in healthy communities. And it's not alone: As Horwitz points out, other big-box companies such as Home Depot and Lowe's set aside the short-term balance sheet when Katrina hit and acted to save homes and lives, handing out millions of dollars' worth of inventory for free.
No one who is familiar with economic thought since the Second World War will be surprised at this. Scholars such as F. A. von Hayek, James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock have taught us that it is really nothing more than a terminological error to label governments "public" and corporations "private" when it is the latter that often have the strongest incentives to respond to social needs. A company that alienates a community will soon be forced to retreat from it, but the government is always there. Companies must, to survive, create economic value one way or another; government employees can increase their budgets and their personal power by destroying or wasting wealth, and most may do little else. Companies have price signals to guide their productive efforts; governments obfuscate those signals.
Aside from the public vs. private issue, Horwitz suggests, decentralized disaster relief is likely to be more timely and appropriate than the centralized kind, which explains why the U.S. Coast Guard performed so much better during the disaster than FEMA. The Coast Guard, like all marine forces, necessarily leaves a great deal of authority in the hands of individual commanders, and like Wal-Mart, it benefited during and after the hurricane from having plenty of personnel who were familiar with the Gulf Coast geography and economy.
There is no substitute for local knowledge -- an ancient lesson of which Katrina merely provided the latest reminder.
ColbyCosh@gmail.com
Excellent.
Given the amount of animus they have to deal with from the anti-capitalists, assorted leftist wackos, thuggish unions and protectionists here at FR, I can't imagine why you're surprised they'd do something like this.
Or, maybe you're just one of those who like to see no good deed go unpunished.
Still though millions of Americans think that government is the FIRST step to solving any and all problems. They really have faith in their friendly incumbent members of Congress and the “dedicated” bureaucrat manning the government offices. In other words, they haven’t a clue as to reality.
People don't realize how important that is. The press fixates on deaths in combat zones and ignores work areas that are far more costly in human life. For years I fought with supervisors at the Panama Canal and it wasn't until a lot of good people lost their lives that they finally made safety a priority. 
You've just given me one more reason to like Walmart.
Owning Walmart has been another reason to like them.
Why do we need facts when we can have conspiracy theories about the evil Wal-Mart!
The Bible says to do you good deads in private. Good deeds done for recognition are not good deeds, they are advertising.
I hate to break it to you, but the Bible itself really advertising for the Christianity. It is one of Gods many methods of spreading word about himself, and his greatness.
The New Testament is advertising about the life of Jesus Christ, and as Christians we are commanded to go forth and spread the good news about Christ.
The problem with the Pharisees was that their devotion was an act. Their actions were taken to gain status on earth, not to fulfill the will of God.
However, even God in effect advertises his good works.
Wal-Mart is obviously not God. I'm not trying to equate the two. I'm just showing how irrational your statement is.
My daughter got a part time job at WalMart after high school last year and before college in the Fall. I was very impressed with their training agenda and the code of ethics the employees were versed on.
Don't take all the credit. You and I are co-owners.
It is a successful capitalistic enterprise run by fine Christian people.
It is a successful capitalistic enterprise run by fine Christian people.
Make the best decision that you can with the information that’s available to you at the time, and above all, do the right thing
above all, do the right thing
do the right thing
Given the amount of animus they have to deal with from the anti-capitalists, assorted leftist wackos, thuggish unions and protectionists here at FR, I can't imagine why you're surprised they'd do something like this.
I agree that Wal-Mart takes a lot of undeserved flack. I don't shop there, but it's only because the clientèle in my local store is pretty white-trashy and I'd rather not deal with it. Other than that, I don't have much of a problem with them. But I will say that those commercials (and Lord knows Wal-Mart is not the only company to produce them) are bogus as hell and give me the douche chills.
Regardless, this is an excellent article and I'll bookmark it for future debates with liberal friends when debating the virtues of libertarianism/minimal government with them.
Their good deeds saved lives. Would you feel that way if it was yours?
Probably not.
We finally finished selling our candy bars in front of Walmart yesterday. Sold every single one. Nine boxes total.
See my post #34. Religion aside, I just feel like self-congratulatory advertising insults my intelligence. Wal-Mart has plenty going for them that they could advertise legitimately. I’m a lot more likely to go somewhere that advertises dirt-cheap prices over charitable works. Then again, most people are stupid, and this sort of advertising must work, otherwise they wouldn’t do it.
A friend of mine's mother suffered from breast cancer and finally beat it. Regardless, she was still physically weak for quite a while. The Wal-Mart she worked at was terrific about working around this, and she is grateful to them to this day. They didn't have to work with her, but it would have ruined her financially otherwise.
Wal-Mart, Corporate Headquarters, Benton, AK. It ain’t DC and it ain’t NYC so “do the right thing” is allowed to override the quarterly report.
The further a company located the from Harvard MBA factory the better the chances of a moral/ethical decision being made.
Simply amazing and appreciated.
And neither of you have anything on me...I own a piece of The Green Bay Packers, LOL! (The ONLY publicly owned NFL Team.)
Now that Brett’s retired, he’ll have more time to mow my lawn. ;)
bttt
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