Posted on 04/11/2005 7:08:56 AM PDT by Rhoades
"I'm writing this column in West Virginia, USA having just come back from shopping in Wal-Mart, the extraordinarily successful supermarket chain that makes our own look slow and tiny -- not to mention expensive! I had to keep blinking at the price labels. With my notion of prices tied to British expectations, Wal-Mart's just look as though the staff can't do their sums."
- John Blundell in the New Scotsman
Wal-Mart is rarely the object of such praise. To be the best is usually to be the object of scorn. Wal-Mart knows this well. They are the best, and their critics would have you believe that the mammoth retail chain earned its laurels through unfair competition, civic destruction, even third world exploitation. The stories are familiar: In order to offer such low prices (always), Wal-Mart:
- Puts Mom-n-Pop shops out of business.
- Contributes to the burgeoning of third world sweatshops.
- Degrades communities by introducing a big box aesthetic.
- Makes the Walton family and shareholders even richer.
But it's time we looked a little deeper into what can only be called the "Wal-Mart effect."
Boone, North Carolina (named for the famous Dan'l) is a college town nestled in the rustic mountains of Appalachia. The population is divided roughly among groups of students, locals, and the academic elite. Such a microcosm of American diversity works in its own way. The locals realize how much money the university brings in. The students love the Smoky Mountain amenities and the bluegrass music. Academics find the local folkways charming and complementary to their status as, well, elites. But when Wal-Mart decided to come along in the 90s, locals, students, and academics also had a common purpose to bind them: to keep Wal-Mart out.
As it often does, Wal-Mart won. And since then, Boone has experienced the Wal-Mart effect. First, some Mom-n-Pop shops in Boone may have gone out of business due to the intense competition. But something interesting has happened: many new businesses have sprung up and they're cooler, more interesting, and more highly specialized than most of the old ones were. Mom-n-Pop have decided to move into more boutique-style businesses -- and not even Wal-Mart can compete with that.
For example, Hands Gallery -- formed c. 1998 -- is an interesting fixture for visitors to the downtown King Street area, offering indigenous art and sculpture for more refined tastes. While taking in the spring verdancy or autumn foliage of the high country, visitors can take jaunts through nearby Blowing Rock and Banner Elk for the utterly zoned and picturesque experience (and, of course, denizens of these planned towns take advantage of Boone's big boxes along highway 321).
But big boxes and all, downtown Boone offers its own home-grown order, complete with quirky restaurants and shops one might have found on the corner of Haight and Ashbury. An eclectic mix of businesses line the main thoroughfare. Earth Fare, an organic foods store, has come to King Street. Older fixtures such as the Appalachian Antique Mall and Mast General Store (retail) have enjoyed continued success and remain favorite establishments for shoppers. You'll even find "Josh," a vagrant everyone in Boone knows, selling poetry and beaded jewelry to passers by.
The question becomes: do we really need small, inefficient and expensive shops to supply us with our shaving cream and plastic laundry baskets? How vibrant is a downtown where such items are being hocked? Since Wal-Mart consolidates these kinds of goods into "big boxes," we, like John Blundell, can get them for dirt cheap all in one place. Charming downtown areas can then evolve into gorgeous window-shopping and restaurant-hopping districts for both locals and tourists. In the meantime, everyone knows where to go to get the bare necessities quickly and at a lower cost.
The Wal-Mart effect is happening all over the country, allowing many municipalities to renew their town centers. In fact, residents able to reduce their day-to-day shopping budgets at Wal-Mart have more money left to spend on the things that make life great and towns charming -- whether it's hand-blown glass or delicious roadside produce grown by local farmers. (Take it from me, no big box can do Silver Queen corn like North Carolina farmers on the side of the road.)
Wal-Mart has also made concerted efforts to work with communities to stylize their stores, especially in cases where such is desired by the locals. The result is that the big box look is not always battleship blue corrugated metal with plastic letters. Wal-Marts come in all manner of brick, stone and Mediterranean styles.
The Wal-Mart effect may be destructive from time to time, but it's also profoundly creative. Wal-Mart has inadvertently hastened the pace of specialization and municipal renewal. As consumers, of course, we only benefit from the presence of Wal-Mart and other big box retailers. People in developing countries and at home are being lifted from squalor because Wal-Mart seeks out the great, low-cost products they offer. Wal-Mart is also giving a lot of people opportunities to earn a living -- including retirees who want to stay active as well as immigrants prepared to accept the wages Wal-Mart offers. Don Boudreaux puts it succinctly here:
"And because Wal-Mart indisputably keeps prices to consumers low, by far the most plausible conclusion is that Wal-Mart promotes the economic prosperity of the places it which it operates -- it creates better jobs and increases the availability of goods and services. In short, Wal-Mart makes its workers and its customers (and, yes, its stockholders) wealthier."
The Wal-Mart effect is overwhelmingly beneficial.
As prices continue to fall and quality continues to improve, critics of Wal-Mart will have a tougher time resisting the temptation to shop there. In the meantime, I'll be enjoying shorter lines, lower prices, quality products, and smiley-face stickers.
Max Borders is a writer and Wal-Mart shopper in the Washington, DC area.
Our local Ace hardware stores do a good job competing with the big box stores by offering stuff the big hardware chains don't (fishing gear, for example) and customer service that the Wal-Marts, K-Marts, and Targets can't.
Not only screaming, but screaming about something you probable have no actual real notion about. China has outpriced about everything posible made in America. For an American company to survive, you would have to lower the minimum wages. I know, I work a non-union job that is being forced overseas. Even Honduras can't compete with China prices.
I doubt there is 1% left of union job people competing in the manufacturing aspect (that Walmart carries). You can not compete with people that make 50 cents a day for 12- 16 hours of work. There has to be some middle class manufacturing jobs if you want to support a country's economy, you can't just import and not export and those countries don't have enough people making over 50 cents a day to buy anything you want to export.
You did a good job on this thread newbie. Welcome to FR...
Another plus which should be better advertised by smaller stores is simply that they're smaller (Come in, get out, be on your way)! After standing in line at Wal-Mart for a half hour and spending 15 min. getting out of the parking lot, that would probably get my attention.
yep.
And how many complain it's messy but instead of taking the things they don't want to the cashier so they can have someone put them away, they leave them in the aisles where they don't belong?
I once found a pair of Brahma boots in the Tea section of the grocery part of the store.
And someone once found a quart of ice cream that had been left on the shelf... for quite a while before someone found it.
People don't realize that when you take perishable items out of the cooler, and decide you don't want them at the end, no matter how short a time they've been out, we have to by law throw them away... and Walmart swallows that loss.
They tell me I can't say that at work to any customers (stupid rule) but I do every once in a while - not while they're abandoning their stuff.
So whenever I make a mistake and don't bring enough money, or whatever, I make sure to put back the nonperishables so the store doesn't take the hit for MY error.
It had nothing to do with the local Walmart. The entire national Woolworths chain went under.
I see that question so often, "When did you stop beating your wife?". The correct question is, "Do you still beat your wife?". The point is, the second is a "Yes or No" question.
Quote: So, WalMart is responsible for Clinton's sale or gift of missile technology to China? Give me a freaking break
You can have all the technology in the world but you need money to build them. Hence walmart and the thousands of other us fcatories and companies that are moving over there.
Yea but who runs congress: Democ-RATS and RAT-publicans controlled by big money special interests.
This all comes down to one of my personal pet peeves: The lack of morals, civility and the general coarsening of our culture. Unfortunately there are evil people in the world and things like Triangle Shirtwaist, Enron, Worldcom, and Lincoln Bedroom-gate happen. Don't blame Walmart because crooked real estate developers and local politicians get together to make immoral profits.
Now, what's with all this Pat bashing? What's the problem with putting America First? That's the way it should be. Strict isolationism. Why bother to protect an ungrateful world. Or worse yet put our lives on the lines so some politician's corporate cronies can make a couple of more millions.
Buchanan has gone so far off the conservative reservation it's amazing.
What's the problem with putting America First?
Nothing.
That's the way it should be. Strict isolationism.
We've tried that before. It ends with chaos and war. In this day and age, it might end with a radioactive crater where a major American city used to be.
Why bother to protect an ungrateful world.
Because doing so protects America.
Or worse yet put our lives on the lines so some politician's corporate cronies can make a couple of more millions.
No blood for oil, right?
Think Woolworth's. When they came out over 100 years ago people complained that they were shutting down Mom and Pop's in small town America. History truly is cyclical.
Missile Defense Shield? Tighter Borders or even Zero Immigration?
Re: Why bother to protect an ungrateful world.
Because doing so protects America.
I disagree with this. You can protect America without giving assistance to any other nation. What happened to competition? The stronger nations survive and the weaker ones fade away. I would like to see an American without alliances. I would like to see the eviction of the UN HQ. Send them to The Hague or Grenoble.
Wrong. Oil is something we all need. On the other hand, how does a McDonald's in Beijing or a Coke machine in Kandahar benefit anyone other than the shareholders of the above corporations.
We're not engaged in wars in either of those two places, to my knowledge.
You're proposing that we play a purely defensive game. If we did that, our enemies could plot overseas and make repeated attempts to attack us. What you're basically describing is the Clinton administration's approach to national security. That approach allowed terrorists to make repeated attacks on us since they knew we would never go after their bases in any serious manner. We saw how well that worked on 9/11.
No matter how hard we try, we can't make our borders totally secure nor keep everyone who wishes us harm out of this country. We need to go on the offensive, which is what the Bush administration has been doing.
I disagree with this. You can protect America without giving assistance to any other nation.
Not really. If we hadn't protected Kuwait and Saudi Arabia back during the first Gulf War, Saddam Hussein would be sitting on something like a third of the world's oil supply. If we don't protect Taiwan, China will expand in the Western Pacific and be able to cut off strategic shipping lanes.
What happened to competition? The stronger nations survive and the weaker ones fade away.
We don't want some of the stronger nations to get stronger and we don't want some of the weaker nations to fade away. Do you want China to get more powerful? How about Iran? Do you want Australia to fade away under Chinese domination?
I would like to see an American without alliances.
At what point would you take a pro-active stance on defense? Before or after Chinese tanks are lined up on the Canadian border? Before or after Islamic militants overthrow the government in Pakistan and get their hands on nukes?
I would like to see the eviction of the UN HQ
Why? That just means we would need to move a whole bunch of spying operations from New York to wherever else the UN ended up.
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