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.
"Let's not debate capitalism here, that is far too complex a subject"
You don't have to point this out, it's obvious you don't understand capitalism.
Sigh welcome to FR by the way. I wasn't going to do it, but then you played the race card and started with the personal attacks. It shouldn't take long before people see you for the Ignorant, race card playing, welfare loving, socialist feminist. Good day ma'am, or do you prefer sir?
Not to mention that Wal-mart isn't setting up a money-scamming business in a house of worship--the Bible applies to everyone, but the direct comparison of Jesus chasing money-lenders from the Temple to Wal-mart doesn't wash.
That sounds like "Walton Envy" to me. Did you also keep your horse and buggy so that the Ford family wouldn't put the local blacksmiths out of busniess? And think of all the telegraph employees who lost their jobs when you got a telephone.
God fobid that there are rich people in America!! If you want a socialist society.. Go to Europe..
We live in a small rural town. The downtown prior to Walmart had stores open open from 9-5PM Mon thru Sat and closed at noon on Wednesdays. Terrible hours for customers while service and selection was inconsistant. There were no people of color working in these mom and pop stores and I doubt if they offered health insurance to workers. Once Walmart arrived,most of the mom and pops went out of business and new speacialty stores such as a custom bike shop, coffee shops etc moved in with more flexible hours. Walmart has a diverse workforce, offers good choice on health insurance and does good things for the community. Their check for $15,000 to our regional Children's Miracle Network in addition to grants for school class trips etc are impressive.
As for China business, I abhor their government too, but Walmart is hardly to blame. When I worked for a computer company, some customers would be angry at us for having Chinese parts in the computer. I would explain to them that if they wanted a computer with all American components it would cost ten times as much and probably impossible to build, since some components we no longer made in the US.
My suggestion is to use the money saved by shopping at Walmart, probably hundreds of dollars a year, and mail the check to Food for the Poor or tithe more to your church instead of brandishing your integrity on your sleave.
We have just as many knee-jerk conservatives as the left has knee-jerk liberals. Their positions are determined automatically without any need to see a particular issue up close or hands on, in the same way you'll find so many here who are automatically opposed to ANY lawsuit, etc. They form a set of principles that they consider the embodiment of conservativism, and they don't need to deal with reality. Their opinions are on AutoCruise, determined before an issue ever arises. There are of course plenty of absolutes in life, issues of truth, good and evil, things like that. That's not what we're talking about here, though. This is a business/societal/community issue that is very complex, not something that can be intelligently evaluated by simply taking a "conservative" position and closing your eyes.
MM
I recall reading back in the cold war days, that one of the hardest thing refugees from the Soviet block had trouble adjusting to was our supermarkets.
i admit that i hate Walmart with a passion and i think it is truly evil with a capital E
You have my express permission to NOT go into one.
but i think there are a lot of "conservatives" out there who really do only look at the rosy picture because anything that makes money is okay with them.
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*Wal-Mart paid more than $39.7 million in state and local taxes in the state of Missouri last year.
*During the past year, Wal-Mart spent $4,909,653,426 for merchandise and services with 2,309 suppliers in the state of Missouri. As a result of Wal-Mart's relationship with these suppliers, Wal-Mart supports 122,497 supplier jobs in the state of Missouri.
Supplier figures provided by Dun & Bradstreet
*In Missouri, the total number of Wal-Mart associates is 41,854 (as of 10/15/04).
*Teacher of the Year Grants: $138,000
*Safe Neighborhood Heroes Grants: $199,200
*Literacy Grants: $133,250
I realize that Wal-Mart is bad for the US, but how much of these items were being supplied by mom and pop stores before Wal-Mart ran them out of business?
Hello? Where are all the folks from the homeschooling vs. public school threads who are adamant that if the man of the house cannot earn enough to support the family so the mother can stay home and homeschool the children, they should pack up and move? Shouldn't they be advising these folks who can't get other employment to move somewhere that they can?
personally i don't want to sell out my fellow americans so the walton family - the wealthiest group of people ON EARTH - can make another buck.
Personally, I don't want to pay several dollars more than WalMart's price for a package of diapers so Mom and Pop can make another buck. I'll buy at WalMart and use those extra dollars to buy my baby a new pair of shoes, thank you very much.
I'll buy at WalMart and use those extra dollars to buy my baby a new pair of shoes, thank you very much.
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I would hope so. Isn't that what good protective parents are supposed to do?
Nevertheless you still cannot avoid knowing that multiple Chicom missiles are still aimed at us, thanks to the billions per year that W-M et al send along to China with nary a worry about how that mega-money is used. All other pro-W-M arguments are insignificant when compared to this truth.
There's one thing that Wal-Mart absolutely cannot compete on: expertise of sales staff. If you sell something that's fairly complicated and requires a lot of knowledge to buy correctly, your customers will get appreciated added value by having an expert sales staff present.
Flat panel TVs are a good example. My mom's looking for a flat-panel and the staff at the Wal-Mart couldn't address any of her questions, such as the high-altitude problem with most plasma sets she'd heard about, or the differing types of HDTV and what they mean, etc. She thought there was a choice between HDTV and plasma, and the Wal-mart staff couldn't help her at all with this misconception. My mom asked me, so I gave her an overview of the technology and terms, and told her to go to a specialized store with knowledgeable staff to complete the purchase. You do not want the quality of your $4,000 purchase to hinge on the knowledge of a minimum wage Wal-Mart employee.
Of course that brings a side question of mine. Why do they even sell sea-level plasma TVs in a town at 6,500 feet?
Walmart gets significant breaks from local (and probably state & federal) govt in terms of zoning, roads, taxation, etc,
Then do something about it.
no flame intended, I get a little tired of people who bi*ch and moan about (insert your favorite problem here) but who won't take the time and effort to actually do something.
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