ahh...wal-mart and social thought...

I wrote this for History of Social Thought..an amazing class that taught me all about socialism, capitalism, the class-system and their interactions, and all the theorists that have studied them. We watched a film bringing to light how the Wal-Mart Corporation operates and applied what concepts from the class to analyze them. Enjoy. And support small-town businesses. Wal-Mart is also a nickname I got my freshman year of high school. People don't call me that anymore...

WAL-MART

Without a doubt, a strong supporter of Wal-Mart and their way of doing business would be Adam Smith. Adam Smith was an advocate for individual rights, which meant he more or less justified greedy and selfish actions by those looking to get ahead at all costs. The video showed the corporate greediness of Wal-Mart and unearthed the secrets costs of their low prices. In doing so, it was brought to light how the Wal-Mart Corporation has chosen to do whatever is necessary to get ahead. Smith’s laissez-faire economics would’ve had no objections and would actively promote the absence of government intervention in such a case.

There are some aspects of Smith’s theories that would object to Wal-Mart, mainly their monopolizing and the lack of competition that creates. Even so, competition was only necessary, in Smith’s mind, to keep costs from getting too high. The video showed that Wal-Mart has created a monopoly because of their unbeatable low prices (due to cheap labor costs in their Chinese sweatshops), which doesn’t quite apply to Smith’s theories.

Robert Owen would have been an opponent to the Wal-Mart movement, since one of his main theories stated that most of “human distress is caused by the competition of man with machinery”. In this day and age we can apply Owen’s definition of “machinery” to monopolizing corporations.

Owen also pushed that “work and the enjoyment of its results should be shared equally by all”, a concept completely disregarded by the pompous and secluded Walton Family. Owen was spot on, in the case of Wal-Mart, when he said that “Capitalism gives the lazy a disproportionate share of the good in life and the worker an unfair share of the bad”. The video pointed out Wal-Mart’s ways of costing taxpayers $1.5 billion by controlling taxpayer subsidies, as well as cheating its members out of reliable and dependable insurance.

He stated that “evil, irrational, and immoral behavior [is] the result of poor living and working conditions”, which is exactly what was shown in the Chinese sweatshops producing Wal-Mart’s goods. The evil, irrational, and immoral behaviors produced in this instance are not produced in such a visible way as in violence, but are much less apparent and subtle. The selfish and impersonal consumerism that has come from Wal-Mart’s exploitation has been extremely destructive to the society and culture of small-towns in America, both socially and economically.

After watching this documentary, my perspective on Wal-Mart has intensified. I always knew of their monopolizing ways, but never to the extent that this video brought to light. I come from an area where there are only small businesses; to think of a giant coming in and closing them all down is both unfair and unreasonable. I would ask in confusion when America took this shift toward supporting selfish corporate bastards, but the answer and motive behind it is, perhaps, the same as that of America’s obesity.

There is a strong demand for things to be easy, fast and affordable; and if the cost of that is too great, then we don’t want to know about it. Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, etc. are examples of a shift in thinking and a rearrangement of priorities in the American mind. It’s a sick thing, but being selfish, irresponsible, and fat is taking a severe precedence in society, and Wal-Mart is both a victim of that mentality and a proponent.