Thanks everyone for the interesting posts and discussion. I hope it’s not too late for me to jump in with my own thoughts on all that has been said so far.
I asked, “What’s not to like?” and I’d say Adam gives a pretty good answer. Wal-Mart’s use of eminent domain is unconscionable, and throws into stark relief why our incompetent Supreme Court’s recent decision in Kelo v. New London is such a setback for those who believe in absolute property rights. (Although I would like to know more of the particulars. I doubt this is the case, but if any of the businesses that were evicted had tried to use other laws to block Wal-Mart, I’d say it threw them into a moral limbo where they got what was coming to them.)
I’m less sympathetic to some of the other objections that have been raised:
First, regarding subsidies, I’d say some of the actions cited in the article referenced by Chris are indeed unjust. But the list of “subsidies” includes free land (which the government never should have owned in the first place, and so much the better if a private company wrests it away from them), rebates on taxes (that should never have been levied), and road infrastructure (which, seeing as how the government has arrogated to itself the task of building roads, hardly qualifies as a “subsidy”).
Max’s contention that all of Wal-Mart’s gains are ill-gotten, because of an estimated $1 billion in subsidies, is absurd when considered in light of the fact that their annual revenues top $300 billion. As Ethan pointed out, they paid $5 billion in taxes in one year alone. What’s more, we have no estimate of the damages in lost revenues, inflicted in cases like Englewood and The Bronx, where Wal-Mart was barred from doing business, and I believe we must fairly account for that in debating whether or not Wal-Mart is just another pig suckling at the government’s teat. Subsidies can give businesses an edge over their competitors; they cannot provide them with the innovations that have allowed Wal-Mart to increase inventory turnover, keep its operations lean, and reduce profit margins while still growing the company and keeping shareholders satisfied.
“Wal-Mart creates additional sound/light pollution.” I tend to side more with Byron that property rights, if they’re to have any meaning at all, must be absolute. Do I think there should be some provisions for the owners of properties adjacent to large, noisy stores? Yes, and I think there’s plenty of room for debate on this subject. What I don’t buy into is this silly notion that if I buy a house next to an empty field, somehow I’m entitled to have that field remain completely empty and unchanged, forever. Landscapes and communities are changed by the people who own them. You want to be surrounded by fields of wheat are far as the eye can see and the ear can hear? There are two options: buy enough property to be sure those fields will stay that way forever; or, get a government to use its police power to dictate the terms by which others can use that property. But there are no middle grounds between property rights and so-called “community planning” here.
“Downtown stores provide better quality-of-life than Wal-Mart.” In my experience, it just isn’t so. In my old hometown of Kalispell, I used to have to order all my computer software and hardware by mail (back in the days of 2-to-4 week shipping) because the local computer stores had shit for price and selection. All that changed when Wal-Mart came to town, and these “Mom-and-Pop’s” couldn’t leverage their status as one of two computer stores, in a town of 17,000, to provide crappy service to their customers. So I thank Wal-Mart for making Kalispell, and lots of other towns like it, places where you can actually buy what you’re trying to find. Ditto for music. Downtown music stores here in Missoula reek with incense and are festooned with psychedelic tapestries, Eastern mystic icons, and left-wing bumper stickers. When I’m browsing the aisles at Wal-Mart, I’m not assailed on all sides by the many accoutrements of hippie burnout culture. There are some downtown businesses—bars, coffee shops, specialty shops—that can survive the entry of a Wal-Mart, because they provide a real value to their customers and keep attracting them even after a big retailer moves in. For the others, who can’t compete… well, I say, welcome to the free-market. You don’t get to change the rules of the game just ‘cause you start losing all of a sudden.
“Wal-Mart is dumpy and its employees and customers are dumb.” Perhaps I’ve somehow hit upon the one good Wal-Mart in the country, but I’ve never had a problem with finding what I need or getting help from employees here. The local Wal-Mart is cleaner than its competitors, Albertson’s and Walgreens (although the Target is more appealing, but also more expensive). And I never seem to notice the customers, nor do I particularly care about their levels of intelligence, as I’m focused on finding the next thing on my shopping list, and all other concerns seem to just fade into the background. I’m not always satisfied with the length of the lines at Wal-Mart—they always seem to have just the right amount of tellers for me to have to wait about 5 minutes—but the wait is usually no worse than at other retailers, and if it is, the extra wait is more than compensated for by the extra savings at checkout. Sorry, but for me, quality of life doesn’t include shopping alongside a cross-section of bright, well-dressed doctors, lawyers, and university profs.
“If Wal-Mart wants to help out lower income people, why don’t they build in the inner cities?” Usually, because they’re barred by the union-bought thugs who sit as aldermen and councilmen in these urban areas.
There was a great documentary on CNBC last night on this subject, and they spoke a little about Sam Walton and how he built this retail empire. One of Walton’s business associates relayed a story from Wal-Mart’s early days, when he and Walton were flying to a meeting in Walton’s two-seater aircraft. They passed over a Wal-Mart store with a sparse parking lot, and Walton was so distraught he landed the plane at the nearest airport and went running to the store to ask the manager why there were no cars in the lot. After being reassured that a school event had emptied the store for a moment, Walton explained to his associate that he had simply had to land, to find out whether there was something wrong with the way Wal-Mart was running its business. This dedication—started by Sam Walton and maintained by Wal-Mart’s current management—was the edge they needed to come out on top. Even after the discussion of eminent domain and subsidies, I still maintain that, on balance, Wal-Mart’s ruthless pursuit of cost-cutting and productivity improvements has been a huge boon to America and American businesses.
|
