Karl Marx claimed that all social institutions depend upon the economic foundation; a detailed study of social and cultural systems will always reveal this basic economic arrangement. The way a society is organized to meet material needs will greatly affect all other social structures, including government, family, education, religious, and employment institutions. One rumor is that Wal-Mart’s goal is to have one store located every ten miles in America. They will be adding, according to the Wal-Mart website, at least 305 new stores in America. It is adding close to fifty-five million square feet. Wal-Mart not only is the world’s largest retailer – but as of July, 2000 in Forbes magazine, Wal-Mart ranked 9th out of the 100 largest U.S. multinational companies.
Vast chains of enormous retailers, like Wal-Mart, are systematically eliminating smaller businesses in America. Many people who once worked for those small businesses just ended up working in a department at Wal-Mart – and many of these jobs are just part-time with no benefits. Wal-Mart’s persistent pressure can suffocate the companies it does business with and force them to send jobs overseas. Organized labor and unions feel the blow from the attack. With the utilization of libertarianism, the upperclass and big business are privatizing state enterprises and deregulation has come into existence. We have seen a dramatic increase in private power and a decline in the more public, elected power.
Wal-Mart has laid off employees and closed U.S. plants in favor of consuming products from overseas. But there is no question that the chain is helping accelerate the loss of American jobs to low-wage countries – China being the biggest. In the 1960s, industry in the United States was up to 35%. Today, however, industry is at a staggering 12%. Wal-Mart is part of this problem, as it clearly holds nothing back in abusing its power. This merely magnifies the Social-Darwinist forces that are already at play in modern capitalism across the globe. Contrary to popular belief, reality and history have proven that the use of government can in fact lead to progress and prosperity.
Wal-Mart has also hypnotised shoppers into ignoring the difference between the price of something and the cost at which it was made, and they did so by using a big yellow smiley face. A great strategy – priming people’s consciousness with big happy faces. Wal-Mart’s never-ending emphasis on price underscores something that some Americans are just starting to realize about globalization. The trade deficit in the United States last year was $600 billion, which means that the U.S. consumed $600 billion worth of goods and gave back nothing in return. Anti-Trust laws are becoming obselete. We export the raw materials and import the finished products made with those same raw materials. Yet those yellow faces are still smiling…go figure. As a side note, it’s sort of ironic that Wal-Mart’s main supplier is China and the mascot is a yellow face.
Sure, the low prices seem great for consumers. However, these consumers are not just consumers, but workers as well. With the loss of jobs due to Wal-Mart, one cannot possibly consume when he or she is unemployed. Like Edna Bonacich said on the PBS interview, “But the United States can focus entirely on the consumer role and ignore, to a large extent, the worker role.” Nothing, even the “Everyday low prices,” comes without a price tag. Human rights and social/economic justice are neither low-priced nor opportune, which mark the biggest costs of having such low prices at Wal-Mart.
So who actually benefits from the establishment of Wal-Mart? The answer to that question is simple – the few, not the many. Moreover, such is true for the rest of the economic world in the United States; we live in a land where the minority (big business) is given the majority – from profit to control (an oligarchy, in other words). The word “freedom,” according to the upper class, means the minimization of interference by the government. The upper class is aiming to make big business dominate all, flashing us back to a certain dilemma that arose in 1929. The end product – a de-industrialized economic disaster. A more accurate definition of “freedom,” I feel, is opportunity and a high standard of living, both of which Wal-Mart seriously impedes.
