From a protest of WM in Lynn, MA:
"Wal-Mart is the largest corporation in the world. It uses globalization in a negative way. It employs workers all over the world and exploits them by giving them extremely low wages," said Raphy Kasobel, a 10-year-old student at the Workmen's Circle Shule, a Jewish Sunday school in Brookline. "Wal-Mart makes great profits at the expense of others."For some reason, the journalist didn't dare ask her:
1) why so many of those exploited workers all over the world want to work for WM, and find that almost all Walmart suppliers have far better working conditions than any employer based in their own country. [Hint: Why don't they just stay in the rice fields and be happy peasants?]
2) whose fault it is that some people are so poor that they are willing to work in sweatshops. [Hint: Which failed political philosophy governed China for 50 years?].
3) why she doesn't insist that the federal government take away those nasty profits, and give them to the exploited non-American workers. [Hint: Just how would this benefit American union members?]
4) why she doesn't want the shareholders of WM to be forced to transfer ownership to the workers? [Hint: Would it be too obvious that this is just socialism?]
Posted by Kevin on December, 5 2004 at 04:15 PM
Libertarian4Truth wrote:That is big business. There is nothing wrong with it, but you need ethics to go along with it. Wal-mart isn't making billion by boycotts. Wal-mart indeed does pay its employees low wages, but people choose to work there. I feel if you are making billions in profits, you should pay your employees a livable wage. People are working at Wal-Mart, trying to support a family and collecting food stamps. Wal-mart should be given incentives to pay their employees a decent wage.
Food Stamps and other "liberal" programs create poverty.-- December 5, 2004 05:23 PM ∞
sterling wright wrote:There is no real difference in what most retailers sale, or from whom and where they buy goods. Why do certain retailers have a competitive advantage. Retailers do not create value for customers and sustainable advantage for themselves merely by offering varieties of goods. Everyone offers the same goods: Kellogg’s, General Mills, Nestle, Rubbermaid, etc.
However retailers offer goods in distinct ways. This is the factor that discriminates between best and worst. There is a great opportunity for customers to push and support Wal-Mart’s efforts to improve working conditions in the textile factories of Dhaka, Shanghai, and many other places. There is a fortune and great opportunity for new market if everyone joins to help increase wages in Third World Countries.
Wal-Mart does not and will never totally dominate the market the way many people describe it. Other competitors will always exist. It remains a way of retailing business that customers’ needs vary, and retailers cannot efficiently tailor their strategies to capture all markets. Thus, its up to the industry as a whole to push for better wages. In fact, retailers cannot do it alone; it’s up to all industries and markets to negotiate better working conditions in Third and Second world countries.
The sad truth is that retailers continue operate in an increasingly competitive environment. Customers in the U.S. and abroad continue to push for lower prices, especially as the American economy falters.
How do I know this is true? In 1993 Wal-Mart only had ten Supercenters. Today there are over 1500. You can say that incumbent store lose on average 17% volume {amounting to a quarter million dollars in monthly revenue following Wal-Mart's entry. But you cannot blame Wal-Mart for the lack of rapid wage gains in China.
Moving forward, there are many areas that Wal-Mart needs to improve: fresh produce, seafood, and home meal replacement items. Wal-Mart’s next challenge is to tackle these markets the same way that it does in China. Can Wal-Mart reverse engineer its China approach to fresh food in the U.S.?-- December 5, 2004 11:05 PM ∞
Jake wrote:A 10 year old is not going to why poeple work for Wal-Mart, it is not always choice. Rice Field or Wal-Mart, what would you choose. I know I would work in Wal-Mart instead of a rice-patty, but some do not connect the dots. I am going to work for Wal-Mart because it is an American Company and Americans make more money and have more stuff. Not because it pays 10 cent more per hour but becaues of what we see and hear about it.
Not until I am working 30 more hours a week and the company is makeing Billions off of my $2.10 job in China working for Wal-Mart. But no one tells them that working the patties may pay less but the money stays in China, it does not go back to Arkansas in America. Teach them about that and they will not work for American Companies trying to buy up land and take over by foreign investment.
Ever kid deserves to know the truth about Wal-Mart, and kids as they learn will not support the company and soon the company will be in trouble because the sucker ass Baby Boomers will be dead and all the destruction they did will be left for our generation and the ones behind it to pick up.
The Boomers are Destroying America and the rest of the World with it. Until this very selfish generation dies we will never see an end to Wal-Martization.
Too many bad decisions by kids who wanted it all...
-- December 7, 2004 12:27 PM ∞
Kevin Brancato wrote:I'm sorry, but international trade makes us richer, not poorer, because it permits far greater specialization and division of labor.
There are NO historical examples of dirt poor nations founded on free-trade.
-- December 7, 2004 12:50 PM ∞
Evan Williams wrote:Jake:
You say, "But no one tells them that working the patties may pay less but the money stays in China, it does not go back to Arkansas in America."
And you honestly think that they would change, if only they knew "the truth"? We're not talking about a couple cents here and a couple cents there. We're talking about a rather large relative payraise, as well as improved relative working conditions. All of this means an improved quality of life for them and their family. But you think that they would sacrifice all that, just to make sure that the People's Republic of China got to keep the fruits of their labor? That is simple ignorance, both of basic economics and human nature.
Nationalistic tendencies seem to fall to the background when your overall quality of life is at stake. Staying in the rice patties is, for them, the status quo. They already know what will happen if they stay in the rice patties. WalMart offers them and their family a better quality of life. So who, in their right mind, would choose to stay in the rice patties...even if they were the most nationalistic folks out there?
"Teach them about that and they will not work for American Companies trying to buy up land and take over by foreign investment."
That's easy for you to say, from the comfort of your air-conditioned room and web-access, and relatively high quality of life. But I would wager my entire fortune on a bet that, if you revealed to Chinese workers the fact that WalMart's profits go to Bentonville, Arkansas and not Beijing, that they would keep on working their WalMart job, and keep on bringing home twice as much as they used to bring home. Your supposition that these workers would adhere to some nationalistic/protectionist principles, over top of tangible quality-of-life improvements, is absurd.
If someone knocked on your door, offered you twice as much money as you're making now, with improved working conditions, but that the company was foreign-based, would you honestly turn it down?
"Ever kid deserves to know the truth about Wal-Mart, and kids as they learn will not support the company and soon the company will be in trouble because the sucker ass Baby Boomers will be dead and all the destruction they did will be left for our generation and the ones behind it to pick up."
Oh, no, chicken little, the sky is falling, the sky is falling! Yes, yes, tell the kids the "truth" about WalMart, and I'm quite sure that they'd refuse higher wages and lower prices, all because of "principle". Not to mention the fact that it's a bogus, anti-free-trade principle.
"Until this very selfish generation dies we will never see an end to Wal-Martization."
You people crack me up!
-- December 9, 2004 08:42 AM ∞
