Voting 'No' on Low Prices and Good Jobs
So, the people of Inglewood, in their wisdom, have said no to Wal-Mart. Too bad -- for the people of Inglewood, that is.
Wal-Mart will do just fine. It's No. 1 on the Fortune 500 list and the nation's biggest employer (next to the government). It's also Mexico's biggest employer (again, next to the government).
In addition to a million employees, Wal-Mart has 100 million shoppers a week, and those shoppers don't have guns to their heads, and they're not unhappy. Wal-Mart saves people a fortune -- $20 billion a year, according to New England Consulting. And the real number is closer to $100 billion because of the lower prices Sam Walton's company forces from other retailers. I might add that Wal-Mart has made its investors tidy sums.
In short, this is a classic American success story and a free-market success story. Needless to say, that has won Wal-Mart a lot of enemies.
Who are these enemies? Democratic politicians, union leaders, left-wing pundits, a few right-wing pundits (concerned for localism), snobs, sentimentalists, economic ignoramuses.
Wal-Mart has become like Enron or Halliburton in Democratic rhetoric: a byword for corporate irresponsibility. During the presidential primaries, John Kerry duly engaged in some bashing. He will probably clam up for the general election. (Remember those 100 million shoppers.)
The complaints against Wal-Mart are numerous -- the company is practically blamed for the common cold -- but here are some of the main ones: that it is too big; that it is impersonal; that it pays its employees too little; that it denies them healthcare; that it is nonunionized (true); that it is square (banning racy magazines, for example); that it is vulgar.
Frankly, more than a little snobbery goes into Wal-Mart bashing. This is a store that sells every product under the sun at low, low prices to ordinary folks. Wal-Mart is gloriously, unashamedly, star-spangledly American. I hope it's not too McCarthyite to suggest that those who despise Wal-Mart are the very ones who may not be so crazy about the United States tout court.
Critics like to contend that Wal-Mart workers live "paycheck to paycheck"; that's not true. But what is true -- certainly truer -- is the Wal-Mart rejoinder: "We are the store of a great many people who, in fact, live paycheck to paycheck, and need decent products at decent prices."
