When an ambitious person looks to set a goal for themselves they tend to say the sky is the limit. Wal-Mart revisits accepted wisdom and thinks in terms of universes and galaxies. For Wal-Mart even the unseen dark epochs of distant universes are not far from its drawing board. Maybe the ultimate goal of a Wal-Mart executive is to see that bottom line turn so blue that Sam Walton himself rises from his grave and kisses that executive’s feet.
The point is Wal-Mart is getting too big for the economy. There is a common school of thought that Wal-Mart’s profitable business plan is contributing to a lot of the malaise seen around the world. Most of the world however does not see how deliberate Wal-Mart is being in its oppressive tactics. Our own school, the Fisher College of Business, boasts Wal-Mart as an incredible hero with feats greater than Superman. My business classes make Wal-Mart and their business plan out to be holier than the Koran. I have yet to have a business class at Fisher in my four years here that the teacher did not mention Wal-Mart. In fact I am in a quarterly pool with classmates as to which day in class the teacher will say ‘But not like Wal-Mart does.’ Usually day one pays.
Wal-Mart sets out to obliterate its competition. Like a boa constrictor, Wal-Mart enters an economy and chokes out the competition. The company is such a giant that it can name its own prices. For example, Wal-Mart deals with overseas textile and manufacturing companies. These companies, who are not tiny mice by any means, pale in comparison to Wal-Mart’s size and depend on it to stay alive. Wal-Mart is their biggest customer, and these companies feel pressure to retain Wal-Mart as a customer. At the core of its policy, Wal-Mart demands of its suppliers that they sell goods to Wal-Mart at such a low price, that they can only do so by outsourcing their work to low-wage factories overseas.
This causes the exodus of millions of production jobs from the United States and the setting up of slave-labor concentration camps around the globe. Wal-Mart’s policy includes crushing living standards in America, forbidding its workers from unionizing, bringing in workers illegally from abroad, and bankrupting tens of thousands of stores and outlets on Main Street, ripping apart communities and their tax bases.
The buck does not stop there. Wal-Mart is not hamstringing itself to the retail industry. As if winning the world championship of retailing is not fun anymore, Wal-Mart would like the opportunity to service it’s customers even better. Customers should expect Wal-Mart to become a force in banking, fuel refining, travel services and health care. You might not know this but Wal-Mart is the largest grocery store in the United States; they sell 20 percent of our groceries.
Now when is too much, too much? Believe me I am not revolting against the capitalist system. Thus far the history of capitalism has proven to bring the most opportunistic and human mode of living ever to be implemented. Until something more handsome comes along we are going to live by the rules of a free market. It just seems as if Wal-Mart perfected the way it plays the game and took advantage of all the possible loopholes of this free-market too well and has become a behemoth too big for our own goods.
Do you want your children wearing S.W. boots while getting into thier Walton Mobile and cashing their check at the bank of Wal-Mart? I am simply looking out for the little guy. I am protecting that mom and pop stores in the old neighborhood owned and operated by a hard working immigrant who left his oppressive nation to take advantage of the freedom, education and security this great nation has to offer. Then Wal-Mart moved into the neighborhood pricing their flowers and shoelaces at a fraction of a dollar less than mom and pop which, in the end, will eventually drive mom and pop to bankruptcy. That is not the America I envision.
Ilya Romanov is a senior in accounting. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
