The Joy of Greed, the Danger of Hubris: America Waking Up

You don't have to be a radical anti-capitalist to realize that when the nation's largest employer is Wal-Mart that something is dreadfully wrong. And when the behemoth retailer controls both the production and retail ends of consumer products, that it essentially has dictatorial power. Well, they may have overstepped their bounds at last and even the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil mass of the middle and lower consuming class addicted to Wal-Mart's alleged low prices (low because they make a public cost every obligation that does not enhance the bottom line). The Walton family is worth over $90 billion. Should we be afraid?

Here is at least one way people are becoming aware and fighting back.

Nancy McShane used to spend $600 to $700 a month at Wal-Mart on everything from groceries to oil changes. Then in March she abruptly switched to other discount stores, upset over what her turkey-farming relatives saw as undue price pressure from the world's largest retailer.
McShane, a Springfield, Mo., housewife with children aged 11 and 12, is among what organized critics claim is a growing number of Americans turning against Wal-Mart amid allegations from unions and others that the company is bad for workers, the environment and communities.

When regular folks like Ms. McShane come to the realization that their savings is coming out of someone else's hide, they can change really quickly in their opinions and habits.

But at Springfield, McShane said she changed stores after her relatives, who also raise produce, complained Wal-Mart exerts too much pressure on suppliers to cut their prices.

"That's too much power for one company to have," she said.

And this underlines a basic problem in our country today--the substitution of economic relations for social relations. When people care more about saving ten cents on a pair of tube socks than about maintaining the spirit of community, we're all sunk. Wal-Mart is just part of the problem, which links to sprawl, dependence on the automobile, shrinking workers' rights, etc. but it's a hugely powerful and visible manifestation of a way of thinking that's got to change.

And perhaps, in its grab to own the world, Wal-Mart may have overreached and at last alarmed a lot of Americans.