Wal-Mart, corporate version of Communism?

Slave: 1. One bound in servitude as the property of a person or household. 2. One who is abjectly subservient to a specified person or influence: “I was still the slave of education and prejudice” (Edward Gibbon). 3. One who works extremely hard. 4. A machine or component controlled by another machine or component.

Just trying to un-muddy the waters a bit.

Walmart often opens up in towns with no real economy at all and creates one. not to mention the towns in middle america that seem to have been built around Walmart. My mother lives in a very rural town without walmart and she says the choices and prices suck in the little stores in her town so she drives to a bigger town with a walmart. I can afford to shop at independent shops which are for the most part always more expensive, alot of people can't. I completely agree with Helter's stance on the slavery issue. I will take it one step further and ask this question, Do you think that the people who work in these multinational companies( "sweat shops")over seas would appreciate them being closed for unfair labor? I think not but I am sure the US unions would.

Sorry Steve, walmart doesn't have that power. They can't outlaw other businesses, nor can they withdraw your right to take employment. They don't even hire thugs to break your windows after you quit. Any of those would count as coercive acts...
Selling items at low enough prices that other companies go out of buisiness however, really doesn't count as coercing your employees.

You're not being consistent Steve. Last post you were saying that it was because they restricted their employees from making use of their choices, now it's something else. Which one?

I'm not saying that walmart is good at all. They do enough *realistically* bad stuff, there's really no need to make exaggerated claims about slavery, and whether or not being successful is tantamount to coercion.

Remember the post I originally quoted? From a Wal-Mart employee?

There was a big to-do this time last year about employees being forced to work off the clock - even to the point where third-shift was being locked in the store in some places. It was such a big deal that our managers say we aren't even allowed to answer customer questions off the clock now.

So why are you saying it didn't happen?

Yo, Helter

It seems a bit unfair that everyone else is arguing one side of this case and you're left to argue your side alone, and I feel a bit wrong about joining the big side... so I might start by acknowledging that you have a point. Paying people low wages isn't the same as slavery, using economic coercion isn't the same as robbing someone of all their choices, and there's a danger of exaggerating Wal-Mart's evilness if we flippantly call them communists, slaveowners, and corporate fascists without drawing breath in-between...

...but, I still disagree with you.

Think of it this way; suppose I'm a black person who is legally regarded as the property of a white person, living in the South and picking cotton, back in the 1800s somewhere. Am I a slave? Well, according to common parlance, and legally accepted definitions of the time, yes I am. But according to your definition, it seems I'm not a slave. I have choices; I can choose to run away - I'll probably be recaptured, but I can choose to. I can choose not to work, and I'll probably be beaten senseless for it, but I can choose not to. And of course, I can choose to hang myself, which would put me beyond any reprisals by my owner. So, I still have choices, therefore, I'm not a slave.

Now this is a pretty extreme case, but hopefully you see what I'm getting at. Any definition of "slave" has to be based on the existence of coercion, which means the limitation of my choices by someone else's power... If we're too inclusive in the definition, then paying taxes that I don't want to pay makes me a slave. If we're too exclusive, then nobody is a slave.

The line between slavery and merely being dependant on your employer for your economic survival... well, there should be a line. It would be wrong to say that walmart's employees are literally slaves in every sense of the word. But it doesn't seem unreasonable to make a point about similarities between their circumstances and those of actual slaves by using terms like "wage-slave", which... uh, don't know how to end that sentence.

Hopefully this is clear.

I won't claim that I know much about this topic, however I do think these people would rather make 30 cents an hour rather then have no job at all. I think what these big companies do stinks, don't get me wrong. I also know that if these big companies wern't there, there would be no jobs at all.

what we have in america is actually much closer to indentured servitude.

in 'traditional' indentured servitude, you had to work directly for the person you owed money to. this, however, created major friction between the classes.

in order to reduce this friction, the upper class has effectively 'outsourced' the servitude. the individual owes their money to a variety of institutions (mortgage, credit cards, car payments, student loans) and must work at 'a job of their choice' to pay it off.

this abstraction of players in the great big money game gives the people the illusion of freedom (picking and choosing a job) but keeps the class system firmly in place. in practice, it often even more similar, because despite myth, it's very hard to change jobs, especially if you're of the wrong class to begin with.

ok, this is a bit of oversimplification, but it's a discussion, so that's sort of a given:

in many third world countries, the industries that have moved in have completely destroyed any hope of the populace being self-sufficient without them - wholesale environmental destruction of cropland, etc. so in a way, you're right - if the industry left, they would be screwed. hell, the entire country would be screwed, because they need that industry to pay off their debts to the IMF/World Bank/etc/etc. these loans were usually originally given to them to 'industrialize', but once they owed the money, they give up sovereign rights in many important decisions regarding industry. because they have no choice but to keep industry in their midst, they compete with other third world countries by reducing taxes for the industries, and lessening environmental regulations and labor laws to the point of non-existence. it's an endless cycle, and factories can and do move from country to country, following the wave. 'free trade zones' (and other wonderful euphamisms) are created to define areas completely free of any real regulation and taxation - theoretically, the year or two grace period is supposed to reel in the industry and they'll get their taxes after the grace period is over... but the factory simply hops shores and continues paying no tax somewhere else.

my point, if you got through all that is yes, the people in those countries do often need those jobs. now. because international/multinational financial organizations and corporations fucked them (and thier countries) over so hard it hurts to even think about.

[edited for spelling]

[Edited on Dec 22, 2003 by ferret]

well I claimed not to know much of the subject and I was right. Now I know a little more. I don't shop at Walmart but I guess it was for the wrong reasons. Man this world sucks.

boycott walmart!

ps. walmart fucks babies and does coke.

Walmart is obviously running smaller businesses into the ground and if you can't tell whether or not that's good for america then you have problems. They've started a price war, as they do every holliday season, with other large companies, like Toys-R-Us, in which they go so far as to sell things below their own cost in an attempt to drive the competition out of business.
Funny thing is that this is a perfectly legal and legitimate form of competition, price fixing, and in spite the fact that wal mart is 10 x the size of any of it's competitors, and in so is able to easily drive them into the ground, this form of capitalism, which is indicative of the greater flaws within the ideological system, is mislabled communism by someone who actually has to ask if walmart is practicing fair business. Of course it is, it's pefectly fair to pay the chinese next to nothing to produce your shit and to pay your part-time employees next to nothing because you refuse to employ them for more then 30hrs a week. Fair according to what/who? According to the model of comsumerism: capitalism. So cry elsewhere about how this is somehow communism.
Short term: very good, nice cheap goods you would otherwise have to go to 5 stores to find.
Long term: watch them put the local competition out of business and then gouge you for some significant mark-ups, after the fact.

what's wrong with communism?

edited to say: before you all shoot me, I've just been reading up a bit on communisim and socialism and I think if done right, it might be a good thing...?

Though it does sucks that the walmarts and targets of the world are putting the smaller stores out of business.

and child labor/ sweat shops in foriegn countries should not be allowed en route to a communist society. Isn't this illegal?

[Edited on Dec 22, 2003 by Hazel]

HAHAHAHAHAHA! *passes out from laughing so hard*

That's part of the reason.

Wal-mart also has better prices because they pay their employees less, have sub-standard benefits, treat their employees poorly, and as a result of this, have a high employee turn-over. This helps to keep wages down, since they don't have to worry about giving raises. They also actively practice arbitrary dismissal, where they fire people because they make too much money. Sure, they get unemployment...but that money has already been paid, and they have no hope of getting it back anyways. Wal-mart is not a career. It is an opportunity for you to let someone else use you, abuse you, and throw you away.

Another way Wal-mart saves money is through buying sub-standard product for their grocery department. Deli luncheon meat is as cheap as they can find, and pre-cut meats are cheaper than having a meat-cutting department. Their meats are loaded with water and "solution" (what this solution consists of is anyone's guess) to increase the shelf life, since part of that life is lost during shipping. Any food that is cooked on-site comes in frozen, so they don't have to pay people to fix anything. They just need a few people to heat it up.

Wal-mart also re-sells defective merchandise quite often. Something expensive comes back defective, the vendor reimburses them under the condition that the defective item is to be destroyed, and they repackage it and put it on the shelf. The theory behind this is that somewhere along the line, a customer is going to have the manufacturer repair/replace the item instead of Wal-mart. While I'm sure this rarely happens, it hasn't stopped the practice. I'm more than sure the practice is illegal.

For two years, I've worked for the retail chain that is Wal-mart's number 1 competitor, so I tend to get a lot of inside information on how Wal-mart works. We also get a lot of employees who have worked for Wal-mart, so I've heard dozens of stories like this. These are not exceptions! They're the rule. I'm convinced that scandal about hiring illegal immigrants was not an accidental oversight. It fits in perfectly with the way Wal-mart does business on a daily basis. Wal-mart has been beseiged with scandals like this for a very long time.

They don't care about their employees, they don't even care about you. All they care about is your money, and how they can convince you to give it to them. If you give the slightest shit about exploited workers in the world, know that exploitation exists here in America, in one of it's biggest retail chains.

I'm sure a lot of this has already been said. Maybe I feel it adds a bit more credibility coming from someone who is on the front line against this cankar sore of a company on a daily basis.

[Edited on Dec 22, 2003 by Dante0]

I was raised in Mansfield, Ohio, a medium-sized town with an economy that was once based on manufacturing... that is, until most of these companies shipped out 15-20 years ago (well within my lifetime). Coincidentally, this mass-exodus of decent-paying, union-based work overlapped with a huge influx of large-scale retailers throughout the city. There's a five-mile stretch on Lexington/Ontario Road in Mansfield that has been completely transformed from farmland to retail stores just in my lifetime.. it's really fucking unbelievable. I remember reading stories in the Mansfield News Journal about SKILLED workers who were once employed at Ohio Brass who found themselves stocking shelves at K-Mart in order to feed their kids. (This isn't old news either.. AK Steel staged a lock-out of union employees in their Mansfield plant for the past 3 years.. many of those SKILLED workers found themselves working in the large retail stores and strip malls just to make a living). More personally, my dad was an unskilled high school graduate who was trained as an electrician b/c his employer thought it was a good idea to maintain skilled, long-term employees (he also found himself in an unskilled position when his company changed ownership).

WalMart is partially to blame. They descend on small towns with souring economies and take advantage of marginalized workers. Your back-and-forth concerning slavery is technically correct but extremely silly.. I mean, who really cares?? Who really gives a fuck if Wal-Mart employees fit perfectly into your definition of slavery? Like it or not, the people who run these retail chains don't live up to any higher moral standards than did slaveowners... both groups take advantage of disadvantaged social groups for their own personal gain. Any other differences are absolutely irrelevant.