The Direction of the Anti Wal-Mart Movement: Right Arrow in the Wrong Direction (revised)

The Direction of the Anti Wal-Mart Movement:

Right Arrow in the Wrong Direction

There are packs of files of information that tell you about the harms of Wal-Mart. As can be seen in the documentary, “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price,” Wal-Mart does both illegal and legal policies in order to lower their prices. For instance, they hire their employees with low wage and insufficient health insurance, block the establishment of labor unions, and commit discrimination of labor fee to female workers over male workers. Because of those actions, the anti Wal-Mart movement is quite popular all over the world. In addition, considering the harmful effect Wal-Mart brings into local society by forcing small markets to shut down while increasing the rate of unemployment, it seems inevitable to aim at Wal-Mart with “an arrow of anger.” However, we have to be careful in pulling off the bowstring. We have to consider whom we are really aiming at, and how we are going to proceed before we shoot our arrow.

The anti Wal-Mart movement itself is a nice adage to the anti movement of monopoly and corrupted capitalism, but the way that this movement proceeds makes my head shake. From my personal view, the current Anti Wal-Mart movement focuses on the less important issues, and the way it moves forward seems to be just aimed at “killing Wal-Mart.” “Killing Wal-Mart” is not the absolute solution we have. Even if we kill Wal-Mart for now, other disastrous big companies can still emerge in the future which will eventually become another “Wal-Mart.” Thus, the anti Wal-Mart movement should not just stop at stopping Wal-Mart, but should reach further, so that we can prevent greed-driven companies similar to Wal-Mart from ever emerging again in the future. In order to do so, I want to focus on three main problems within the anti Wal-Mart movement to think and discuss.

 My first question is, who are the ones that are crucified by Wal-Mart the most, and thus have to be saved in the first place? No doubt that Wal-Mart’s employees are the urgent ones, but are they really the worst treated people related to Wal-Mart? Most people, at first glance, might think that the problem with employee treatment is only limited to those who are directly employed by Wal-Mart itself. And that is what is going now on the anti Wal-Mart movement; taking most of its focus at increasing welfare of direct employees of Wal-Mart. However, this employment and payment problem rests more deeply and involves more people. Given its network of suppliers and contractors, Wal-Mart's influence is far-reaching in driving down wages in its manufacturers and service suppliers across our nation and the world (Newman). In order to lower the price, Wal-Mart squeezes its subcontractors. If the one cannot satisfy the demand of Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart ceases its trade with that company and looks for a new one which can satisfy its greed. Gradually, trying not to lose their work, subcontractors supply until the price is so low that they earn zero-profit. Thus, employees of Wal-Mart subcontractors are the most vulnerable ones that are in the worst condition. But watching the mainstream media of the anti Wal-Mart movement, it seems that the problem with subcontractors is only raised within minority people. Considering the harsh conditions that subcontractors are in, the anti Wal-Mart movement should broaden its path to include more urgent issues like this one.

Secondly, there is a certain ideology that we have to challenge in order to prevent big companies like Wal-Mart from ever existing; consumerism. Consumerism, by its definition, means the social and economic order based on fostering a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. In other words, consumerism is the ideology that puts consumers’ desire as the first thing to consider in the market. The reason why consumerism is important is because it is the way Wal-Mart behaves; Wal-Mart puts its best focus on satisfying consumers. As a way to do that, they chose lower prices. Basically, Wal-Mart could not have grown huge like this if it weren’t popular among consumers. Wal-Mart doesn’t hold a gun to your head (Reason TV). They have gotten bigger because of us. While we criticize Wal-Mart for its mistreatment of producers, we, as a consumer, welcome Wal-Mart. This is the problem. This is well touched on by Steve Dobbins, president of thread maker Carolina Mills, who said "We want clean air, clear water, good living conditions, the best health care in the world--yet we aren't willing to pay for anything manufactured under those restrictions" (Fishman, Charles). In order to solve Wal-Mart problems from the base, we have to change the way we consume. We should not consume goods only based on the price, but also based on the information of how that good was made. If change in the consuming behavior does not occur, we cannot prevent big companies from abusing monopoly power based on squeezing the producers. Furthermore, we will not have to right to criticize them since they are the creation of our consuming behavior.

The third point that I’d like to bring up is that the “arrow of anger” should be aimed at government, not at specific corporations. In other words, the responsibility of current issue is on the government, not on those corporations. This can be effectively explained by this question: “Did corporations end slavery, or did the government end slavery?” (Reason TV). Because corporations are made to satisfy private interest, we cannot just expect them to behave according to ethics. In addition, that is the reason why government exists: to mediate conflict between the two companies working for its own private interests, since they cannot (and don’t have to) regulate their interests themselves. So, if a corporation like Wal-Mart has done legal activity and it had still harmed people, it is the government’s problem for not establishing the right regulations. Accordingly, if a corporation has committed illegal activity, it is still the government’s problem because the government failed to prevent and control illegal activity.

The anti Wal-Mart movement is not just a movement that is against a certain company called Wal-Mart. Rather, what it symbolizes (and should symbolize) is an anti movement towards monopoly and corrupted capitalism. To keep cutting the stems of weeds is a wasteful activity. To prevent weeds from ever growing, we have to pull them up from the root. This applies similarly to anti company movements. Anti company movements focused on killing a specific company are wasteful. Rather, we have to find a solution that can cut the root of the problems. To sum up, the direction of the anti Wal-Mart movement, I insist, should be reorganized and must contain these three points: more focus on subcontractors, demand in change of our consuming behavior, and demand for government regulation.



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Works Cited

Reason TV. "Peter Schiff at Occupy Wall Street: Wal-mart Doesn’t Hold a Gun to Your Head!” Reason TV, 27 Oct. 2011. Web. 04 Mar. 2012.

Newman, Nathan. "Taking on Wal-Mart and its Subcontractors." 01 June 2004. Web. 5 Mar. 2012.

Fishman, Charles. “The Wal-Mart You Don’t Know” 19 Dec. 2007. Web. 19 Feb. 2012