Goal: Nut punch Goliath to death.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Within ten years.

[Ben Shapiro]

Let Wal-Mart become another Dollar General Franchise.

[Reginald Ret]

You know what's crazy? What REALLY gets me?

A comment upthread made me think of this.

Wal-Mart wouldn't die if it were Unionized. Wal-Mart would fucking THRIVE, especially if it invited the unions in. What would suffer, only momentarily, would be its shareholder profits, which are, short term, EVERYTHING. But if Wal-Mart said, fuck it, we're going to pay better than anyone and make sure all our employees make a living wage and stay with us forever and get great benefits and we're going to try to carry as many American-made products as we can source, they are absolutely positioned to create massive consumer loyalty other than the creepy, coerced, compulsory type they've created by driving other companies out of business. They're positioned to create REMAKE AMERICA GREAT loyalty, which is a brand that, right now, some other company is poised to make.

Not kidding.

Within ten years.

Yep, they'd be making the shareholders more money in the long run as well.

[McGrupp]

I am in love with this thread. I'll try to get some ideas on paper tonight after work.

Wal-Mart seems somewhat unique in that not only do they screw over the lowly serfs, they also seem to manage to screw over other large corporations. This in turn leads to layoffs and general badness for the employees of corporations that don't even work for Wal-Mart.

I used to live in a town that was Rubbermaid's HQ and watched the beginning of tons of rubbermaid plants being closed. The jist of Wal-Mart and their relationship with suppliers was explained to me, via a former rubbermaid employee, as this:

Wal-Mart: "Hey, you're a big company that makes product X, we'd like to sell a lot of product X, we'll pay Y for it."

Supplier:  "That sounds mutually beneficial. We'd love to supply a bunch of product X to you."

(things go okay for a while and they both sell tons and tons of product X)

Wal-Mart: "We want to pay less for product X. Make the price lower or we'll stop buying from you and go somewhere else."

Supplier: "Gosh, Walmart, we already gave you a pretty good price for bulk. Also due to our own sources of raw material, sometimes our cost goes up and we still have to keep the same price. I don't know if we can afford to do that."

Wal-Mart: "Tough. We are large and account for a huge amount of your sales. Lower the price or we stop buying and ruin you."

Supplier: "......Okay."

(this second step is repeated multiple times. Meanwhile:)

Completely different chain store: "Hey! We see Wal-Mart pays tons less for product X. Give us same price or we'll go somewhere else."

Supplier: "But but but......<whimper>"

(eventually the supplier gets squeezed and one of two things happen. They go under when Wal-Mart stops buying from them, or as in the case of rubbermaid, they get bought out by another company who decides to do things 'Wal-mart's way' i.e. screw over their employees and/or unethical overseas suppliers.)

In the end, with this business model, which supplier companies are going to win out? The made-in-America/Living wage/Non-sweatshop type corporations or the Overseas/Sweatshop/Lowpaying Companies? Thus Wal-Mart's negative effects spread into multiple other large corporations.

[Doktor Howl]

Thing is, WalMart doesn't deserve your business.  To them, you are fungible goods.  That's true with a lot of companies, but most companies don't grind it into their employee's faces with mandatory "pep rallies" at each shift change.

Costco, on the other hand, while still a corporation, manages to treat their employees as people, and guess what?  They're gaining market share.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Not only that, but you've described the inevitable path of corporate capitalism. In order to be considered profitable in a capitalist model, a publicly traded corporation must not only be profitable, but INCREASINGLY profitable, always. At first, a company can do that simply by growing, but after a point the market is saturated, so it must increase profitability in one of three ways; it can grow by 1. driving other companies out of business (eliminating the competition which is considered necessary to keep capitalism honest) by 2. buying up other companies (eliminating the competition which is considered necessary to keep capitalism honest) or by 3. diversifying its product (entering other markets, at which point return to step 1). Once it has exhausted the above options for growth, it must increase profitability by 1. reducing costs (wages, benefits, staffing, cost of goods), and 2. increasing prices.

Corporations are required by Federal law to put their shareholders interest above all other considerations. In other words, because they MUST grow, MUST increase profitability, the above trajectory is inevitable. Corporations may start out with good intentions but eventually they must do evil things in order to fulfill their highest legal responsibility, which is increasing the value of their shares.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Thing is, WalMart doesn't deserve your business.  To them, you are fungible goods.  That's true with a lot of companies, but most companies don't grind it into their employee's faces with mandatory "pep rallies" at each shift change.

Costco, on the other hand, while still a corporation, manages to treat their employees as people, and guess what?  They're gaining market share.

Costco also puts the hurt to suppliers, and has financially ruined more than a few, FYI.

[LMNO]

Nigel, your above post about corporate capitalism perfectly summarizes my thoughts on it, which started when capitalism was explained to me when I was 11 or 12, and has grown cleared with each passing year. Perfect.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Nigel, your above post about corporate capitalism perfectly summarizes my thoughts on it, which started when capitalism was explained to me when I was 11 or 12, and has grown cleared with each passing year. Perfect.

Thank you!

[Doktor Howl]

Capitalism requires a legitimate outside threat.  Once the USSR - the last real threat - fell, capitalism became bloated and unworkable, and is more and more resembling the last pathetic years of the USSR.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Capitalism requires a legitimate outside threat.  Once the USSR - the last real threat - fell, capitalism became bloated and unworkable, and is more and more resembling the last pathetic years of the USSR.

It requires an outside threat for what?

[Doktor Howl]

Capitalism requires a legitimate outside threat.  Once the USSR - the last real threat - fell, capitalism became bloated and unworkable, and is more and more resembling the last pathetic years of the USSR.

It requires an outside threat for what?

For the surplus goods to be purchased in opposition to the outside threat.

McDonald Douglass and all it's feeder industries wouldn't have existed without the USSR.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Capitalism requires a legitimate outside threat.  Once the USSR - the last real threat - fell, capitalism became bloated and unworkable, and is more and more resembling the last pathetic years of the USSR.

It requires an outside threat for what?

For the surplus goods to be purchased in opposition to the outside threat.

McDonald Douglass and all it's feeder industries wouldn't have existed without the USSR.

Dead On Dok!

Otherwise, Capitalism (as defined in the US anyway), just continues to feed on itself to the detriment of the employees, customers and eventually the shareholders.

[LMNO]

I've never really understood why a company has to continually grow.  I guess I think in a, what, "naturalistic" view, where a company grows to fill a niche, and then supplies product , makes profit, and pays employees at a constant rate. I know I'm missing something, because that sounds so naive I want to punch myself.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Capitalism requires a legitimate outside threat.  Once the USSR - the last real threat - fell, capitalism became bloated and unworkable, and is more and more resembling the last pathetic years of the USSR.

It requires an outside threat for what?

For the surplus goods to be purchased in opposition to the outside threat.

McDonald Douglass and all it's feeder industries wouldn't have existed without the USSR.

Well, now the surplus goods are all disposable, and we buy buy buy just to have things we can throw away.