Wal-Mart Wars on Open Book

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Wal-Mart Wars on Open Book

December 7, 2005 by Daniel Nichols

Yours truly gets in a word for the distributist idea. I don’t plan to participate further (lack of time) but perhaps others may wish to.

–Maclin Horton

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Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

5 Responses

on December 13, 2005 at 8:37 am | Reply Zach Frey

I am too time-impaired myself to usefully contribute there.

One note: I got some bitter amusement out of the lauding of the “free” nature of commerical competition. Something no commentator noticed was that the monster chains exert a rather constraining influence on the producers of goods. Since Wal-Mart (and its kin) individually provide a large enough percentage of particular firm’s business, they can bring “take it or leave” it propositions to companies which end up becoming “an offer they can’t refuse.”

The same dynamic also applies in the automotive industry. GM is particularly bad about trying to survive by eating its suppliers, but all of the Big Three do this.

Really, is it going to cause the collapse of American civilization to note that being unable to buy or sell without the permission of management and logistics in some company’s headquarters in Arkansas is not necessarily a good thing?

peace,
on December 13, 2005 at 10:28 am | Reply Maclin Horton

Yeah, re your last sentence: I’m continually surprised and annoyed by some of the conservative reaction to anyone even raising the question. Particularly struck by the instant resort to the false dichotomy: if you want to change anything about the way American business works, you must want the government to micro-managing the entire economy. Bah.

Focusing on Wal-Mart distorts the discussion, of course. It does arouse rather strong emotions. Like Microsoft.
on December 13, 2005 at 11:14 am | Reply Daniel Nichols

Yoy know, I tried to read that discussion but couldn’t stomach it after the first three mindless ideologues’ rants….
The idea that appetite ["the market"] is some sort of sactosant thing is strange for Catholics to hold.
on December 13, 2005 at 12:52 pm | Reply M.Z. Forrest

Not that any minds were changed or anything, but I participated in an interesting economics discussion during the last 30 or so posts of that thread.
on December 13, 2005 at 1:42 pm | Reply Zach Frey

Ah, I see that Amy herself did bring up the point about producers … I didn’t force myself to read far enough.

M.Z., nice going, although unfortunately I tend to MEGO syndrome (“my eyes glaze over”) on economics. I took just enough economics in college to be persuaded that the description of it as the “dismal science” was entirely correct, and moved into something more pragmatic and empirical and fun (engineering).

peace,