[extropy-chat] Seven cents an hour? (was: Riots in France)

[BillK]

On 11/16/05, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
>
> Trust me Stuart, if Wal-Mart was anything close to a government
> monopoly, I would be its vocal enemy.
>

Wow! Rafal chanting the same mantra as Dick Cheney. 'My favorite store!'.
Must be something wrong here somewhere.  ;)

Obviously there is a torrent of Walmart criticism on the web. Every
big organization will have critics pointing out their faults. But
Walmart is the biggest.

Try
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/walmarts_free_market_fallacy.php?dateid=20050423

Wal-Mart's Free Market Fallacy
Jonathan Tasini
April 21, 2005

<snipped for quotes>
------------------------
In the mythical world of the free market—for which Wal-Mart supposedly
serves as a shining example—prices for goods and labor should rise and
fall based on the magic of the "invisible hand" of market supply and
demand. In the nirvana of the so-called free market, workers can sell
themselves for whatever the market can bear.

So let me introduce you to a place called China. Wal-Mart—in its
never-ending quest to promote its heartland, Arkansan family values—is
a willing customer of the Chinese labor system, where people work 12-
to 18-hour days, earn meager wages and have no days of rest—all for
the honor of laboring inside factories full of chemical toxins and
hazardous machines, leading to sickness and death at the highest rates
in world history. Wal-Mart says its business with China is just a
virtue of the free market.
-------------------

Back at home, Wal-Mart's free market mantra stops at the water's edge
of the public till. By one estimate, Wal-Mart has pulled in $1.5
billion dollars in taxpayer funded subsidies (see
www.walmartwatch.com) . And that's at the low end, because subsidies
are sometimes hard to track based on the lack of public reporting
requirements. Wal-Mart is happy to cash in on government largess like
property tax abatements, infrastructure support, free land and just
straight-out cold cash—all of which are the antithesis of "free
market" ideology.
----------------------
Truth is, Wal-Mart could not survive in a real free market: It would,
for example, have to pay Chinese workers more (which would ruin its
low-wage business model) and spurn any offers of government subsidies.
Indeed, it's fitting that Wal-Mart, the business model fawned over by
free-marketeers, exposes the so-called "free market" as a lie, no more
than a crude—albeit effective—marketing phrase.
---------------------


BillK