Always “using its power over workers to suppress wages.” Always.
December 26, 2024 7:08 AM Subscribe
The Walmart Effect (The Atlantic gift, archive.is) Two new papers (one, two) suggest that Walmart makes the places it operates in poorer than they would be if it had never shown up at all.
Walmart and Target do exist in different spaces. The former is essentially "cheap" while the latter is "cheap, yet stylish". Almost fancy even.
So the perceived higher class of appeal of Target is going to allow us to not notice the bad things they do. We can forgive much more of what we perceive as beautiful or pretty than what we deem as ugly. Or cheap.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:26 AM on December 26 [10 favorites]
So the perceived higher class of appeal of Target is going to allow us to not notice the bad things they do. We can forgive much more of what we perceive as beautiful or pretty than what we deem as ugly. Or cheap.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:26 AM on December 26 [10 favorites]
People are starting to wake up to the harm that enormous corporations are wreaking on them. It's taken far too long.
posted by tommasz at 7:28 AM on December 26 [12 favorites]
posted by tommasz at 7:28 AM on December 26 [12 favorites]
I would say my small - town cousins have been well aware of the negative impacts of megastores for at least thirty years. What has shifted is the idea that this is inevitable “progress” that we must adapt to. The odd fatalism of rural towns over the slow dismemberment of their communities by corporate greed hasn’t really ever been given the critical treatment it deserves. I have trouble listening to the Iris Dement song “Our Town”. Why is it not a protest song?
posted by q*ben at 7:43 AM on December 26 [10 favorites]
posted by q*ben at 7:43 AM on December 26 [10 favorites]
We already knew this, as the Atlantic piece points out, although for some reason Karma refers to the process as "complex" when it's anything but. A Walmart is a machine for removing money from your community at every step along the way. It is not interested in "the perfectly competitive market model we teach in Econ 101" as one of the economists in the piece puts it, because that model was always a bit of propaganda, a bit of distraction from the actual work of a business like Walmart. (Target would not have its current success were it not able to position itself as the cleaner, happier alternative to Walmart, while still performing the same destruction of local businesses including all the suppliers to those local businesses.)
posted by mittens at 7:48 AM on December 26 [16 favorites]
posted by mittens at 7:48 AM on December 26 [16 favorites]
AFAICT, it's hard for an economy fall into a 'stable' regime, it's either busy growing or busy dying.
Our statistics aggregate economies at such general levels that we forget economics is also operating at the street level too.
Reading as a kid, I remember the 1960s Field Enterprises World Book encyclopedia article on "Economy" showed the stylized diagram of a dozen service providers in a local economy working their trades as the currency flowed around and around the circle.
Walmart in a town is a currency destroyer; its cheaper prices make a dollar go farther for its customers but at the cost of sucking that dollar out of the local economy, thus reducing that velocity of money factor pictured in my young-reader encyclopedia . Reading the abstract of one paper, I see it argues that WMT also destroys local goods supply chains, not just monetary circulation of wages / profits.
Every economy needs a money source, either primary sector stuff like ranching, farming, resource extraction, value-add secondary sector like goods manufacturing, or tertiary wealth generators like entertainment & tourism.
Failing that, there's redistribution via government spending, either on military populations or orders, correctional facility employment, SSA/SSI checks, etc. . .
posted by torokunai2 at 7:52 AM on December 26 [18 favorites]
Our statistics aggregate economies at such general levels that we forget economics is also operating at the street level too.
Reading as a kid, I remember the 1960s Field Enterprises World Book encyclopedia article on "Economy" showed the stylized diagram of a dozen service providers in a local economy working their trades as the currency flowed around and around the circle.
Walmart in a town is a currency destroyer; its cheaper prices make a dollar go farther for its customers but at the cost of sucking that dollar out of the local economy, thus reducing that velocity of money factor pictured in my young-reader encyclopedia . Reading the abstract of one paper, I see it argues that WMT also destroys local goods supply chains, not just monetary circulation of wages / profits.
Every economy needs a money source, either primary sector stuff like ranching, farming, resource extraction, value-add secondary sector like goods manufacturing, or tertiary wealth generators like entertainment & tourism.
Failing that, there's redistribution via government spending, either on military populations or orders, correctional facility employment, SSA/SSI checks, etc. . .
posted by torokunai2 at 7:52 AM on December 26 [18 favorites]
Ironically, Walmart also boosts Amazon sales. Based on my experience, (anecdotally, I don't have actual data) as the retail shops die out, people are pushed into online shopping, as they know the products they want are no longer longer available locally.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:27 AM on December 26 [9 favorites]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:27 AM on December 26 [9 favorites]
So when are our saviors going to arrive at the Finland Station?
posted by njohnson23 at 8:32 AM on December 26 [3 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 8:32 AM on December 26 [3 favorites]
Shorter
"So much about Walmart contradicts the perfectly competitive market model we teach in Econ 101,”
Wait, people believe that stuff?
posted by sneebler at 9:19 AM on December 26 [1 favorite]
"So much about Walmart contradicts the perfectly competitive market model we teach in Econ 101,”
Wait, people believe that stuff?
posted by sneebler at 9:19 AM on December 26 [1 favorite]
So when are our saviors going to arrive at the Finland Station?
Well, about that...
posted by mittens at 9:20 AM on December 26 [3 favorites]
Well, about that...
posted by mittens at 9:20 AM on December 26 [3 favorites]
Isn't this the thing where WalMart destroys enough of a local area's economy that it can no longer support a WalMart, and we see Dollar Generals sprouting in the wreckage?
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 9:37 AM on December 26 [14 favorites]
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 9:37 AM on December 26 [14 favorites]
My observation is that Dollar Generals (and their ilk) pop up to serve areas that are too small/spread out to support a Walmart. I live rural SE and there are at least 8 DGs closer than the closest Walmart.
posted by achrise at 9:55 AM on December 26 [7 favorites]
posted by achrise at 9:55 AM on December 26 [7 favorites]
well I have not RTFA and I do not have a Walmart anywhere near me, but: I do have a Target that came in less than 10 years ago and I used to feel more conflicted about shopping there (conversely I will NOT ever shop at a Walmart) but for 2 reasons I feel less so now:
1) I have not heard that they are as terrible with labor practices as I know Walmart to be
2) They doubled-down on gender-inclusive bathrooms and wonderfully diverse and inclusive advertising, even in the face of protests.
The reason I don't shop there much is that every fucking thing is behind locks and I have to wait for an employee to come and get it. How on earth can I browse the shampoo selections in such a situation?
posted by supermedusa at 10:12 AM on December 26 [2 favorites]
1) I have not heard that they are as terrible with labor practices as I know Walmart to be
2) They doubled-down on gender-inclusive bathrooms and wonderfully diverse and inclusive advertising, even in the face of protests.
The reason I don't shop there much is that every fucking thing is behind locks and I have to wait for an employee to come and get it. How on earth can I browse the shampoo selections in such a situation?
posted by supermedusa at 10:12 AM on December 26 [2 favorites]
Why is it not a protest song?
Here you go instead, thanks to the great Jesse Welles.
posted by Popular Ethics at 10:54 AM on December 26 [4 favorites]
Here you go instead, thanks to the great Jesse Welles.
posted by Popular Ethics at 10:54 AM on December 26 [4 favorites]
Also worth noting that megastores are bad for many manufacturers as well. We have a family friend that has a small facility making a kind of product you can actually make and sell locally. Sam’s club contacted them about a big order that on its surface seems like you’ve hit the jackpot- carrying your product at all of their stores, adding an order of magnitude to volume. But when you look at the deal more closely it’s fraught with risk- in order to make this volume you need to grow; you also need more efficiency because of course the large retailer wants tighter margins for the volume. This growth is financable because of the deal with the big box, but you’ve now got debt tied to one large deal with a single corporation. They know this, and so every contract they cut the deal down a little bit until you are making a fraction of the profit per unit.
The end result is a much larger and unwieldy business that makes fractionally more revenue and that is saddled with debt and completely reliant on a few large contracts.
This happens all the time.
posted by q*ben at 11:37 AM on December 26 [16 favorites]
The end result is a much larger and unwieldy business that makes fractionally more revenue and that is saddled with debt and completely reliant on a few large contracts.
This happens all the time.
posted by q*ben at 11:37 AM on December 26 [16 favorites]
Went to visit grandparents in a very rural part of Louisiana, in the late 80s.
A new Wal-Mart had just opened down the highway a few miles to the south, in the town my grandfather grew up in. Everyone is excited about it.
A year later, the town main street is shrivelled, dead and boarded-up, because all the business went to Wal-Mart.
Another year later, Wal-Mart opens another new store in the town just to the north of my grandparents. The Wal-Mart in town #1 is closed at the same time. Now, town #1 has both a dead main street and the empty husk of an abandoned Wal-Mart.
In 1992, I go back to visit again. The "new" Wal-Mart in town #2 is now closed, so both towns have seen their main streets get killed off, and both have dead Wal-Marts right next to them.
My grandmother is too sick to meet me at the airport, so friends of hers drive down to pick me up. I ask them where they go for shopping now, since so many places have shut down. "Oh, we got a membership at the new Sam's Club in Lake Charles, it's really nice!" Eighty miles round trip to buy groceries in bulk...and paying for the privilege.
posted by gimonca at 11:38 AM on December 26 [19 favorites]
A new Wal-Mart had just opened down the highway a few miles to the south, in the town my grandfather grew up in. Everyone is excited about it.
A year later, the town main street is shrivelled, dead and boarded-up, because all the business went to Wal-Mart.
Another year later, Wal-Mart opens another new store in the town just to the north of my grandparents. The Wal-Mart in town #1 is closed at the same time. Now, town #1 has both a dead main street and the empty husk of an abandoned Wal-Mart.
In 1992, I go back to visit again. The "new" Wal-Mart in town #2 is now closed, so both towns have seen their main streets get killed off, and both have dead Wal-Marts right next to them.
My grandmother is too sick to meet me at the airport, so friends of hers drive down to pick me up. I ask them where they go for shopping now, since so many places have shut down. "Oh, we got a membership at the new Sam's Club in Lake Charles, it's really nice!" Eighty miles round trip to buy groceries in bulk...and paying for the privilege.
posted by gimonca at 11:38 AM on December 26 [19 favorites]
Megastores are bad for many manufacturers as well...
And the deals they do make are often bad for consumers. They often get the manufacturers to make a nonstandard size (e.g., 28 oz detergent instead of 32 oz) so it appears cheaper than at other stores.
In many cases, the cost/oz may actually be competitive, but they're creating a false impression in the consumer's mind.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 11:49 AM on December 26 [4 favorites]
And the deals they do make are often bad for consumers. They often get the manufacturers to make a nonstandard size (e.g., 28 oz detergent instead of 32 oz) so it appears cheaper than at other stores.
In many cases, the cost/oz may actually be competitive, but they're creating a false impression in the consumer's mind.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 11:49 AM on December 26 [4 favorites]
gimonca your story sure sounds a lot like what happened when they opened the Wal-Mart in Kinder back in the 1980s... (I'm not trying to stalk you or anything, my grandmother lived in Kinder and I saw first-hand what it did to the economy there.)
posted by wintermind at 12:25 PM on December 26 [1 favorite]
posted by wintermind at 12:25 PM on December 26 [1 favorite]
That would be the place! We were in Oberlin nearby.
posted by gimonca at 1:01 PM on December 26 [2 favorites]
posted by gimonca at 1:01 PM on December 26 [2 favorites]
Megastores are bad for many manufacturers as well.
They say the only thing worse than doing business with Walmart is not doing business with Walmart.
posted by Slothrup at 1:01 PM on December 26 [1 favorite]
They say the only thing worse than doing business with Walmart is not doing business with Walmart.
posted by Slothrup at 1:01 PM on December 26 [1 favorite]
So the perceived higher class of appeal of Target is going to allow us to not notice the bad things they do. We can forgive much more of what we perceive as beautiful or pretty than what we deem as ugly. Or cheap.
Dapper Nazi Syndrome, as it were.
If Richard Spencer Were Missing Teeth And Wearing Overalls, He Never Would Have Been On TV
posted by non canadian guy at 2:46 PM on December 26 [1 favorite]
Dapper Nazi Syndrome, as it were.
If Richard Spencer Were Missing Teeth And Wearing Overalls, He Never Would Have Been On TV
posted by non canadian guy at 2:46 PM on December 26 [1 favorite]
Wait, people believe that stuff?
If they don't they tend to get regime changed.
posted by Reyturner at 5:35 PM on December 26
If they don't they tend to get regime changed.
posted by Reyturner at 5:35 PM on December 26
Who offers same day deliveries to your door for a nominal annual fee (and we always tip the driver 15%)? Who has such a vast array of house brands of serviceable or better quality? For that matter, who has such a vast array of everything else across the spectrum? For us the answer, as consumers, is WalMart...
posted by jim in austin at 8:01 PM on December 26
posted by jim in austin at 8:01 PM on December 26
What is incredibly frustrating is that the whole business model of Walmart (squeezing suppliers to get exclusive lower prices, which then are used to price out competitors) is actually illegal. Reagan just stopped enforcing the Robinson-Patman act, which had been maintaining a competitive grocery marketplace for decades.
posted by rockindata at 9:00 PM on December 26 [4 favorites]
posted by rockindata at 9:00 PM on December 26 [4 favorites]
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posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:15 AM on December 26 [19 favorites]