I attended a screening of the new documentary by Robert Greenwald of ?Out Foxed? fame. His newest movie tackles ?Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price,? and I recommend you see it -- despite the sometimes hostile reviews by mainstream media, and the relentless attacks by right wing polemicists. Yes, it is a bit long (two hours). And yes, it has a few disjointed elements and amateurishness about it. But Greenwald, unlike Michael Moore, does not intrude himself into his work. Greenwald lets people speak for themselves, with their unvarnished and sometimes wrenching stories. The Wal-Mart executives and Wal-Mart?s public relations campaigners are on camera in their own words. The contrast between what they say and what they really do is stark.
The facts are staggering: Wal-Mart is by far the largest company in the world, employing over 1.6 million people worldwide. It is the epitome of globalization, with stores around the world -- including (officially) Communist China. Wal-Mart's business model is what you could call the ?Genghis Khan method. ? It is based on ruthless exploitation of its employees, virulent anti-unionism, deliberate crushing of all other competing commercial enterprises in any community near one of its stores, reckless trashing of the environment, rampant racial and sexual discrimination, and manipulation of the political system to negotiate huge subsidies and tax breaks for itself.
Not surprisingly, Wal-Mart obtains more than 70 percent of its products from China - a country with few protections for workers, human rights or the environment. In the documentary, we see the vile working conditions at factories in China, and also in Bangladesh and Central America. It's shocking. I'd say, in fact, that the term ?sweat shop? doesn?t come close to describing it; slave labor in Dark Ages conditions is more like it. Meanwhile, the contrast between the workers' squalid living conditions and the gated and razor-wire-protected palaces of the Wal-Mart top brass is extreme. Wal-Mart executives waiting in their bunkers for the inevitable day when the revolution comes?
By now most of us have heard that Wal-Mart doesn?t pay its employees a ?living wage,? (the average pay is $8.23 an hour). We also have heard about how Wal-Mart doesn?t even pay people for their extra work, squeezing uncompensated overtime out of exhausted people, while cooking their books to cover this fact. Nor does the company provide its employees with adequate, affordable health care, child care, or even safe working conditions. Explained one former employee, ?Once you?ve spent your money in the store they don?t care what happens to you,? for example in the notoriously unsafe parking lots of Wal-Mart stores. As part of its public relations efforts, Wal-Mart has created an internal charity, whereby Wal-Mart employees can donate to a fund to help poorly compensated fellow employees. Tellingly, workers have given over $5 million to this charity, while Wal-Mart management has donated just $6,000.
Who picks up the tab for Wal-Mart workers? health care, child care, security? Why, you and me -- taxpayers and citizens -- of course! That's what happens when our local governments shower subsidies on Wal-Mart to entice the company to move a store into their jurisdictions. Why do local governments do this? Bully tactics, for one thing -- the fear that if they don't pay up, then Wal-Mart will simply put its store in another nearby jurisdiction, leaving them with higher public expenses but without any tax income at all. Jurisdictions are usually promised huge tax income from Wal-Mart operations. What happens, however, is that once the store?s tax breaks run out, or once a union tries to organize the workers, Wal-Mart simply closes the store and moves elsewhere, leaving the locality with an ugly, empty store and parking lot, a moribund downtown full of bankrupt businesses, and empty, broken-window buildings. In other words, Wal-Mart turns a thriving community turned into a corpse.
Increasingly, communities are starting to understand this. That's why, over the last few years, a surprising number of them have successfully resisted the Wal-Mart goliath. There has also been resistance by local citizen-activist; a few brave souls pressing class action suits against the megastore behemoth. Unfortunately, with increasingly conservative judges on the bench, this approach is becoming less promising. As we al now, conservative Republicans are not the most "compassionate" people when it comes to the average person. But they certainly love the rich and powerful!
The bottom line is that, although the "Genghis Khan model" may not work very well for society, it works out great for Wal-Mart. According to statistics provided in the movie, Wal-Mart made $10.3 BILLION in profits in 2004, on sales of over $285 billion. to the glee of its top executives and of Wall Street.
Undeniably, Wal-Mart is a highly successful enterprise if you only look at its (ever-higher) rates of return -- the only measure of success recognized by the unregulated free market economy so beloved by Republicans. And, of course, the whole Wal-Mart system would not work if customers did not buy there. As right wing pundits delight in pointing out, ?You whiny liberals don?t realize that Wal-Mart gives people what they want: low prices. And they?re entitled to make a profit for providing this service.?
Certainly, Wal-Mart DOES make a profit - a huge one at that. But, the company also devastates the middle class and reduces American workers to third world poverty levels. All while milking the government (and taxpayers) for enormous subsidies (can you say ?corporate welfare??). nd all while failing to provide decent pay and benefits to its workers, instead counting on local communities to clean up the mess it makes.
By acting this way, Wal-Mart drains money from local schools and health care services, drives down wages, and encourage gruesome working conditions across the globe. It also encourages its suppliers to outsource and to move their operations (and jobs) overseas in order to survive. And the Republican response? "It?s a necessary and inevitable restructuring of the economy and will be good for Americans in the long run.? Incredibly, Republicans actually believe this malarkey, that the profit motive alone will somehow magically create a better life for all. In the long run, of course - the VERY long run!
In my view, this glorification of short-run profits for the few as a sort-of "be-all and end-all" to human existence is both astounding and un-Christian. What ever happened to comfort, safety, health, hope for a better life, and the overall good of society? In Wal-Mart World, those things apparently don't matter. Instead, the Wal-Mart system promises lots of goodies at "always low" prices in the short run, while destroying everything else of value in the long run. And the thing is, once you?ve allowed Wal-Mart destroy your community, you can?t get it back. That's why it's important to stop them in the first place.