Walmart Synthesis Essay: Ethicality of Shopping at Wal-Mart ver.2

Submitted to: Mr. Garrioch

By: Jiyun Sung

Student ID: 111163

For: English Composition

On: Wednesday, Mars 7^th, 2012

Ethicality of Shopping at Wal-Mart:

The Importance of Having a Critical Mind

Wal-Mart, starting from 1945 as a small “variety store” selling cheap cotton product, such as panties, is now the biggest retailer in the whole world. Definitely, it has its own reasons for that- actually one single reason: low price. Since foundation, Wal-Mart’s ultimate strategy has been keeping prices low- lower than any of its other competitors. Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, scrutinized every step to minimize factors that might increase the consumer cost, especially economizing on labor costs. This aroused a fierce dispute about Wal-Mart’s social influence since the start of publication. Like the advertisement ‘Save Money, Live Better’, does it make lives better by saving people’s money? Or should Wal-Mart be condemned for the insufficient salaries of the associates?

To answer this question, I synthesized three sources: an essay The Price of Pickles by John Lanchester, 2006, Notes from the Presentation- an Ethics at Noon by Bob Brownstein, 2004, and lastly, an article Does Wal-Mart Destroy Communities? by William L. Anderson, 2004.

             As a start, the most controversial aspect of Wal-Mart’s ethicality is whether it provides proper salaries for the work, or, at least, “some basic level of material life for all people.” Bob Brownstein, director of policy and research in Working Partnerships USA, strongly denies on that matter, giving specific data for its support. An average Wal-Mart worker earns $8.00 per hour for a 32 hour work week, assuming the worker works every day for one year, the sum is less than the Federal poverty level for a family of three. The essay by John Lanchester, The Price of Pickles, suggests the same problem, mentioning the numerous ongoing lawsuits accusing Wal-Mart of underpayment and under-promotion of 1.5 billion female workers. The working conditions in other countries are even worse than the previous example of the US. 189,000 seamstresses in Bangladesh earn between 13 and 17 cents per hour. However, the article has a different perspective. Saying that everyone who works at Wal-Mart chose to do so, payment for services involves mutually agreeable exchanges.

             However, let’s consider the argument that the existence of Wal-Mart lowers the area standards by putting pressure on local markets to lower prices. It causes wage stagnation, and quite often, local stores shut. In fact, the workers have no other choice but to work at Wal-Mart. There is a mention of that aspect in the essay as well; citing the book The Wal-Mart Effect by Charles Fisherman, the author describes an incident relating to the title- a gallon jar of Vlasic pickles on sale for only $2.97. The result was immediate and obvious- people buying 200,000 gallons of pickles a week! From that example, we can picture how much impact Wal-Mart has on the community. “Wal-Mart is so big and so powerful that it is in effect defining its own reality,” Bob Brownstein says in his notes.

             What are other influences Wal-Mart has on the community? The article says, ‘Wal-Mart enters a geographical area, and people stop shopping at little stores in order to patronize Wal-Mart,’ which is very true. A lot of mom-and-pop stores go out of business, incurring more and more empty boarded-up buildings. What the journalist remarks about this phenomenon is simple: it is a free market, people shouldn’t interfere with such fair competition. He asserts that the hardware owner simply chose to shut down business because they were not compatible enough and thus unable to make profit. He even mentions that Wal-Mart actually improved people’s quality of life by providing a wider variety of products at a lower price. And during the process, the consumers are guaranteed free will. However, just not breaking the law is not enough. According to an economist Stephan Goetz, cited in The Price of Pickles, the presence of Wal-Mart unequivocally raised family poverty rates in US counties during the 1990s, which implies that the damage Wal-Mart does on the local shop owners is greater than the amount people can save due to the cheap cost. In short, Wal-Mart does more harm than good to the local community. Again, in the notes of the presentation, the author gives statistical data. Wal-Mart grocery prices are on average 14% lower than where Wal-Mart competes. Through reasonable calculation (I will skip the specifics), it turned out that money Wal-Mart takes is greater than the money people in the region can save. The look of the empty, deserted streets does not really look good either.

In addition, Wal-Mart affects not only the economy, but also people’s minds. The biggest retailer in the world has the power to “destroy other institutions based on relationships of human connection and solidarity,” according to the presentation. People abandon their neighborhood businesses or unions because of Wal-Mart and its 14% cheaper products. Wal-Mart’s motto, “Always Low Prices,” has stroked people’s mind hard. It can be easily seen on the common YouTube videos of Wal-Mart on sale season; crowds rushing in the door like a group of hungry monsters, trampling a woman in their desire to acquire a $29.00 DVD. Wal-Mart debases the important values of society.

             In conclusion, people should restrain themselves from shopping at Wal-Mart. Overall, William L. Anderson, the author of the article, advocates the principle of global capitalism. It can be easily derived from his mention of “purposeful behavior.” As long as Wal-Mart acts within the boundary of law, things Wal-Mart does do not matter to him. It is a fair game. However, there are more important values in this society than free competition.

            In the essay The Price of Pickles, John Lanchester refers to the need of an ideological antagonist- in this case, Communism. Are we ethically superior to Communism? The society became a lot richer, but we haven’t improved morally from the point when Communism collapsed; people simply sought their way to make more money. And Wal-Mart can be a symbol of such. What he tries to say is that we should not be so complacent. It is necessary to question our ethical backgrounds over and over, considering Communism and ways to adopt its advantages. If people let Wal-Mart get bigger and bigger and do whatever it wants- and they are already a great latent threat to our society- things will get out of control. We should protect the lower class people, giving them the opportunity to change their social status by improving their salaries, health care, and other basic forms of life support.

             To achieve that goal, simply not buying things at Wal-Mart is not enough. The notes from the presentation mention the specific methods, such as supporting local efforts to keep Wal-Mart out of communities, like Inglewood, and supporting legislation that levels the playing field and prevents Wal-Mart from forcing down standards for wages and benefits. What’s more is to have a critical mind on such inhuman policies of Wal-Mart and other extreme-capitalist companies, and to seek for new solutions. That would make a very good start.

Works Cited

‘The Price of Pickles’ John Lanchester, 2006

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n12/john-lanchester/the-price-of-pickles

‘Notes from the Presentation- an Ethics at Noon’ Bob Brownstein, 2004

http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/ethicalperspectives/wal-mart.html

‘Does Wal-Mart Destroy Communities?’ William L. Anderson, 2004

http://mises.org/daily/1521