Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Walmart: A textbook case of everything that is wrong with modern American capitalism


11/20/12  I urge all Liberty & Justice listeners to support and express solidarity with Walmart workers during their massive walkout planned for Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. If you can, take a spin by your nearest store or warehouse, give them the thumbs up, and contribute a few dollars to their food fund. As for me, I have been boycotting Walmart for well over a decade for reasons too numerous to mention here, reasons that are well documented all over the Internet. Since my boycott began, the only time I have set foot in one was to exchange or return a Christmas gift I had received a few years back.

If I were appointed czar of the U.S. Department of Justice and given absolute dictatorial powers for one month, I would dig up every dormant anti-trust law on the books and break the Walton empire into approximately 50 to 75 much smaller retail, wholesale, and distribution companies. I would then order the Federal Reserve to make investment funds available to COMMITTED, ETHICAL entrepreneurs who pledge IN WRITING to treat their associates fairly, to provide safe working conditions, reasonable scheduling, freedom of association, and MORE than just a living wage but a prosperous wage. (Walmart employees would get first shot at these opportunities.) If, somewhere down the road, an entrepreneur violates this agreement, their corporation gets dissolved and turned over to someone who WILL keep the agreement. Over time, these smaller companies can become employee-owned cooperatives, if the associates so choose, and then they will determine their own pay and working conditions, and elect their own CEO. All problems solved, wouldn't you say?

"Share your profits with all your associates and treat them as partners."
"Appreciate everything your associates do for the business."

-Sam Walton
Rules for Building a Business, numbers 2 and 5