Wal-Mart and the Strip-Mining of America

[G*rd*n]

Mike Yates:
> Yes it was Charles Kernaghan of the Nat'l Labor Committee on C-span last
> night.  He gave a good talk at St. Michael's college, in Minnesota I
> believe.  He said that companies in Central America actually give their
> women and children workers doses of amphetamines each day so that they
> can stay awake during their interminably long days.  He also talked
> about the terrible conditions of garment workers in China, kept in
> virtual slavery.  His group wants Walmart to provide the names and
> addrresses of their contractors, but the company will not do it.  He
> urges us to write to WalMart urging it to do so.

Well, Wal-Mart is doing exactly what Marx says capitalism
will do in that famed passage of the _Manifesto_:

   The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to

   all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn

   asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural

   superiors", and has left no other nexus between man and man than naked

   self-interest, than callous "cash payment".  ...  All that is solid

   melts into air  ....

Asking Wal-Mart to be nice to its workers seems to be beside
the point: it's doing what it must.  The situation of the
workers can be mitigated by unionization, possibly.  That of
the petit-bourgeoisie and their small towns which Wal-Mart is
crushing seems hopeless, unless some of them are going to be
preserved in theme parks or reservations by an indulgent
upper class.  Certainly, keeping just Wal-Mart out of a
given area doesn't much inhibit the general process of
disurbanization that it exemplifies, which will continue as
long as the price of gas continues imperially down and the
cost of racism and classism continue upward.  The immediate
future would appear to be very large, squarish, surrounded
by a large number of private vehicles, and fluorescently
illuminated; could be a mall, an industrial park, or "homes"
as they call them.

Gordon