On Thu, 12 Nov 1998 14:51:40 -0500 Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
writes:
>James Farmelant wrote:
>
>>In Europe at least the championing of the interests of small
>>shopkeepers against the big department stores was traditionally
>>the provence of the political right. In Germany, the Nazis made
>>a campaign issue out of the threat that the department stores
>>posed to small shopkeepers (and they made use of the fact that
>>some of the department stores were Jewish-owned to play
>>the anti-Semitic card as well).
>
>I'm rushing to finish an LBO, so I don't have too much time to get
>into
>this, except to erupt:
>
>Is the only choice Wal-Marts or the petit bourgeoisie? Really? Is the
>True
>Marxist Position to cheer on the heirs of Sam Walton? Has what Marx
>called
>the civilizing power of capital been reduced to big retail boxes
>surrounded
>by parking lots? There's nothing progressive about that - it's
>fragmenting,
>alienating, exploitative, and ecocidal. It's barbarism in overdrive,
>and
>the hell with it, I say.
>
>Doug
>
I think Gordon outlined a possible answer with his suggestions that progressives meet the Walt-Martization of America with campaigns to unionize Wal-Mart employees and to create alternative retail outlets by encouraging the formation of co-ops. All of course, easier said than done. But I suspect that the answer does not lie in attempting a return to the economic past.
Jim Farmelant
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