>But higher levels of material welfare are every socialist's
>dream--except for those in the "the worse, the better" crowd.
>WalMart's profits are limited by Costco and Target breathing down
>its neck.
>
>There used to be a line of argument that poor people didn't deserve
>to shop at supermarkets--that the "community building" functions of
>the local corner grocery store were *much* more important than the
>actual prices of groceries...
Which has little or nothing to do with what I said. I'm of the "nothing's too good for the working class" school, and I think people deserve more aesthetically pleasing places to shop than gigantic bare boxes with goods hideously piled about. But leave that aside - my question was where are the productivity gains from Wal-Mart going? Not to the workers, for sure, even the managers. Sure, customers get good deals, but most Wal-Mart customers come from a class that's barely making ends meet. That leaves the shareholders, which don't have much to do with socialist dreaming.
Doug