In the introduction to her book Liza Featherstone argues convincingly that Wal-Mart is a "scandal, not a praiseworthy business model." Yet Wal-Mart is Fortune's most admired corporation, the star of McKinsey's productivity study, and the subject, as recently as last April, of a hagiographic cover story in The Economist, "Wal-Mart: Learning to Love It."
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From time to time, the subject of American dominance - fading dream or present and future reality - comes up in this busy corner of the net.
Everyone has an opinion of course, based on some considered mixture of GDP, carrier fleets, deficits and the immense economic power of the Eurozone and Asia among other factors.
But for me, the surest indication of a well greased American descent is the fact that members of the business elite look to Wal-Mart, a company that makes nothing and forces its suppliers to lower their prices to the point of agony - driving many (perhaps most) to relocate manufacturing to China - as a model of how to stomp like the big dog on the block.
Cost cutting uber alles leading, eventually, to cost cutting as your only remaining skill. An exaggeration of course but by how much?
You can hate GM as a model but at least they engineer stuff. You can spit upon Microsoft (and every freedom loving person should - regularly and with vigor) but at least they make stuff that requires an understanding of real things (for example, the x86 CPU architecture).
But Wal-Mart as hero?
I understand; they're very profitable and that counts for everything in the thinking of biz types (though I've yet to see praise for pr0n profitability so there are some limits apparently). Still, to look to a retailer that's essentially eating its own flesh to stay well fed (how low can prices possibly be driven? - what's to stop Chinese firms from, in time, simply selling direct and cutting Wal-mart et al out?) as an example of success seems to be a straw grasping maneuver.
.d.