[lbo-talk] Wal-Mart as Robin Hood

[B.]

I'm tired of seeing all these articles in the
mainstream press that say things like this -- that
"the conventional criticism of Wal-Mart is that it's
an insatiable capitalist juggernaut," etc. Ah, yes,
all that "conventional criticism" we see so much
everywhere in the media! Actually, I never see
Wal-Mart criticized anywhere save for in the left-wing
press -- from The Nation on over leftwards -- yet all
defenses of Sam Walton's behemoth that I read in the
mainstream media invariably include a phrase like:
"The well-known complaint against Wal-Mart is that it
exploits its workers ..." Oh, yes, that's well known!

I was involved with a group in 2000 that agitated on
behalf of anti-corporate globalization issues. We
photocopied brochures that highlighted how dangerous
the WTO and IMF were for the world's poor. We'd give
them to anyone who would take them. There wasn't much
info out there about it. Then I would open up
something like the Wall Street Journal and find an
article touting globalization. The article would say,
"We've all heard the arguments against globalization,
but little do critics know ... " We had all heard the
arguments against it!? Where!?

-B.

Doug posted an article that contained this hackneyed
phrase:


> The conventional criticism of Wal-Mart is that it's
an insatiable 
> capitalist juggernaut, reaping private benefit at
the expense of the 
> public good. The view retains some currency, I
suspect, because many 
> of Wal-Mart's critics haven't really shopped there.

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"I'm not too worried by hegemony / I know the cadre will look after me" - Magazine, "Model Worker," 1978