>
> The problem with Wal Mart is not its business model, but the right wing
> politics of its management. Virtually every other major retailer uses a
> similar business model but without the Wal-Mart christofascist politics.
The fundamental problem of Wal-mart is the same as that of any other capitalist enterprise: there are irresistable structural pressures to increase profit margins. This directly leads to all the complaints people have about Wal-mart: the low wages, the loss of American manufacturing jobs, supplanting local businesses, etc. The "christofascist" political views of the Walton family are more or less irrelevant: as long as Wal-mart is a capitalist organization devoted to increasing profits, and it is run by competent managers, Wal-mart will continue to operate the way that it does. (--Thought experiment: imagine the cabal on LBO running Wal-mart. If we decide to pay reasonable wages and health benefits to the workers and refuse to patronize wholesalers who use child labor in poor nations, the shareholders would boot us out for undermining "earnings". The only way we could keep our jobs is to do exactly what the managers at Wal-mart do now: maximize profits.)
--In short, the problem's not Wal-mart; the problem is the inevitability of Wal-mart style organizations in a capitalist economy.
Miles