Taking this anti-Wal-Mart assumption too seriously seems a version of the old "ultra" assumption that all politics is "class against class." But in this case, the rejection of single-payer, it seems combined with "economism," i.e., the focus on narrow or local struggles as being the heart of all politics (with corresponding disdain for the "big picture").
Say it ain't so, Nathan!
[*] Any _true_ improvement in efficiency could benefit everyone -- including Wal-Mart -- without hurting anyone. BTW, most advertised improvements in efficiency in these neo-liberal days promise benefits to almost everyone and losses to no-one (with sufficient compensation going to the "losers") -- but in practice involve massive redistributions to the wealthy and powerful and no compensation to the "losers."
Single-payer might turn out to be just another neo-liberal "reform" that benefits the high and mighty and screws the rest. But if single-payer is won by a sufficiently large mass mobilization (as seems necessary) rather than be a Hillary-type top-down/technocratic manipulation, the mobilization would counteract the political winds pushing it in the neo-lib direction.
On 3/17/06, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
>
> Doug Henwood wrote:
> >
> > Nathan, you
> > really need to pause a minute and reflect on what's happening not
> > only to your politics, but your mind. You're too smart and talented
> > to write nonsense like this.
>
> Assume that the DP and the AFL-CIO represent the ONLY possible source of
> social progress in the U.S. Hence the future depends on the continued
> flourishing of those institutions (defined in terms of their current
> leadership). At the present time that sole hope of humanity is
> blundering badly, risking its very existence.
>
> Compare this to the crisis faced by the CPUSA during the period of the
> Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
>
> In such situations true believers can only make the best arguments
> possible, no matter how shoddy, with a straight face and hope for the
> best. Smart, talented, and well-intentioned men and women have followed
> such a course many times over the millenia -- and it is not always even
> wrong to do so.
>
> Carrol
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> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
-- Jim Devine / "There can be no real individual freedom in the presence of economic insecurity." -- Chester Bowles