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The Church Of Wal-Mart New books depict the retailer as a triumph of Christian conservative politics.
By Liza Featherstone Posted Monday, June 22, 2009 - 2:32pm
The world is going soft on Wal-Mart (WMT). From 2005 to 2007, two union-funded organizations—employing more than 50 activists—dedicated significant time and resources to attacking the company, especially for its abuses of workers' rights, which included low wages, sex discrimination, and theft of overtime pay. Journalists shared the animus, and negative stories about the company appeared several times a week throughout 2005. But we've all eased up on the Bentonville, Ark., discount giant. Wal-Mart has been born again as a chapter of the Sierra Club, improving its reputation among elites. More importantly, during the election of 2008, union members and other liberal activists had another priority: winning the presidency. Now, anti-Wal-Mart organizing is on hiatus, as most labor groups hope to address the company's problems through legislative means, especially health care reform and the Employee Free Choice Act. It seems fitting that in this less-feverish environment, with fewer press releases flying, more scholarly work on the company should emerge.
Bethany Moreton's To Serve God and Wal-Mart: The Making of Christian Free Enterprise views the company as product of its region, showing that its success has depended on a bizarre reconciliation of Northwest Arkansas's uneasy cocktail of anti-corporate populism, racial homogeneity, evangelical Christianity, and free enterprise. Nelson Lichtenstein's The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business situates the company in its national context, especially the rise of laissez-faire economics and the decline of organized labor. Activists and journalists criticizing Wal-Mart's business practices—from child labor to violations of organizing rights— are often asked, Why pick on Wal-Mart when so many other businesses also engage in these unattractive behaviors? The usual answer is that as an industry leader, Wal-Mart has the power to set standards—or drag them down. But Moreton and Lichtenstein show that this is not the only reason Wal-Mart matters. The mega-retailer is significant not only as a business success story but as an ideological triumph for the right.
Bethany Moreton charts this triumph brilliantly....