the daily snivel
I Will Never Spend a Penny at Wal-Mart
As much as any person can be, I try to be an "ethical shopper." My coffee is fair trade, whether I'm brewing it at home or when I'm out and about, say at the school coffee shop. I go to the local/independent book and music stores. I try to support as few oppressive regimes as possible when buying sneakers. Heck, If I'm ever in the financial and romantic position to buy someone a diamond, I'll make sure it's not the bloody kind. Now, nobody is perfect, and you can't expect that at all times your buying decisions will make the world a happy fun super swell place to live, but there's a lot to be said for spending your dollars judiciously enough that retailers who stock sensible products get the hint that there's actually profit to be had in taking the high road. In the end, however, I also try not to come off as sanctimonious or morally superior. I'd rather just enjoy my extremely high quality, supremely tasty coffee and not attempt to convert or lecture to people who aren't going to be swayed by any amount of rhetoric, dimples, or beatings. Lead by example, I always say.
Discussing politics at the office one afternoon in that luke-warm, non-inflammatory way that co-workers do, I was at least able to express the opinion that Wal-Mart just isn't for me, even if I can't expect everyone else in North America to stop shopping there, or hold people to my personal standards. After all, I have the privilege of being able to choose to shop elsewhere. I live downtown in a large city with lots of easy access to transportation, I have a reasonable amount of disposable income and I don't have any dependents. I'm not forced to shop at one store as many people are, either because their small town only has the Wal-Mart now, or because they don't have access to good transportation, or are simply shopping on a meagre, downsized budget (or some combination of all of those things).
But it remains that I refuse to shop there, and I think a lot of us could easily manage to buy our crap somewhere else given just a little pause for thought. There's a Wal-Mart moving into my hometown of Smiths Falls, now, and they've already received 3,000 job applications (in a city of 9,000). Times are tough for the place I grew up. Jobs are disappearing. So some might see the store's arrival as something of a blessing, as not only will Wal-Mart provide a lot of jobs, but it will provide cheap goods in vast quantities. Yet I'm not happy about this. Because Wal-Mart cuts corners so expertly, they can undercut almost any competitor in prices and selection. This eventually drives other, locally owned shops, right out of business. Wal-Mart also manages to save a great deal of money by offering employees poor wages and benefits. The management is vehemently anti-union.
Indeed, because Wal-Mart imports goods so extensively from countries like China, where goods are mass-produced for a fraction of the cost demanded by North American workers, we are sending our own jobs overseas by buying there. Domestic companies can no longer compete. Wal-Mart imported 12 billion dollars worth of goods from China alone last year.
I came across a great article detailing the economics of the Wal-Mart empire, and how this affects both its suppliers and the working joe. You can read it here, and I highly recommend doing so:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html
I also have the article saved on this website as a PDF file in case it ever goes offline.
Discussing politics at the office one afternoon in that luke-warm, non-inflammatory way that co-workers do, I was at least able to express the opinion that Wal-Mart just isn't for me, even if I can't expect everyone else in North America to stop shopping there, or hold people to my personal standards. After all, I have the privilege of being able to choose to shop elsewhere. I live downtown in a large city with lots of easy access to transportation, I have a reasonable amount of disposable income and I don't have any dependents. I'm not forced to shop at one store as many people are, either because their small town only has the Wal-Mart now, or because they don't have access to good transportation, or are simply shopping on a meagre, downsized budget (or some combination of all of those things).
But it remains that I refuse to shop there, and I think a lot of us could easily manage to buy our crap somewhere else given just a little pause for thought. There's a Wal-Mart moving into my hometown of Smiths Falls, now, and they've already received 3,000 job applications (in a city of 9,000). Times are tough for the place I grew up. Jobs are disappearing. So some might see the store's arrival as something of a blessing, as not only will Wal-Mart provide a lot of jobs, but it will provide cheap goods in vast quantities. Yet I'm not happy about this. Because Wal-Mart cuts corners so expertly, they can undercut almost any competitor in prices and selection. This eventually drives other, locally owned shops, right out of business. Wal-Mart also manages to save a great deal of money by offering employees poor wages and benefits. The management is vehemently anti-union.
Indeed, because Wal-Mart imports goods so extensively from countries like China, where goods are mass-produced for a fraction of the cost demanded by North American workers, we are sending our own jobs overseas by buying there. Domestic companies can no longer compete. Wal-Mart imported 12 billion dollars worth of goods from China alone last year.
I came across a great article detailing the economics of the Wal-Mart empire, and how this affects both its suppliers and the working joe. You can read it here, and I highly recommend doing so:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html
I also have the article saved on this website as a PDF file in case it ever goes offline.
