You be the judge.
I suspect we’ll see more from eRobin on the Wacky World of Sebastian Mallaby . She’s followed Walmart more closely than I have. What I can do is point out the faulty logic, and wonder if this is intentionally fallacious. i.e., propaganda, or if he has some kind of mental defect. Take this argument against the “buy American” ethos (emphasis mine):
Some claim that their beliefs are consistent, but that the company has changed: The Wal-Mart of the early 1990s mainly bought American, whereas today’s irresponsible monster buys cheap stuff from China. But this argument merely illustrates how far Democrats have come. Since when did the party’s centrists believe that trading with China is evil? It was the Clinton administration that brought China into the World Trade Organization.
Ahem. I believe the concern is not that Walmart is buying from China as well as the US, the concern is that Walmart is buying from China instead of the US.
Later, Mallaby demonstrates that Walmart has fair wages: (emphasis mine)
Other Democrats reaffirm their centrist credentials while calling upon Wal-Mart to pay workers more. “We are not here today because we are anti-business,” Bayh asserted in Iowa recently as he demonstrated against Wal-Mart — a contention that the retailer’s shareholders, who have spent millions defending their brand against Wake-Up Wal-Mart, may have a hard time swallowing. But the idea that Wal-Mart pays below-market wages is false. Otherwise nobody would work there.
Did you know that across the US there is a uniform supply of high-paying jobs for unskilled workers? Neither did I. Apparently, Walmart doesn’t take advantage of its employees. Because if they did, then their employers would take jobs at one of the manifold high-paying employers in their neighborhood.
It’s also instructive to look at what others are saying about this column, particularly as to what motivates those opposed to Walmart’s practices.
Cap’n Ed thinks it’s about Democrats pandering to the unions: “And this is, of course, why the Democrats have adopted this mantle. They need to shore up their union support, and Wal-Mart is the bete noir of organized labor. They have had no success in penetrating Wal-Mart’s labor force, and that failure has cut into their revenue — revenue that unions can put to political uses. Since the Democrats overwhelmingly benefit from those political uses, the Democrats have decided to attack Wal-Mart to the point where the unions can gain a foothold with the retailer’s employees.”
Jay Reding thinks it’s about pandering to economic populism: “Trying to exploit economic populism in a time of unprecedented global interconnectedness, when millions of Americans owe their jobs to world trade, is simply poor politics. The Clinton Administration was far more “progressive” than the so-called progressives in liberalizing world trade, helping to usher in a time of unprecedented prosperity in America. Unfortunately, the increasingly radicalized Democratic Party of today have jettisoned their own best ideas in favor cheap populist rhetoric.”
Another Rovian Conspiracy thinks Democrats just hate the middle class: “These people would never set foot in a WalMart - even at gunpoint. And their objection to shopping there isn’t because of WalMart’s supposedly unfair labor practices, but because they see WalMart as the realm of the rube, working-class stiff. The yokels that don’t know that voting for Howard Dean and seeking out a collectivist state is what’s best for their interests.”
As you know, the left half of the blogosphere recently appointed me spokesperson. So, I’ll explain why there is much ado about Walmart. It has nothing to do with people being treated fairly, or workers being forced to go to ER’s instead of receiving health benefits. It has nothing to do with Walmart forcing out the family businesses. It has nothing to do with a time when “Made in the USA” didn’t mean a sweat shop in the Marianas islands.
No, we just don’t like people from Arkansas. That’s why.
