This Wal-Mart hating I think is a little misplaced, and it’s really just another shot by middle-class white kids at the poor whom they bitterly, but secretly loathe. These are the same people who vote for parties like the Green Party, because other left wing parties make them do "disgusting" things like work with trade unionists.

I am aware that Wal-Mart is an organization that can be destructive to a community. Among their many crimes are anti-competitive, anti-union practices, predatory pricing, sweatshops, and their store locations practically demand the use of gas-guzzling automobiles that need huge parking lots. Wal-Mart is not a good corporate citizen.

There are trade-offs though. Wal-Mart does a good job of supplying cheap basic things like clothes, furniture, and food to a mostly lower income market. It doesn't sell high-end products, and it is a hell of a good place to buy food if you have a three-dollar a day food budget (like I did when I was a student). Wal-Mart probably helps a lot of people make their money last through the month.

If protests like the one carried out by these students really want to target mass consumption, they should target places that sell goods that cater to the rich or middle class, who have the ability to and often do consume the most goods and services. So targeting say, the GAP, Eddie Bauer, Pier One, or Old Navy makes a hell of a lot more sense in terms of an anti-consumption protest than does targeting Wal-Mart.

I hate shopping at Walmart, personally. I try not to do so these days. I don't like their predatory employment and marketing tactics. But I did shop there the other day, for the first time in months, and the first time ever after having moved to Toronto (and there is one that is a 10 minute walk away from me) because I got a $50 Walmart shopping card for my birthday a couple of weeks ago. I didn't ask for it, and if asked beforehand, I probably would have said to make it for somewhere else. But my son's birthday party was last weekend, and I needed party favours and craft stuff for the activity we did (making Christmas ornaments). So I spent it all on the party favours and a couple of toys for his birthday. I was actually quite grateful for the shopping card because I was able to get everything for his birthday, gifts and party stuff, with that money.

I suppose I could have gone to the dollar store to get that stuff. But would that have been any more ethical than shopping at Walmart? The stuff is still made by slave labour in third world countries. The employees are treated no better or paid any better than Walmart employees. I have been to the maul only 3 times since moving here - I would rather support the mom-and-pop stores on Bloor, which are also right on the way home from the subway station when I'm coming home from work. But really, is that any more of an ethical decision than shopping at Walmart or No Frills? The products come from the same place, there's no way they would put up with their employees unionizing, and small stores are notorious for violating labour laws if they can get away with it.

I have come to the conclusion that it's pretty much impossible for people with low incomes to shop ethically. The way I shop ethically these days is to try not to buy anything superfluous, and not to buy junk and trinkets that I don't need.

But,

"This Wal-Mart hating I think is a little misplaced, and it’s really just another shot by middle-class white kids at the poor whom they bitterly, but secretly loathe."

Huh?

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I suppose I could have gone to the dollar store to get that stuff. But would that have been any more ethical than shopping at Walmart?

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In Calgary, most of the dollar stores are owned by recent immigrants on an investors visa. They are set up as turnkey businesses (think business in a kit). There are two at the mall that my office tower is in. Many of these businesses are advertised in publications targeted at immigrants.

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In Calgary, most of the dollar stores are owned by recent immigrants on an investors visa. They are set up as turnkey businesses (think business in a kit). There are two at the mall that my office tower is in. Many of these businesses are advertised in publications targeted at immigrants.

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I've noticed this trend too, outside of Calgary.

It is good to support immigrants, and everyone should or else we are going to retire with no CPP. These franchises are targetting people who are probably getting involved in these schemes to get points on an immigration test and thusly acquire a business that has revenue models that is practically doomed to failure just to enter the country. Dollar Stores are about one degree removed from Amway.

Let me explain, I've worked in these places and know a few things about business, and international trade.

All the money in these businesses goes to shippers and distributors - especially if they are the ones collecting franchise fees. A small plastic item such as a cup you'd get in a dollar store, RETAILS in Southeast Asia for about the equivalent of $0.13, so it is probably at most $0.08 - $0.10 wholesale. Getting an unrefrigerated shipping container across the Atlantic costs about $900, and I'll assume the Pacific is similar and with increased free trade there won't be many duties to pay. The distributor's cost is probably well under $0.15, and he's going to sell it to the retailer at about $0.65-$0.70, a really good markup by any standard.

This leaves the retailer with about $0.30 per unit sold, which really isn't bad on a percentage basis. The thing is expenses don't work on percentage, and in real money it is only thirty cents.

With leases on shopping mall space, labour-intensive inventory demands, and a lot of shrinkage (theft, breakage, etc is higher than virtually any other business) - you need to sell a shit-tonne of crappy goods to make money. The volume demands are so high that it is damn near impossible to make the numbers crunch.

Some do survive, but that is an exception not the rule or even the majority.

Like most small business owners - these people are basically being forced to throw money out the window. That is the real reason that small business is the "engine of the economy" - not because of this rugged individualist crap we're constantly fed.

If you want to target consumerist culture...fine...but these folks should have targeted the yuppy stores that sell stupid things that people don't need. I think they'd have made their point a little more clearly.

There's no shortage of nasty things about Walmart
...horrific labour practices that are very well documented, predatory retailing, contracts with third world sweatshops etc.

I get awful vibes from that place. The patrons at Pottery Barn freak me out in a way that the half naked baby with a diaper falling off accompanied by a topless beer bellied Dad at the Wal Mart kids clothes department, could never.

quote:

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Originally posted by radiorahim:
I'd agree that this particular demonstration was a bit "over the top" from the report being quoted.

If you want to target consumerist culture...fine...but these folks should have targeted the yuppy stores that sell stupid things that people don't need. I think they'd have made their point a little more clearly.

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"Is Wal-Mart Good for America?"

That is the headline on a New York Times story about the country's largest retailer. The very idea that third parties should be deciding whether a particular business is good for the whole country shows incredible chutzpa.

The people who shop at Wal-Mart can decide whether that is good for them or not. But the intelligentsia are worried about something called Wal-Mart's "market power."

Apparently this giant chain sells 30 percent of all the disposable diapers in the country and the Times reporter refers to the prospect of "Wal-Mart amassing even more market power."

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Originally posted by person:
bullshit! the only way walmart has been able to survive is by undercutting others' prices. if people people hadn't jumped ship from local retailers walmart would never have been successful. the arguement that its poor people buying necessities is crap too, most of what walmart sells is cheap disposable plastic trash. no one needs it. have some principles, change your lifestyle and stop giving the enemy your money.

whtas that you say? walmart has kraft products 25% cheaper than everywhere else!?!?! who cares, don't buy that shit.

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Um, no, actually, person, you're the one spewing bullshit at the moment. They sell baby clothes, diapers, formula (if you can't breast feed) and all sorts of other NECESSITIES as well. And you can be sure that if someone is earning minimum wage, that's probably what they're buying there, not necessarily plastic crap. You're right that Walmart also sells a bunch of other crap as well. You're also right that some of the yuppie SUV set slums it and goes to Walmart when they want to buy something cheap. But the fact is, they have the cheapest milk in town. Many of their dry goods are the cheapest around too.

Yes, I know WHY they have the cheapest prices on those things, and I don't like it. That's why I don't shop there, because at the moment I can afford not to. But when I first had my baby, you're damn right I went there and bought baby clothes. I was living on 55% of my income (which was low to begin with), and my husband was in college full time and not working.

I have a friend right now who is on social assistance, raising teenagers with no support from her ex-husband. She wanted to go to Walmart one day to pick up a few things. I wrinkled my nose and said, "Walmart? That place is awful. I try not to ever shop there. Can't we go some other place?" She told me that they have the cheapest prices on what they wanted. I told her that it's because of union busting and sweatshops and that I'm on a Walmart boycott. She rolled her eyes at me and told me she can't afford to protest right now. And I felt really small, as if I were some privileged, yuppie rebel without a clue.

Kind of like the ones in that Walmart.

The poor and lower-middle-class people in Walmart are easy targets for yuppie rebel angst. If you want a REAL challenge, why not go to the big box stores that sell middle-to-high-end retail goods and make fun of the yuppies buying their sweatshop goods there instead of the poor people in Walmart who can't afford to buy anything other than that? Of course, they won't be as easy targets for you, because the yuppie SUV set don't take kindly to this sort of thing.

BTW, I'm not saying not to protest Walmart. I'm saying that making fun of the people who shop there, or saying that it's unethical for poor people to shop there is offensive when there isn't really any alternative for poor people. And also, if I were going to protest sweatshops and poor treatment of employees, I'd start with companies that cater to the upper class, not the working poor. But hey, that's just me - maybe class war means something different to me.

[ 14 December 2003: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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why not go to the big box stores that sell middle-to-high-end retail goods and make fun of the yuppies buying their sweatshop goods there

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uh, people do go to those stores and protest there as well.

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they won't be as easy targets for you, because the yuppie SUV set don't take kindly to this sort of thing.

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i don't understand what you mean about being "less easy" targets?

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there isn't really any alternative for poor people.

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The more that poor people shop at Walmart, the more that the store's effect on the overall economy systemically undercuts those poor people's opportunity to ever escape their own poverty.

Or maybe you do acknowledge this but are just resigned to it?

I don't think that "alternatives" to Walmart are necessarily easily available for a lot of people. But I think they do exist, and people can take advantage of them if they are willing to look. And ultimately, I think the solution to the "Walmartization of the economy" problem is going to have to come from working and poor people organizing themselves to confront it. They are the ones who are most hurt by what is going on - selling out their futures for the low prices today. I'm not trying to judgemental, I'm just saying how I believe social change actually happens.

This reminds me of the "ethics of scabbing" debates we used to have a ways back, actually.

[ 14 December 2003: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

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Originally posted by robbie_dee:
I don't think that "alternatives" to Walmart are necessarily easily available for a lot of people. But I think they do exist, and people can take advantage of them if they are willing to look.

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[ 14 December 2003: Message edited by: Oliver Cromwell ]

People roll their eyes at well-meaning young activists who try and tell them how to run their lives without ever having walked in their shoes. I think that's the reason why the student protest cited in the article that started this thread was so offensive to people. I don't want to be one of those assholes who blazes ahead with my protest oblivious to those I am trying to "liberate."

At the same time, I also don't believe in just throwing up our hands, declaring that the situation is hopeless, and regarding poor people as helpless victims of vast social forces beyond their control. I think that's also a patronizing and offensive attitude.

I do have a few suggestions: they range from shopping less, to shopping elsewhere, to doing more radical things by organizing one's community and establishing co-ops, etc. But these aren't prescriptions, they're part of a conversation.

(EDIT: Clarification)

[ 15 December 2003: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

I think we are being particularily hypocritical in this thread by placing the burden for over-consumption on the most vulnerable members of our society, not the monied classes who probably consume the most. We can't blame the poor for consumption, by their very status as poor people they are not the biggest part of the problem.

Like Michelle said, the sweatshops etc are problems throughout corporate retailing. Even the stores and products people like "us" support.... The computer you are using to post, has plenty of toxic components manufactured in third world countries. We are not innocent or superior - even if you are using the computer at the library you are creating demand.

I've worked in a mom and pop store. I sometimes put in ten and fourteen hour shifts at minimum wage with no overtime, didn't get paid for meetings or training, watched my co-workers fired when they got on the bad side of the owner for fairly minor infractions, and had to put up with the perenially stoned, racist, paranoid owner - who was the most evil man I have ever met. Exploited because I was too young to stand up for my rights. Don't try to tell me how these operations are inherently better than the big box retailers they have largely replaced. Retailing is a razor-thing game.

Finally lets address another issue - Tommy Douglas didn't turn to socialism because he thought urban intellectuals needed a philosophy to relieve some of his liberal guilt and student angst. Douglas turned to socialism because the people he met during the depression had damn hard lives and wanted to help. And here we are years later, the people who claim to be his successors blaming them for problems mostly created by people like us.

Okay so Wal-Mart has terrible workers rights, but the people in this store are trying to get by on that job. Students hold a protest like this in a store, the corporate HQ has a shit-fit and somebody has to be labelled as responsible. That scapegoat will likely be the 80-year old people greeter who didn't spot the "subversive element". Can we justify breaking a few eggs to make our omelet?

Person tells me it's "bullshit" and that there are "plenty of alternatives" (conveniently neglecting to list any). Robbie_dee says that I've acknowledged the "vicious circle" of poor people shopping in places that depress wages and then admonishes me for being "resigned" to it. He accuses poor people of "selling out their futures".

Guess what, robbie? Poor people don't have money to invest in their futures, so yeah, they sell out. Poor people like my friend are too busy putting one foot in front of another to "organize a worker's coop."

And no, this is NOTHING like the "ethics of scabbing". Unless, of course, you're calling my friend and other poor people who shop at Walmart scabs, in which case you're kindly invited to shove your platitudes up your ass.

You think my friend and I have no analysis? You think we haven't seen the way things work with Walmart and the way they keep their workers down? Well isn't that condescending of you. My friend has more analysis in her pinky finger than most people have in their whole body, and we often spend whole days hanging around her place, chewing the fat about social issues and analyzing classism, racism (which she experiences personally) and sexism. You have no practical suggestions for poor people for what they can do as an alternative (you just say "there are alternatives") and then you claim that they're the problem. Screw that.

Shop less! Jesus Christ. Yeah, you welfare people, shop less. Or better yet, shop elsewhere. Pay $4.00 for your milk instead of $3 - I'm sure your $85 a month food budget can handle it.

Hey, organize a workers' coop. It's not like you have anything else to do with your time. It's not like you're depressed or struggling to raise kids on a shoestring, or have any other problems that might interfere with a project that might daunt even a capably-trained person with lots of resources at hand.

Again, I will reiterate: I'm not saying Walmart shouldn't be protested. I'm saying that a bunch of little yuppie twerps going into a Walmart and making fun of all the people who shop there (and work there - unless the workers at Walmart are class traitors too) is not only an ineffective protest, but classist and offensive to boot. Are they trying to reach the shoppers and change their minds with this protest? Who came up with the brilliant brainchild that if they just go in and make fun of the shoppers there, they will look at these privileged little brats making fun of them and think, "Gee, they're probably right. We should take our cues from these kids about how to live our lives."

Protest Walmart in ways that don't hurt the dignity of people who shop there. You want to hurt some dignity? Protest Pottery Barn in ways that humiliate THEIR clientele. Oh, and person - I would be thrilled to hear about protests at Pottery Barn and Pier One and other yuppie suburban hotspots. Please tell me all about the protests you've heard about there. Please link to the articles from the same town that this Walmart protest happened, where these activists have already exhausted the big box yuppietraps in their town first with their protests before they turned their attention to the poor people shopping at Walmart.

Want to talk about class traitors? Great. Let's start with activists who go after poor people for their shopping choices BEFORE they go after the rich.

[ 15 December 2003: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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think we are being particularily hypocritical in this thread by placing the burden for over-consumption on the most vulnerable members of our society, not the monied classes who probably consume the most.

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NO, the monied classes clearly bear full responsibility for the current social order. It's not poor people's fault. The reason why poor people bear the onus of changing things, though, is because frankly, no-one else gives a rats ass.

I'm all for picketing pottery barn and SUV dealerships and all the other venues of privileged life. Picket their houses, for all I care. I just don't think that will change anything. The rich will just retreat into gated communities and get better security at their stores.

I'll buy the argument, to some extent, that rich people may be brought onside with the environmental movement because we all have to live in the same environment. That's true to a point. But I think the rich are actually relatively successful at foisting a lot of the ecological costs on poor people, too. That won't change until Toronto builds a city dump in Rosedale. By and large, as long as poor people are suffering the biggest environmental harms, the rich won't care. Same goes in spades for workers rights.

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And no, this is NOTHING like the "ethics of scabbing". Unless, of course, you're calling my friend and other poor people who shop at Walmart scabs, in which case you're kindly invited to shove your platitudes up your ass.

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Well you're the one who used to justify scabbing, so unless you've changed your position on this, I don't see why you'd be so offended if I did.

Actually, I'm not calling your friend a scab, I'm merely calling attention to what I see as a similarity in your argument here and your argument then.

Your argument in the scabbing threads was so focused on the "poor scabs" who had to cross the picket line - that you failed to acknowledge the courage and resilience of the scab's coworkers who, despite facing many of the same problems, chose to walk the picket line instead of capitulating.

You know, in my time here in Boston, I've seen the poorest of the poor - immigrant janitorial workers - organize themselves and strike for a better way of life. I've also seen the poorest of the poor neighborhoods - Dudley Street - organize itself to improve the lot of its residents. The Dudley Street residents did so not by convincing Walmart to build a new location there, but rather, by establishing a food co-op, housing co-op, job retraining, and lobbying the state for better services.

(If you want more information about how the people on Dudley Street helped themselves out, click on this link: Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative.)

People like me played a role in all of this, of course. Particularly, my classmates and I have done things like provide free or low-cost legal assistance to the immigrant workers and the Dudley Street residents in their struggles. But we weren't the leaders telling them what to do. We were the followers, the supporters and the helpers.

Ultimately I guess what I am saying is, rather my than calling your friend a scab, I am telling you I don't think you give your friend enough credit.

I don't think your friend is going to stop shopping at Walmart tommorrow, just because you told her to. Actually I don't think you should be telling your friend to stop shopping at Walmart at all. I am just saying, conversely, that you and your friend shouldn't be foreclosed from having conversation about Walmart, and about what its business practices mean for all of us, just because you feel "guilty" that your relative "privilege" allows you the "luxury" of not shopping there.

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My friend has more analysis in her pinky finger than most people have in their whole body, and we often spend whole days hanging around her place, chewing the fat about social issues and analyzing classism, racism (which she experiences personally) and sexism.

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Good for her. My beef wasn't with your friend's analysis, it was with yours.

And for the record - I am totally opposed to the protest that the students carried out in the article that led off this thread. I think it was ignorant, ill-conceived and obnoxious. We are in agreement on at least that much. I think most people here agreed on this, except perhaps P.A.

I was a little bothered with where it seemed the thread was heading after that point, though.

(EDIT: Found a better link for DSNI).

[ 15 December 2003: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

But anyhow, this thread isn't about that, as much as I'm sure you'd love to drag it in here. This thread is about a protest that happened at a Walmart, where a bunch of spoiled brat university students held a rave and gloated over smartass comments they made to bewildered shoppers like, "Would you consider trying feminism, even once?"

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NO, the monied classes clearly bear full responsibility for the current social order. It's not poor people's fault.

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Ever see the brilliant Onion piece "As You Can See From My Name-Brand Clothing, I Am Not Poor"?

"The Rich" are not the sole practitioners of overconsumption, nor are they solely responsible for the current social order.

[ 15 December 2003: Message edited by: Mr. Magoo ]

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since you agree with us that the protest in question was rude, classist, and humiliating to poor people, I'm not sure exactly what we're disagreeing about here.

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That's the easy part. If this is all we are discussing, we can all go home now, because I've only seen one person on this thread who thought the protest was a good idea. He didn't elaborate, but based on his posts elsewhere, I think I know where he is coming from. I'm happy to leave that line of argument as an "agreement to disagree," unless we want to turn this into another Optative Theatre discussion.

The harder part is this:

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Posted by N-SIGN:

Wal-Mart does a good job of supplying cheap basic things like clothes, furniture, and food to a mostly lower income market. It doesn't sell high-end products, and it is a hell of a good place to buy food if you have a three-dollar a day food budget (like I did when I was a student). Wal-Mart probably helps a lot of people make their money last through the month.

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and this:

quote:

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Posted by Michelle:

I have come to the conclusion that it's pretty much impossible for people with low incomes to shop ethically. The way I shop ethically these days is to try not to buy anything superfluous, and not to buy junk and trinkets that I don't need.

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I am not denying that Walmart's low prices are mighty tempting, and for someone who is barely making ends meet, that temptation may seem irresistable. What I am saying is simply this: if poor people don't do something about Walmart, who will?

Yes the other stores suck for workers and the environment, too. But Walmart is way the hell worse:

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Complaints about understaffing and low pay are not uncommon among retail workers -- but Wal-Mart is no mere peddler of saucepans and boom boxes. The company is the world's largest retailer, with $220 billion in sales, and the nation's largest private employer, with 3,372 stores and more than 1 million hourly workers. Its annual revenues account for 2 percent of America's entire domestic product. Even as the economy has slowed, the company has continued to metastasize, with plans to add 800,000 more jobs worldwide by 2007.

Given its staggering size and rapid expansion, Wal-Mart increasingly sets the standard for wages and benefits throughout the U.S. economy. "Americans can't live on a Wal-Mart paycheck," says Greg Denier, communications director for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW). "Yet it's the dominant employer, and what they pay will be the future of working America." The average hourly worker at Wal-Mart earns barely $18,000 a year at a company that pocketed $6.6 billion in profits last year. Forty percent of employees opt not to receive coverage under the company's medical plan, which costs up to $2,844 a year, plus a deductible. As (Walmart worker) Jennifer McLaughlin puts it, "They're on top of the Fortune 500, and I can't get health insurance for my kid."

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Link: Up against the Wal-mart, by Karen Olson, Mother Jones March/April 2003

I think I've probably said all I can about this. We've got about four threads on Walmart running now, so maybe the point is clear.

I did want to throw out one more quote, though:

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(A)s you look at those slashed prices, with those smiley faces hovering above, consider this wise Spanish saying: Lo barato sale caro, which translates to "what's cheap ends up expensive."

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All you have given us is rhetorical questions ("if the poor don't do something about it who will?") and articles about how bad Walmart is. Which really doesn't counter our point that for people on welfare or earning minimum wage, the only way to stretch your money to the end of the month is to get the cheapest prices you can. And you can post a hundred more links about how horrible Walmart is (and I'll agree with every one of them) and I will still be right about poor people not having alternatives and you still won't have countered it with anything productive.

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Still waiting for your shopping alternatives for poor people.

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If I give you some kind of "action plan for poor people" I will be guilty of the the same paternalism you condemn the students in post #1 for. I have some suggestions, that I have mentioned at least twice already. They are only suggestions, though. Meant to start a conversation, not to end it (although this conversation does have to end for me, at least for the next couple of days until my last exam).

1. Shop somewhere else. Walmart doesn't own entire retail world, at least not yet.

2. If you must shop at Walmart, shop there as little as possible. Be conscious of what you define as a "necessity," particularly, a "necessity" that you think you can't get anywhere else.

3. Organize yourself and your community to find more ethical, sustainable sources for your needs, particularly from sources that are themselves within your community.

4. Above all, don't just give up and assume that the world sucks, it will always suck, it will only get worse and there is nothing you can do about it. That's an utterly bankrupt ideology.

[ 15 December 2003: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

I mean, are we talking Sam Walton? Are we talking over $200g/yr? Over $100g/yr? Or anything over the average income?

Because I have to tell you, I think most of Pottery Barn and Pier 1's clients would laugh at the notion that they are "rich." And before we all decide that everyone in the middle class and above are irredeemably evil and relentless exploiters of the poor, perhaps we should also recognize that this constitutes quite a fair proportion of our nation's citizens.

I don't think that the middle class or even upper middle class has anything like the amount of power or influence being ascribed to them on this thread.

I am also very curious about why it is ok to stereotype and generalize about a class of people assumed to have privilege. Statements such as "...another shot by middle-class white kids at the poor whom they bitterly, but secretly loathe..." are simply hateful. Having grown up as a middle-class white kid, I resent the implication that I "bitterly, but secretly loathe" the poor. Then or now.

Again, these arguments are like stating that because men benefit from sexism, all men are sexist and hate women. The proposition that all people who benefit from the class structure are classist and hate the poor and working classes is not only an untenable proposition, but an extremely unhelpful one. Especially if you are going to make the argument, which a number of people here do, that poor people should not be expected to organize on their own behalf because they lack the resources to (an argument I take issue with, but anyway). If you want the people with resources to organize on behalf of class issues, doesn't it make sense not to malign them?

Surely it is possible to discuss class issues without falling into hte opposite of classism, the hatred and stereotyping of those who are not poor? Although sometimes, on Babble, I wonder.

On the other issue--of who should be doing what about corporations like WalMart--I think it's not only an interesting question but the discussion here certainly raises a lot of related issues. I too know people who have no choice, or who feel they have no choice, but to shop at WalMart or its kin in order to pay their bills and eat each month; their circumstances are straitened enough that I'm not about to lecture them on their choice. I also know of families who really "needed" to buy that $60g SUV "for the kids" and who, in order to pay for it and the gas it guzzles, now "need" to buy cheap stuff at WalMart (when it's indistinguishable from the stuff at other stores, anyway, like name-brand shampoos etc.).

Of course the fact of hte matter is that WalMart *is* worse as a corporate citizen, as an employer, than most other retail stores. They are a downward force on teh whole system, which started pretty near the bottom anyway. I remember reading Nickle and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich a year or so ago, and her story about working for WalMart. How the people who worked there didn't make enough to buy their clothes there, not even when it was stained and with the employee discount. I know people who work for Pier 1 and they're not in that boat.

Clearly something has to be done, and the argument that the poor or working classes *can't* has no weight with me whatsoever. Who started the whole union movement in the first place? The working class, on sixteen hour workdays that ground them into heaps of exhaustion every day for far less than the wages they make now, yes? Who organized for weekends, and social assistance, and disability payments, etc. etc.?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that we all have a part to play in fixing this mess. The poor are no more inherently powerless than the middle class is powerful. What's coming across to me here from several posters is a sort of "Well the poor can't, and the rest won't, and when they try to they only "betray their secret loathing", so I guess we'd better get used to WalMart."

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Originally posted by robbie_dee:
If I give you some kind of "action plan for poor people" I will be guilty of the the same paternalism you condemn the students in post #1 for.

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No you won't. If there were actually some options out there, I'm sure lots of people would love to have them, me included.

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I have some suggestions, that I have mentioned at least twice already. They are only suggestions, though. Meant to start a conversation, not to end it (although this conversation does have to end for me, at least for the next couple of days until my last exam).

1. Shop somewhere else. Walmart doesn't own entire retail world, at least not yet.

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"Shop somewhere else" doesn't tell us anything. Please, tell us where a poor person can buy the necessities for low prices where the people working at the stores are earning high wages, and the products aren't made in sweatshops. Make it an alphabetical list for easy reference if you don't mind.

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2. If you must shop at Walmart, shop there as little as possible. Be conscious of what you define as a "necessity," particularly, a "necessity" that you think you can't get anywhere else.

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Which I've already acknowledged and said that I do. And which people earning welfare or minimum wage likely also do, by necessity - people earning less than a thousand bucks a month have money for nothing BUT necessities.

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3. Organize yourself and your community to find more ethical, sustainable sources for your needs, particularly from sources that are themselves within your community.

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Should people on welfare or working 50-60 hours a week on minimum wage do this before or after their job search? Shall people on welfare do this using their non-existent telephones or their non-existent bus fare? People who are struggling to make ends meet every day don't have time for activist meetings. Often they're not in good enough health, emotionally or physically, to spearhead something like that.

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4. Above all, don't just give up and assume that the world sucks, it will always suck, it will only get worse and there is nothing you can do about it. That's an utterly bankrupt ideology.

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I'm not giving up. In fact, I go out of my way to avoid Walmart, for the very reasons you name. I'm just criticizing the movement from within. I'm saying that there are factors that need to be recognized about poverty and about consumer choices. I'm not sure if you've made the connection, but what you're putting forth here is basically a "bootstraps" argument - if poor people can't organize workers' co-ops or "resist the temptation" to spend money at Walmart because they have the cheapest prices, then they're the reason why the poor are poor.

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Before we all agree the "rich" people are the spawn of satan and solely responsible for the world's social order, could we possibly define what we mean by rich people?

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For the purposes of a discussion on consumption, perhaps we should abandon the usual measures of wealth (gross income, etc.), and instead describe as rich anyone who pays the extra money for Calvin Klein t-shirts, or Fubu track suits, or Nike sneakers.

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:

For the purposes of a discussion on consumption, perhaps we should abandon the usual measures of wealth (gross income, etc.), and instead describe as rich anyone who pays the extra money for Calvin Klein t-shirts, or Fubu track suits, or Nike sneakers.

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If it's good, then let's all spendspendspend! I've got my eye on some $45 Sean John socks that I'm sure will be at least nine times as warm as a $5 pair!

However, I'm not really going to disagree with you here. I also think that disposable income is much better spent ethically rather than on $200 Nike shoes.

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Yeah, these poor 15 year olds should just grow a backbone already.

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Having said that, (and it felt good) That's a choice that works for me, and it doesn't cause much undue sacrifice for me really. The clients I work with however, are mostly getting by on disability pensions. Part of my job involves helping with money management, life skills, and generally mediating on their behalf with the world. To that end I find myself in Walmarts sometimes. People have to pick their battles, and still be able to live a life that works for them.

Pursuant to the other point, I don't wear logos and expensive name brands, and people know better than to give them to me. I am also 52 years old, which is a hellovalot easier than being 15.

[ 15 December 2003: Message edited by: oldgoat ]

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Please, tell us where a poor person can buy the necessities for low prices where the people working at the stores are earning high wages, and the products aren't made in sweatshops.

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Well I can't do that. Right now the "free market" is geared towards providing us with cheap stuff, regardless of ethics; rather than providing us with ethical stuff, some of which hopefully still cheap. My points #1 and #2 above, therefor, are "lesser evil" suggestions. Because Walmart is particularly bad, it should be a major priority to fight against, at least IMO. And an organized consumer campaign against Walmart, the market leader, could very well encourage all the other players to clean their acts up as well.

It's not like there aren't any other stores near where your friend lives. Where would she buy her groceries, and her diapers, and her other necessities, if the local Walmart burned to the ground tomorrow?

Further, points #3 and #4 are where we really transcend lesser evilism and actually try to pursue some kind of better vision for the world. As you say:

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Should people on welfare or working 50-60 hours a week on minimum wage do this before or after their job search? Shall people on welfare do this using their non-existent telephones or their non-existent bus fare? People who are struggling to make ends meet every day don't have time for activist meetings. Often they're not in good enough health, emotionally or physically, to spearhead something like that.

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I don't ever recall saying this was something easy to do. But despite the obstacles, people in poverty, people on welfare and people working long hours for minimum wage actually have managed to find the time and the drive and the internal capability to get together and do something about their situation. I mentioned a couple of examples of this, which I am personally familiar with, in one of my posts above. There are many more.

It's the kind of thing that has a snowball effect, too. When people who have been taught to believe that they have no power, are given the chance to discover they actually can and do have power, they find themselves wanting more.

[ 15 December 2003: Message edited by: robbie_dee ]

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It's not like there aren't any other stores near where your friend lives. Where would she buy her groceries, and her diapers, and her other necessities, if the local Walmart burned to the ground tomorrow?

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She'd buy them at other places that charge more than Walmart, leaving her with even more month at the end of her money.

I don't like Walmart any better than you do. The commercials make me nuts - have you seen the one where the nice, middle-class suburban couple buy all their decorations and Christmas lights there, and at the end of the commercial you see them light up a pretty suburban house? Or the one with the College students who talk about how much fun it is to shop at Walmart because they save money, as they drive to the Walmart in their CAR? (Smith, I think, wrote a really funny, sarcastic response to that one in another thread.) I hate those commercials. I hate the thought of Walmart workers getting stiffed so that people earning three times what they are can have plastic crap for cheap.

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have you seen the one where the nice, middle-class suburban couple buy all their decorations and Christmas lights there

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"...another shot by middle-class white kids at the poor whom they bitterly, but secretly loathe..."

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As one who could be interpreted as a white middle class kid, I knew I was trolling when I made that comment. Frankly this article made my blood boil and that spilled into my post.

But, I also knew a hell of a lot of people in my social sciences days who spent all day talking about Marx, class-conciousness and the working-class while they made fun of the janitor's mullet hair cut and left starbucks cups full of cigarette butts sitting everywhere for him to clean up.

I also see a lot of student political activists who don't like to associate with workers because they don't think they don't "have anything to say".

So its no good to talk about being socially aware when you are not backing in real terms the people we are trying to support. This is why we shouldn't humiliate Wal-Mart shoppers and offer them real alternatives, not ideals we can't ourselves maintain or see for what they are.

[ 15 December 2003: Message edited by: N-SIGN ]

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I don't own a single t-shirt with a logo on it, and people don't treat me badly because of it. Maybe these kids are hanging out with the wrong people.

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Dear auntie.com,

How do I avoid being a clichéd educated Lefty who champions the working underclasses - yet disdains the culture of Wrestling and Kid Rock that goes along with it? Am I a lefty snob? Is it wrong to want my working class to read Sartre and watch independent films?

- Angst-Ridden in Vancouver
Dear Angst,

If you don't make them read Sartre, they won't make you watch wrestling.

auntie.com

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Now in the case of why wal-mart would pay "low wages. Wal-mart typically pays above average wages that prevail in the area they do business in. Sure they pay a wage similar to minimum wage but that is merely because the work requires so little training you can do it on the job in less than a week.

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I also see a lot of student political activists who don't like to associate with workers because they don't think they don't "have anything to say".

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How strange. I know many workers who think university activists are know-nothing airheads who have nothing to say.

What's the "Pottery Barn"? Never heard of it before. I went into a Pier One...once. That's the place with all the plant pots and candles, right? Useless junk as far as I can tell. I can't see how it stays in business.

I check out Liquidation World quite often. It's kind of hit-and-miss whether you can find anything you need, though.

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I also see a lot of student political activists who don't like to associate with workers because they don't think they don't "have anything to say".
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How strange. I know many workers who think university activists are know-nothing airheads who have nothing to say.

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You'd be amazed...

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That is to show the links between the poverty of the folks who shop at Walmart because of the low prices...and how Walmart manages to get its prices so low i.e. sweatshop working conditions for their employees, contracts with third world sweatshops, predatory pricing etc.

Poor folks shop at Walmart because Walmart engages in business tactics that create a lot of poverty.

Loblaws successfully used the "Walmart threat" whether real or imagined to force a concessionary contract on UFCW.

Walmart doesn't have the presence in Canada yet that it has in the U.S., although it is growing.

Walmart still has a serious "image" problem in Canada amongst a significant percentage of people. I know of lots of folks...not necessarily leftie activist types who absolutely refuse to shop there.

But as they get bigger in this country, gradually they'll wear alot of us down...and folks who were once quite "principled" will find themselves shopping there.

In my mind, the very best way to combat Walmart is to lend support wherever possible to efforts to unionize Walmart's employees.