All Hail Walmart SLAVES

On Mon, 13 Feb 2006 16:51:05 -0500 (EST), "Chris" wrote :
i love low prices but do object to people having to live in subhuman conditions
on slave
wages - in order to get those low prices many workers who make the stuff,
including
children, suffer. multi-national corps seem to be held accountable to no one -
this is
civilization?
> chris

I think the good of these discussions is to exercise the crtitical faculties in
many areas so that
we can apply them well sharpened in the area we care about, so we can move
toward effective
change. (Change, difference, design is the basis we compete upon... we do good
while doing
well).

Certainly people who object to Walmart can find plenty of fuel for the fire,
here is but one, in
which they confidently predict Walmart is so evil it will soon be gone...

http://www.newsgateway.ca/Wal-mart.htm

On the other hand, I cannot credit the idea that goods from exploited labor ever
make it to
the shelves of USA stores. Certainly it happens, but it is products of 3rd
world countries
being traded among 3rd world countries. Exploitation happens where workers have
no
choice, and where they have choice, their wages go up as their conditions
modernize. Here
the Indian textile association makes my point... surprised as they are that
America buys items
from well managed factories...

http://www.icfdc.com/html/bizarticles/factsheets/indian_textile_sector_factsheet\
.html

And there is a tremendous check on multinationals, it is called the supplier and
the
consumer. Look at the most wicked USA auto industry. You've heard it said
"what's good for
General Motors is good for America." Their power was such they could destroy
the private
USA mass transit system and replace it with their cars, subsidized by taxes for
superhighways. Yet they dwindle apace.

Happily my opinion does not matter. I have an opinion, a hypotheses, that allows
me to
experiment and develop a theory, a theoretical basis from which to proceed. In
the measure I
am wrong, I will fail. In the measure I am right, I have a shot at doing well
while doing good.
Not a guarantee, just a shot. We can be right and still execute poorly.
Happily everytime I
get it wrong, my customers tell me how to get it right next time. So the only
risk I run is I
may quit at some point and lose all I have learned so far.

A bigger concern I believe is USA policy is to disallow emerging countries to
compete with
USA by making rules that hobble competing countries, to outlaw getting rich the
way we did.
When I study the WTO and the World Bank and USA trade policy this is the only
scenario that
makes sense to me.

For we example in USA dormitory/factories were set up mid-19th century in which
“spinsters’
would come to work and get an education and save money, put a brother through
school and
retire from the work after a few years, taken care of by a brother (or married
or whatever).
This was desired by the ‘spinsters,’ it allowed usa to take the textile biz away
from the british
and further excited innovation in the cultivation and processing of raw
materials in usa.

If Indonesians do the same thing today, it is called exploitation.

The world CAN be a wicked place, and that is good to know. This wickedness only
becomes a
problem when it is merged with government power, and is only amerliorated by
small
business innovation. (Big biz has the job of lowering the cost and thus
widening the access
to what material benefits innure from innovation.)

If one spots an inbalance, an unfairness, something less than desirable, one can
vote, write
letters of outrage to editors, harangue patrons at the corner bar, even take to
the streets. Or
one can call a competent designer. And develop a product or service that
bothers the wicked,
and one does well by doing good. Everyone else necessary to effect the
change... the
customsbrokers, the warehouses, the steamship lines, the retailers, the truck
drivers,
bankers... they are all standing by, ready for what is next. Being
self-employed it is always
your turn at bat.

John

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