Interesting story I came across tonight. According to this news article, a company called Flagler Productions was on contract for three decades to video tape a bunch of Wal-Mart meetings and whatnot, including stockholder meetings. In 2006 they lost the contract, and in an act of revenge capitalism (likely due to the fact they nearly went out of business after losing their biggest client – sounds familiar!) they made all thirty years of tapes available for a fee – one of the more interesting clips is of Hilary Clinton’s tenure on the Wal-Mart Board!
ABC did a news clip on it sometime relatively recently:
Considering it’s ABC, that’s actually a decent piece.. the revolving door between government and capital is disgusting, but the involvement of a union-endorsed Dem candidate being involved in any way with those bastards is beyond the pale (although, frankly, not in the least surprising). It’s hard to watch US politics from across the border and not be seized with an overwhelmingly depressing fatalism sometimes, not that Canadian politics is really any better.
Leftology 
I think the attacks on Wal-Mart need to be rethought. Wal-Mart is a decent company that offers low-income families affordable groceries and merchandise. It also pays standard employees 10.15 an hour, which is far better than most, if not all, other jobs these sort of people would be hired into.
I obviously disagree. Wal-Mart is a vicious quasi-monopoly that needs to be broken up. The ‘affordable groceries’ bit is largely built on a incredibly well-planned global network of exploitation and the fact that other retailers will not also pay those wages (they certainly don’t pay that in my city!) does not excuse them. They have an incredibly anti-union stance that only exacerbates these problems.
Also: ‘these sort of people’? Do they not deserve respect and dignity? There’s nothing wrong (and everything right!) with being working class.
You mention “exploits.” Wal-Mart exploits the people that make many of their products?? If Wal-Mart, or any of their counterparts, did not not hire them they all would go into drug-dealing and prostitution. A lot of people have a vision of utopia that is nothing more than a pipe dream.
Well, I think that is more than a little inaccurate to say that every Wal-Mart worker would be a drug-dealing prostitute but for the graces of Sam Walton! Capitalism is an exploitative system; Wal-Mart is a particularly concentrated example thereof.
I get the feeling you have some dislike for working people, which is unfortunate, as you are (more than likely) one of them, and every material benefit you enjoy in life comes from our labour.
No no no… I mean the people in third world nations that make many of the products… I thought you were refering to them. However, a lot of American and Canadian people who work for Wal-Mart make more money than they ever had made.
Well, I think that Wal-Mart is exploitative to both its direct employees here in North America but also the employees of its subsidiaries/contractors in the developing world.
Wal-Mart is a very, very profitable company; that profit is made from the labour of thousands of workers. If they happen to be paid more than any other job they might otherwise have, that doesn’t mean Wal-Mart has a right to steal the proceeds of their labour!
I don’t knoiw how to argue further… I mean, it seems like you wish for a communist society.
Well, I am a socialist, although I rather expect my definition of socialism and your definition of communism are quite, quite different.
I believe in a liberatory version of socialism that is night-and-day from the Stalinist model..