Both the Great Crash of 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith and the Wal-Mart Effect are economic studies, one of how rampant speculation in the stock market caused the destruction of the American economy, the other how exploitation as used as an economic tool by a single large company has caused cheaper goods but a less ethical society. Both authors regard the federal government as complacent and negligent in its duty to properly police the economy: "freed at last of all government regulation or retribution, the market sallied off in to the wild blue yonder" (Galbraith 42). However, Galbraith's fundamental contention is that although clearly better regulation was needed in terms of how securities were traded and to curtail the over-willingness of banks to lend, the real reason for the Crash of 1929 was not simply the state of the stock market, but the structure of the American economy as a whole, which he calls fundamentally unsound (Galbraith 177). The rich had grown so rich and the poor had grown so poor that there were simply not enough dollars to support the explosion in manufacturing.
These types of inequities are also the concern of the Wal-Mart Effect by Charles Fishman. However, while Galbraith attempts to use a past, historical scenario to explain the present, Fishman analyzes an economic phenomenon of the here and now. He is less interested in discussing economic theory than Galbraith, and devotes more attention to specific aspects of the Wal-Mart supply chain. His style is less linear, and more anecdotal, and also more passionate, because the abuses are going in the...
By going overseas to use cheaper labor, American jobs are lost. By driving down wages, the non-unionized poor get poorer, and the poorer people become, the more they feel compelled to shop at Wal-Mart. American companies that do not wish to do business with the retailing giant are also driven out of business. Like Galbraith, Fishman is inclined to see government regulation as the only solution to this spiraling effect, although he advances his prescription with less certainty than Galbraith, as he does not have the benefit of hindsight. Fishman's text is more of a plea to the American consumer not to buy from Wal-Mart. Because Wal-Mart's abuses are private, rather than the result of under-regulation like the Crash, the American consumer has a responsibility to do more to correct those abuses on a personal level by not buying at Wal-Mart, even though government intervention may be necessary to completely end the unethical practices of the company.
Works Cited
Galbraith, John Kenneth. The Great Crash of 1929. New York: Mariner Books, 1997.
Fishman, Charles. The Wal-Mart Effect. New York: Penguin, 2006.
Schrecker, Ellen. The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents.
Boston: St. Martin's Press, 1994.
Spivey, Donald. Schooling for a New Slavery: Black Industrial Education, 1868-1915.
Westport CT: Greenwood.
