One Nation Under Walmart Essay

Walmart is one of the world's largest, most successful, and most vilified corporations. – Art Carden, 2010

Today, Walmart is the largest company in the world with more than 11,500 retail units in 28 countries, annual sales exceeding $288 billion and 2.2 million employees called “associates” (Walmart corporate and financial facts, 2015). In addition, Walmart is one the largest private employers in both the United States and Canada (Walmart corporate and financial facts, 2015). What makes Walmart particularly noteworthy is that it achieved its current level of success in retailing, and no other retailers have come close to being as influential or large (Shaw). Notwithstanding its economic success, Walmart has also been the source of significant amounts of criticism because of the low wages it pays as well as its adverse impact on small businesses in the cities and towns in which it competes. To determine the facts about Walmart, this paper provides an analysis of the case study, “One Nation under Walmart,” from a utilitarianism perspective, followed by a summary of the research and important findings concerning Walmart in the conclusion.

Founded in 1962 by Sam Walton, Walmart’s first store was located in Rogers, Arkansas. In 1969, the company incorporated under the commercial name “Wal-Mart” and in 1972 it became publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (Walmart corporate and financial facts, 2015). Today, the company operates retail stores under the name “Walmart” as well as Sam’s Clubs, Neighborhood Markets and Supercenters as well as maintaining a prominent Web presence with its corporate Web site, Walmart.com (Walmart corporate and financial facts, 2015). At present , Walmart operates about 971 discount stores, 2,447 supercenters, 132 neighborhood markets, and 591 Sam's Clubs in the United States (Corona, 2014). In addition, Walmart has 21 retail stores in Argentina, 313 in Brazil, 305 in Canada, 149 in Costa Rica, 70 in El Salvador, 145 in Guatemala, 47 in Honduras, 394 in Japan, 1,023 in Mexico, 46 in Nicaragua, 54 in Puerto Rico, and 352 in the UK, together with more than 202 stores in China that are managed as joint ventures (Corona, 2014). Moreover, Walmart is the only company in the top four of the Fortune 500 that is not an energy company (Carden, 2010). 

To its credit, Walmart has been cited for a number of positive contributions to the communities in which it competes. For instance, Shaw notes that, “The good news for consumers is that Walmart has risen to retail supremacy through the bargain prices it offers” (p. 180). Likewise, the company was among the first to offer $4 generic prescriptions which has benefitted tens of millions of senior citizens and low-income consumers (Massengill, 2013). In addition, Walmart donates millions of pounds of food each year to the needy. For instance, Creel (2011) reports that, “Walmart donated more than 127 million pounds of food to Feeding America in 2009” (p. 23). Moreover, the company has achieved a 60% increase in fuel efficiency in its vehicle fleet since 2005 (Creel, 2011). The company has also taken aggressive steps to improve its overall environmental sustainability in recent years (Orlando, 2012). 

Besides the foregoing laudable efforts, the company has also partnered with First Lady Michelle Obama to provide healthier low-cost food alternatives in its retail stores (Shaw). In this regard, Hauter (2014) reports that, “Not only is Walmart promising to sell more organic products than ever before, but the company says it will sell them cheaply” (p. 19). Moreover, even the company’s critics praised Walmart’s efforts to provide humanitarian relief following Hurricane Katrina and environmental sustainability efforts. In this regard, Shaw advises that:

Walmart has begun to respond to the criticism that it is a poor corporate citizen by improving employee health insurance coverage and adopting greener business practices. And even its usual critics applauded when the company responded rapidly to Hurricane Katrina, sending truckloads of water and food, much of it reaching residents before federal supplies did. (p. 180)

The research showed that there is plenty to love and plenty to hate about Walmart, and the extent to which their business practices are viewed in one way or the other depends on the perspective that is applied. A utilitarianism analysis of Walmart’s business practices clearly showed that even when the company attempts to do something good, its enormity means that some individuals or groups will be harmed by it. Certainly, the company has deserved some of the criticisms that have been leveled against it, particularly with respect to wages and working conditions, but the flip side of that argument is that 2.2 million people have a job and that the working conditions at Walmart are no better or worse than at countless other commercial enterprises and are likely far better than the working conditions in many developing nations. In the final analysis, it is reasonable to conclude that John Stuart Mill would have problems when it comes to analyzing the morality of Walmart’s business practices because of the company’s unprecedented size and economic clout. Love it or hate it – or both – the research also made it clear that Walmart are a forced to be reckoned with and it is reasonable to conclude that consumers in the 22nd century will be shopping at even more Walmarts in virtually every country of the world.