Wal-Mart Pros and Cons

¶ … Wal-Mart corporation and its employee policies, there are many who tried to dismiss one side or another by reducing the size and complexity of the discussion down to a simple matter of crunching numbers, while others took individual examples aiming for the sensational.

Sebastian Mallaby's supreme argument for supporting Wal-Mart's employees' policies in 2005 and its expansion on the market was that the biggest looser in the case Wal-Mart would fail to further develop will be the poor: "If critics prevent the firm [Wal-Mart] from opening new branches, they will prevent ordinary families from sharing in those new gains.

Poor Americans will be chief among the casualties" (Mallaby, 2005) Mallaby simply points out that Wal-Mart, a privately owned company, a financial giant, is among the chief supporters of those millions of Americans who earn minimum wages or less or live on welfare.

Paradoxically, by taking into account that Wal-Mart offers important discounts on food and other basic products and the poor or minimum wage earners spend a biggest portion of their incomes on this type of merchandize, Mallaby simply points out to the fact that Wal-Mart should be considered one of the biggest welfare suppliers of this country. This is baffling, of course, since Wal-Mart is, according to the same Mallaby, a corporation like any other, thus, naturally only interested in how to: "enrich shareholders and put rivals out of business"(Mallaby, 2005).

Authors like Karen Olsson, on the other hand, are keen to take the discussion from a general review of economic principles of the free market, down to the individual. She takes the example of an actual Wal-Mart employee, Jennifer McLaughlin, a young mother living with her baby and her boyfriend in Paris, Texas. Things get thus more personal and tougher to easily dismiss by crunching numbers. In 2003, when Olsson's article appeared, Wal-Mart was paying McLaughlin 16,800$ a year, according to the latter's own account.

She did not have an insurance plan simply because she could not afford it. When coming back to numbers again, the feeling is that one moves in a vicious circle. It is certain that Wal-Mart cannot be blamed for the unemployment percentage rise in the country or for the low skilled working force rising as well since an education became less affordable and some of the other major job suppliers in the country could not survive without being bailed out.

Wal-Mart not only survived the economic crisis that started in 2008, but thrived. Starting with 2008, the focus of discussions among those who vilified Wal-Mart for the way it treated its employees and those who considered it the savior of the poor and the unemployed shifted, but in essence the debate remains the same.

The fact is, Wal-Mart's main sources for its low everyday prices are two: the low production costs, since most of the products on its shelves are manufactured in China, with the cheapest labor force there is, and the low wages it pays its employees. To some, it might look more like a form of slavery than one of the best sources of welfare programs, as Mallaby is trying to present the corporation in his 2005 article: "Progressive Wal-Mart.

Really." Mallaby is clearly one of the fiercest antagonists of those who attack Wal-Mart. He is radical in his pinions about Wal-Mart and does not leave any chance for those who think differently. Opposite to him, Karen Olsson, although adopting a different tactic in her attack against Wal-Mart's employee policies, appears to be more moderate in her approach. She takes numbers and presents them along with the individuals who are directly involved and affected.

Unlike Mallaby who keeps the discussion at the level of macroeconomics, Olsson takes it to the grass roots. When she decides to go to macroeconomics, though, her numbers also speak for themselves. When thinking about the big picture, one has to keep in mind that the discussion involved one of the biggest retail corporations in the world, native to a developed country, one of the wealthiest in the world. By means of its size and success, Wal-Mart is a trendsetter.

Keeping that in mind, according to Olsson, in 2003, over 40% of the corporation's employees could not afford a medical insurance plan. The retail world suddenly looks like one of the less appealing places to look for a job in America. All things considered, macro or micro economically, matters in such debates are far from being simple.

In the aftermath of the economic crisis that debuted in the States with the subprime mortgage market failure, sociologists like Rebekah Peeples Massengill throw into the arena hot issues like: "independence, self-reliance, corporate responsibility." Massengill emphasizes the moral aspects of the discussions revolving around the laws of the free market.