WWWD?
What Would Wal-Mart Do?
I wasn't going to blog about Katrina, because anything that I might want to say has already been said. But as I was watching former President Bill Clinton on C-Span this morning, something that he said caught my ear and I've been mulling over it all day.
As it turns out, Wal-Mart has not only given an unprecedented amount of money and supplies for Hurricane Disaster Relief, but check out this statement from their website: "An estimated 15,000 Wal-Mart associates are still displaced from their workplaces due to Hurricane Katrina (more than 34,000 impacted in some way). The company has made contact with more than 65% of its associates affected by the storm, including some who have been found in the various evacuee shelters. Wal-Mart is committed to providing work for displaced associates who want to work in open stores."
To some of my colleagues and cohorts, Wal-Mart represents all that is bad in the world. And at times, I have trouble arguing with that. They've put thousands of local businesses out on their asses, they don't pay their employees enough, offer questionable healthcare packages, and the AFL-CIO was unable to get EVEN ONE store unionized for a variety of reasons. But while some might say that all corporations are evil, perhaps there are some good things about corporations that need to be taken into consideration. Like with all things, it really isn't as black and white as we might sometimes want it to be.
First, Hurricane victims need the essentials: food, water, and a safe place to stay. But after all that gets sorted out, they will need to start rebuilding their lives, with many of them starting from NOTHING. Humans need purpose and dignity, and having a job is one way to achieve both of those things. Kudos to my least favorite corporation for doing so much to help with everything from the tangibles to the intangibles.
posted by L. @ 4:00 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
Yeah... I'm about as anti-WalMart as it gets, but I have to side with you on this one. They really have been of great assistance to the cause at hand, and despite all of my gripes with them on day to day terms, my hat goes off to them as well...
Once they return to their regular shenanigans, I'm sure that I'll become as disgruntled with them as usual... but that's for another day... and hopefully that day brings a lot of better tidings for those down south as well...
I disagree with both of you. I am glad that Wal-Mart has done what it has done, but please understand this: A corporation exists to generate profits, which are passed on to its shareholders. Absolutely every action or inaction taken by a corporation serves this goal. In fact, according to a corporation's "corporate charter," their executives would be negligent to their shareholders if they did anything that was not intended to improve the bottom line.
(If you don't believe me, watch an excellent documentary called "The Corporation." Even if you do believe me, check it out - it's an education.)
So, whether they are giving their employees jobs in their other stores, or donating money to charities, or inviting people in southern Mississippi to raid their stores of whatever they need (a rumor that I haven't bothered to research) or donating to a university, or anything else... realize that they have made a cold calculation. Wal-Mart benefits in the following ways:
1. Employee loyalty
2. Customer loyalty
3. Media attention
4. A unique thing to brag about on their commercials.
5. Tax deductions
6. Making progress in convincing good liberal people like JT and LR that "maybe Wal-Mart isn't so evil after all."
Don't get me wrong, I don't buy the "Wal-Mart is evil" line. That's WAY too simplistic. Wal-Mart and other corporations are NOT evil. They are neutral organizations run by good/bad/average people who are ONLY PERMITTED by the corporate charter to try to improve the bottom line - these ordinary people are NOT PERMITTED to consider what is good for people or for the environment or the country or the economy. My beef is with the laws and regulations that REQUIRE corporations to be what they are and do what they do - not the corporations themselves.
AB, you sound a lot like the folks posting over at Walmartwatch.com who complain one way or the other about what Wal-Mart does or does not do. They'd complain if Wal-Mart did nothing, and now they're copmlaining after Wal-Mart has donated $17 million to date and millions more in in-kind donations to those affected by hurricane relief. Why? Because Wal-Mart's an evil, selfish corporation.
Yes, AB, Wal-Mart exists to make money. Oh, the horror! Part of how a company makes money is by building customer loyalty. There are a lot of ways to do that. Here's some of what Wal-Mart cynically, manipulatively, and selfishly does in our communities in order to blind us to their evil:
- Wal-Mart has pledged $35 million over ten years to preserve one acre of priority wildlife habitat for every acre it develops.
- Wal-Mart raised $8.5 million in-store, and contributed another $6 million for the construction of the World War II memorial in Washington, DC. Wal-Mart's donation was the largest donation to the construction of the memorial.
- Wal-Mart gave away $61M last year through its Community Grant program. Because it's a match program, Wal-Mart's donations helped to incentivize another $61 million in philanthropic efforts.
- Those pictures of missing kids Wal-Mart posts in its entryways? Three out of four of them have been recovered.
- Wal-Mart provided 900,000 communication kits last fall to active duty soldiers so that they could have phone cards and stationery to write letters home.
It's hardly an all-inclusive list. If you'd like to read more you can go to the Wal-Mart Foundation's website at www.walmartfoundation.org . Last year, Wal-Mart's total charitable giving exceeded $170M, making it the largest corporate cash giving foundation in the United States. Pretty cold and awful, huh?
Bet you'd be surprised to find out that Wal-Mart is run by actual human beings who think and feel and laugh and cry just like you do. Maybe Wal-Mart gives in part because those who run it feel compassion and empathy and sadness just like you and me. And I'm not asking you to respond publicly, but maybe you need think about how far you've opened your wallet in the last week before you critcize Wal-Mart's motivations for opening its wallet. Because from what I've seen on television, people along the Gulf Coast right now probably don't give a damn what anyone's motivation is for helping. They just need help, and a lot of it.
And spare me all that "good liberal" BS too. Do you really process poltical ideology so simply as to think that liberals are "good," like liberal and conservative are character traits and not political dispositions? Because I guess that'd make LR a pretty rotten judge of character for keeping someone wicked evil like me around. You make it sound like anyone who dares to acknowledge Wal-Mart's recent acts of corporate giving is being subjected to some sort of brainwashing by the evil corporations.
I'm pretty sure that LR and JT are perfectly intelligent human beings who can make their own conclusions about this and most everything else in the world. Apparently you think they can't. They probably are also good people though I'm sure that has little to do with their respective political ideologies.
I'm glad you had a chance to show off everything you learned from the last movie you saw. (And in fairness, can that movie really be called a documentary if it was based on a book where the conclusions have already been drawn? Wouldn't "dramatization" be a better word for it?) Now, you might want to try and find some other sources of information - or at least consider with an open mind the other side of the story before coming to such resolute and steadfast conclusions about the state of the world. Because, well, we never know when we're going to be wrong.
(NB: I didn't see the movie AB refers to. I did read the book the movie was based on. It's well-written and actually a pretty good read. But the author definitely has a viewpoint, and it's important to keep that in mind when processing the mountains of information he provides.)
Hey ab,
I'm very aware of all of that... I tend to look very closely at the corporate policies of any company and look into the history of them whenever I decide where to put my dollars... all I said was that I appreciated where their "corporate image building efforts" were going, and never did I suggest that they were necessarily a better company for it. As I said, I know that they will return to their regular shenanigans where they are "helping" soon enough, and such shenanigans are continuing to occur and cause issues elsewhere today.
It sort of reminds me of the couple where a member of the couple only feels it important to celebrate the relationship on Valentine's Day... so long as that day is covered, they must be set for the rest of the year...
Given the fact that the American government appears to be completely unable to get together enough provisions to make any difference (although it appears to be the case that things are a little better as of this weekend), I'm very glad that they did put forth the goods they did at the time.
A few more thoughts to add clarity to my position... :)
Ciao,
Josh
Nice points Spot... I suppose I'm somewhere in between on all this, since I don't feel that the way that WalMart aggressively expands itself and shuts down a lot of small, long-established buisnesses, underpays its employees, etc. etc. etc. is excused by the good deeds...
But... better that they are doing something, right?
Oh well...
Josh :)
Wal-Mart doesn't shut anyone down. Customers shut down locally-owned stores when they choose to shop somewhere else. Of course, customers have also shut down a lot of K-Marts and other corporate stores as well. Customers are pretty indiscriminate that way.
Wal-Mart employees really aren't underpaid when one looks at the retail sector of the economy as a whole. And employment is generally a free-will relationship. If a Wal-Mart employee sees a better opportunity come along, there's nothing stopping him or her from leaving.
I agree that Wal-Mart is not perfect, and I hope that was clear in my first post. But Wal-Mart does a lot of good things in the communities it serves, and it gets far too little credit sometimes for those activities. Wal-Mart isn't just charitable when a hurricane blows into town. It does a lot of really responsible and helpful things even when nobody's paying much attention.
Spot, you make some thoughtful points, and I agree with some of them. In my post, I really didn't criticize anyone at Wal-Mart, or even the corporate entity itself. I called its decision-makers good/bad/average, just like the population of the entire world. Yes, I did take this opportunity to speak about some beliefs I have, which come not only from a single documentary, which - you are correct, is based on a book - which - full disclosure - I have not read.
I think our system is going too far toward pure capitalism. I would like to see more regulation, more of a mixed economy. I am no radical in thinking that.
"Good liberal" was a different usage than you interpreted. It could be written as "committed liberal."
I certainly do appreciate what Wal-Mart is doing, just as I pray that it will be helpful. And, my wallet has opened during the past week as well, since you ask. As I said, I just took the opportunity to say some things that were on my mind.
I dislike Walmart primarily because every single one of their commercials I have ever seen was asinine.
On the other hand, they provide affordable wares for many of my low income friends and family.
I'm about as low income as they come, but somehow I'm able to survive without patronizing the joint. Oh yeah, I don't have a bunch of little mouths to feed. Maybe that's why.
I'm glad they are helping needy people in many ways, regardless of the motivation. I will cease calling Walmart "the Evil Empire," at least for a while. Monsanto has assumed that title in my lexicon. Walmart has been demoted to "the somewhat Evil Empire."
Walmart is hated because they are simply the best at the capitalist game(just like Bush's reasoning for why "the terrorists" hate America--they hate our freedom, blah blah blah). Spot makes a good point about the consumers being the voters who put the little guys out of business. Until public consciousness is weaned from addiction to the best bargain, that's the way it will be. There's a New Yorker cartoon that shows a little storefront with this scrawled on the window: "Mom & Pop Grocery - Going out of business sale, NOT THAT IT'S YOUR FAULT!" This also brings to mind an excellent South Park episode where everyone in the town boycotts their WallMart, and someone actually torches the place. Then they all patronize Gary's Mini Mart (I forget the actual name, but you get the picture). A time lapse succession shows Gary's adding on and growing and growing, until one day, Gary's looks an awful lot like the Wallmart he had so righteously replaced.
IKEA is also an incredibly successful multinational, netting a huge fortune. But evidently IKEA is cool(at least, according to many of my friends), perhaps because it is hip and foreign. I wonder how hip and cool IKEA is perceived to be in Sweden? I wonder if they've run all the mom & pop furniture stores out of business there?
I say the corporate culture system is inhuman. Groupthink prevails. Perhaps the inhumanity of a corporation's core commitment to the bottom line can be ameliorated to some degree by mission statements intended to do good, but the large scale of huge corporations inevitably turns them into machines. Even the Red Cross, for all its good deeds, has gotten into trouble for misappropriating funds and paying top execs huge sums. Incidentally, I wonder what the reasoning is behind the law that requires corporations to do only that which will benefit their shareholders. I'm guessing it has something to do with preventing corporate insiders from sabotaging their companies for personal gain, but I really haven't a clue.
Humans are greedy little bastards. Some just operate on a larger scale than others. I presume the Sherman Antitrust Act is still in effect, although I haven't seen it used much lately.
Exactly, D. I blame the corporate governance laws, not the corporations themselves.
-AB
It makes sense, politically, to attack corporations, not to defend them.
You can wrest concessions from them. Would Wal-Mart be setting aside wild areas if no one were watching?
The idea of capitalism, and of entities known as corporations, may be good ideas, but they aren't perfect ideas. They must be opposed or they go rotten.
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