The People vs. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

As more and more people learn about the inhuman ways in which Wal-Mart treats their employees, more and more people are starting to protest the global uprising. At the same time though, a LOT of people are still continuing to shop at their local Wal-Mart. Why? To save money of course. The majority of the American population is oblivious to what is going on within the confines of the corporation, and even when they do get informed, it is still about saving money. "If it's true...I do think they hurt small businesses..You can't stop free trade, unless the community rallies against it," said a Florida senior citizen. The truth really does hurt, because he is right. Unless an entire community (the United States in this case) rallies against Wal-Mart and their "everyday low prices," a business like Wal-Mart is going to continue to flourish in a capitalist society.

Now that people are starting to figure out Wal-Mart, the company is being forced to do things to keep their customers. One of their claims is that they are going to start providing health care to all their employees, which is true, but skewed to their liking. Yes, Wal-Mart will provide health care to their employees, but at a 30% cost to the employees. Workload is the same, paycheck even smaller; that is, if the employees decide to shoulder that 30% cost to receive health care. Since Wal-Mart is so ideologically driven, it will be that much harder to take down the beast that lives in a world where mainstream ideologies control people's everyday thoughts.

The numbers are mind-boggling; 10,000 cases against Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart being responsible for almost $100 billion of the $500 billion trade deficit, and yet the business itself continues to flourish. Is money really that important? The $100 billion that Wal-Mart "contributes" to the trade deficit comes from their exploits in China, where Wal-Mart continues to exploit the people for cheap labor in the name of "free trade."

Organizations across America are rising up to fight the globalizer; in New Jersey, the LETS group is trying to educate their residents on the dangers of Wal-Mart and how the company is satisfying the people's low cost needs. Wal-Mart is trying to push itself from the rural areas of the country to the urban cities, which would make their business flourish even more, but the people are trying to fight it. In 2004, Wal-Mart began talks of bringing a Wal-Mart into the Chicago area, but this came with great resistance. In '05, Wal-Mart tried to spread its influence to Portland with great resistance as well. Taro O'Sullivan, a journalist who writes for the Asian Reporter, wrote an article supporting the local businesses, using that as the main reason to not allow Wal-Mart into the community. Besides the fact that it is exploiting workers in Asia with cheap labor, Wal-Mart is taking away from the local businesses, the real community supporters. Within the Asian community, "small businesses are often the only way many families can survive," and Wal-Mart takes that away, all for that extra dollar.

It is getting to the point where people are putting so much importance on money that Wal-Mart is trying to buy out its naysayers, and the scary thing about it, is that Wal-Mart has enough money to do it, and it might actually work. This all stems from the constant driving of the capitalist ideology into our society's head.

So, now that we have figured out that Wal-Mart gets its power from the ideologies that drive our everyday society, we must not attack the business aspect of Wal-Mart itself (although this is the reason for debate). Like Cindy Lewinter, writer for the Jewish News said, "If Wal-Mart is the logical result of late-capitalist development-which seems obvious, then any 'movement' must seek to set in motion forces that will resist the encroachments of capital on society. So we must not attack Wal-Mart for what it is doing to society, but instead we must spearhead the bigger dragon of capitalism, because Wal-Mart is just another piece in the game of capitalist chess.

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Resource Guide to all Things Wal Mart!

The evil trends of capitalism that are spreading across not only our great nation but our entire world in general are the main reason for me choosing this topic. Wal-Mart is the ideal example on how to run a successful business, cheap labor costs, cheap products, and skyrocketing profit. Wal-Mart has two personalities; in the business world, it is an icon setting the standard on moneymaking. In the social world, more and more people are starting to realize how evil Wal-Mart is, but yet they still make money. Why, or how, someone might ask, is Wal-Mart continuing to be more and more successful even though more and more people are finding out about their immoral methods of cost-cutting. It is because society puts more importance on money than they do anything else, and Wal-Mart's unethical practices are an attest to my reason for picking this topic; I picked it in order to emphasize the influence capitalism has on the rest of the world, how this spread of capitalism has made money number one in people's minds, and what kind of damaging things a capitalist mindset can do.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2003-01-28-walmartnation_x.htm

http://ntserver1.wsulibs.wsu.edu:2182/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T7847229956&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T7847229963&cisb=22_T7847229962&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=303830&docNo=21

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/biz/india-business/India-critical-for-global-growth-Wal-Mart/articleshow/5798939.cms

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/services/retailing/Bharti-Walmart-to-foray-into-south-west-India-within-2-yrs/articleshow/5796775.cms


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Wal-Mart & Their "Disposable Women"

With the spreading of global business, comes the spreading of global ideologies, and when global businesses take over smaller entities, their ideologies do the same. With American businesses spreading across the globe, dominating every aspect of the capitalist world, comes the onslaught of American ideology all over the globe. This is one of the reasons why I like to refer to globalization as "capitalist colonization." I use this term to refer to the way that the American business take over is not just making American business head of the business world, but also the social world.

The main way that these large, global businesses, Wal-Mart being the largest, make their money is because of cheap labor. The capitalist way is to find a way to make an inexpensive, quality product that people will buy without having to spend money on workers, because paying employees is the number one expense of every business. So, if big businesses can travel abroad and find the cheapest labor, that will cut a huge portion of their budget. Not only do they travel to these countries that are portrayed as "Third World," but they get workers who are portrayed as more disposable, women. The American portrayal of the Third World women as almost disposable legitimizes global businesses in using these women as cheap labor. They have no problem taking large numbers of women and making them work long hours in horrible conditions...as long as their business is making them money. Women are seen as more obedient, more detail-focused, more dexterous, and more nimble, so global retailers such as a Wal-Mart use women from these disadvantaged countries to make cheap clothing to sell in their stores. The stereotype of the Asian American as submissive contributes to American businesses going to East Asia to look for female workers who fit the racial stereotype.

After a while of this ongoing cycle of oppression, it becomes naturalized in these women's minds, and becomes what is real. Not only do they become cut off from the majority of society, they get cut off from their own families for long periods of time. Just like how a lot of Mexican miles migrate to the US for the sole purpose of supporting their family, these female sweatshop workers migrate, with promises of opportunity, to support their families but instead get caught in a situation that is the opposite of what they were expecting. Although there are no official statistics on sweatshop workers, the overwhelming majority is women.

Not only do these women face horrible working conditions, but when they do get sick or injured, their jobs are quicky under question. If they get seriously injured, they are fired without a question, because they can be easily replaced. If they are sick, they are sent home, usually without care, so others do not get sick. Even the women who work in the actual Wal-Mart stores across the globe are treated disposably, although not as harsh. Female workers at Wal-Marts have disposable jobs as well; not only do they get moved around from store to store at their expense. In Selling Women Short, women like Betty Dukes, who first began the unrest amongst female workers at Wal-Mart, talk about how they were constantly transferred from store to store. Women like Dukes had to travel far distances to make little pay and have little opportunity for advancement. Some people say it isn't worth it, but the women who work at the Wal-Marts in our country, as well as the sweatshop workers abroad, travel distances for the sole purpose of making the money to support their family. Why so much importance on money?

The same way gender ideologies have been spreading across the globe because of globalization, the capitalist ideology is doing the same. Everything we do in a capitalist society centers around money, and as global business tyrants like Wal-Mart spread this idea throughout the globe, people such as these sweatshop workers are forced to abandon their cultural and societal ways in order to survive in the spreading capitalist world.

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