Citizenship
Here in the sovereign nation of the United States of America we have two classes of citizens, namely the people themselves and certain legal contracts known as corporations having many of the same rights and privileges as people. Both are bounded by the social contract defined by our constitution and body of laws prescribed by the legislative branch of our government. Yet the citizenship of the individuals — human and corporate — varies widely in our society.
On the human side, the very best in citizenship was exhibited by our founding fathers who bet everything — their life and their property — to create our new nation. Even the economic system of that day — mercantilism — had nation building at its core. Capitalism as an economic system and corporations for other than the public good had not yet been born.
None other than Adam Smith himself had warned that the free market system in which capitalism operates could give rise to poor citizenship and he mistrusted businessmen accordingly. So it is that we have of late seen numerous example of poor citizenship on the part of business in general and corporations in particular. And, none of that business citizenship is poorer than that exhibited by our most successful corporation, Wal-Mart.
Okay, Wal-Mart is a good corporate citizen in that it makes its merchandize available to consumers at low prices. Unfortunately, some of the things it does in so doing gives rise to poor corporate citizenship. I'll describe two examples.
The opening of a Wal-Mart store in a given area results in a reduction in the number of retail businesses and the net number of retail-related jobs in that area. In other words, the opening of a new Wal-Mart store does nothing to expand the economy of the affected area. Wal-Mart wins. The shoppers win. Everybody else — local commercial property owners, shippers, bankers, utilities, tax departments of cities and counties, you name it — loses. Cash flows directly to Bentonville.
And I'll not get into the Wal-Mart pay scale and its impact on the wages of the employees who do manage to get a job with Wal-Mart.
On the national level, Wal-Mart is a major contributor to the U.S. trade imbalance. As noted in a earlier post, if Wal-Mart were a country, it would be China's sixth largest trading partner, just behind Germany. Wal-Mart does operate 68 supercenters, 2 Neighborhood Markets and 3 Sam’s Clubs in China but they are a Chinese joint venture and 95% of the goods sold in them are made in China. Not much help there!
In the end, citizenship all comes down to a matter of what's more important — the citizen, the nation, or the corporation — doesn't it?
On the human side, the very best in citizenship was exhibited by our founding fathers who bet everything — their life and their property — to create our new nation. Even the economic system of that day — mercantilism — had nation building at its core. Capitalism as an economic system and corporations for other than the public good had not yet been born.
None other than Adam Smith himself had warned that the free market system in which capitalism operates could give rise to poor citizenship and he mistrusted businessmen accordingly. So it is that we have of late seen numerous example of poor citizenship on the part of business in general and corporations in particular. And, none of that business citizenship is poorer than that exhibited by our most successful corporation, Wal-Mart.
Okay, Wal-Mart is a good corporate citizen in that it makes its merchandize available to consumers at low prices. Unfortunately, some of the things it does in so doing gives rise to poor corporate citizenship. I'll describe two examples.
The opening of a Wal-Mart store in a given area results in a reduction in the number of retail businesses and the net number of retail-related jobs in that area. In other words, the opening of a new Wal-Mart store does nothing to expand the economy of the affected area. Wal-Mart wins. The shoppers win. Everybody else — local commercial property owners, shippers, bankers, utilities, tax departments of cities and counties, you name it — loses. Cash flows directly to Bentonville.
And I'll not get into the Wal-Mart pay scale and its impact on the wages of the employees who do manage to get a job with Wal-Mart.
On the national level, Wal-Mart is a major contributor to the U.S. trade imbalance. As noted in a earlier post, if Wal-Mart were a country, it would be China's sixth largest trading partner, just behind Germany. Wal-Mart does operate 68 supercenters, 2 Neighborhood Markets and 3 Sam’s Clubs in China but they are a Chinese joint venture and 95% of the goods sold in them are made in China. Not much help there!
In the end, citizenship all comes down to a matter of what's more important — the citizen, the nation, or the corporation — doesn't it?
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