Wal-Mart

[Spasiba]

So a Wal-Mart is being built near where I live, it was controversial, and there are already 2 within 15 miles of this one, one of the being a supercenter. What can I do?

[RedDawn]

Protest more, appeal to construction workers?

Maybe get a job there and attempt a union drive?

Really, you are probably fucked in that situation, but you can win points for trying!

[ecoTROTSKYIST]

Yeah good advice comrade :D do what u can 2 educate and organise people in da area.

In Camden, London, enough people protested about the plan to build a new Starbucks store in da area that they managed 2 get the chain store banned from ever opening in the area again! :cool:

[Vanguard1917]

So a Wal-Mart is being built near where I live, it was controversial, and there are already 2 within 15 miles of this one, one of the being a supercenter. What can I do?

Why are you against the opening of this store exactly?

[Autonome-Antifa]

In Germany Real,- is now part of Wal-Mart.

[A-S M.]

molotov('s)? nah just kidding ;) I doubt there can be done anything within the bounderies of the law...

[RedAnarchist]

In Germany Real,- is now part of Wal-Mart.

In the UK, they own ASDA, which is a fairly large supermarket chain.

[Autonome-Antifa]

In the UK, they own ASDA, which is a fairly large supermarket chain.

Real,- is also one of the biggest supermarkt stores in germany.

[chimx]

Why are you against the opening of this store exactly?

Just curious, would you like to see Walmart's continue to spread/grow in the United States?

[Vanguard1917]

Just curious, would you like to see Walmart's continue to spread/grow in the United States?


No, i'd like to see working class people take control over the mass distribution of food, along with all other goods. What i'm curious to know is why exactly the opening of a new supermarket is being opposed.

[YSR]

Because Wal-Mart systematically lowers the wage of areas in which it moves. This is particularly true in small towns. The petite-bourgeois which tends to operate most businesses in such areas cannot possibly compete with Wal-Mart. There are many well-documented cases of Wal-Mart moving in to small towns and completely destroying them.

I participated (marginally) in anti-Wal-Mart work in my hometown when I was in high school. It meant plugging my nose and working with local business owners and other scummy people, but we won and kept it out of town. Petitions are a good way to start. We never had to get beyond that stage, because our city council denied Wal-Mart's building permit. But if that doesn't happen in your case, you can raise pressure and militancy as you go. Starting with mass meetings is a good way to get conversation going and build strategic organizing.

[Marsella]

Since when have we been defenders of petty-bourgeoisie and their profits?

I think I'm with Vanguard1917 on this one. Suprisingly.


There are many well-documented cases of Wal-Mart moving in to small towns and completely destroying them.

Which is a forseeable response of capitalism right? Monopolization?

[YSR]

I have absolutely no sympathy for the "oh, let's just let capitalism work out its natural course" line of dogmatic Marxism. It is absolutely disconnected from any level of class struggle. Wal-Mart is absolutely horrific for workers. It's unthinkable to say to a worker that he/she should just accept Wal-Mart because it's how monopolization works. For that worker, it's a very clear difference: a workplace where they can organize, where they have the potential of having power on the shop floor, where they can negotiate with the boss vs. the most anti-union firm in the United States, with sub-poverty wages and terrible conditions.

This is an absolute no-brainer. We are not "defenders of the petty-bourgeoisie and their profits. We are defenders of workers. And workers get hurt by the monopolization of firms like Wal-Mart. Yes, small traditional bourgeoisie do as well, but that's incidental. Wal-Mart (and other mega-firms) are clearly class issues.

Martov, your signature says it perfectly: "Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. He has not come; he never will come." This is exactly an argument against the kind of thinking which is exemplified by the "eventualist" line of reductionist Marxism that you are defending here.

[Marsella]

I have absolutely no sympathy for the "oh, let's just let capitalism work out its natural course" line of dogmatic Marxism. It is absolutely disconnected from any level of class struggle. Wal-Mart is absolutely horrific for workers. It's unthinkable to say to a worker that he/she should just accept Wal-Mart because it's how monopolization works. For that worker, it's a very clear difference: a workplace where they can organize, where they have the potential of having power on the shop floor, where they can negotiate with the boss vs. the most anti-union firm in the United States, with sub-poverty wages and terrible conditions.Whoa hold up, I think we have misunderstood each other.

Did you mean petty bourgeoisie in this sentence?: "There are many well-documented cases of Wal-Mart moving in to small towns and completely destroying them." or small towns?

No of course I don't support idly sitting by. I support movements in which I can see a verifiable gain for the working class.

How does defending small business owners do this?

'Absolutely horrific' for workers? Could you show me some information about the conditions in Walmart or something of such a nature? I have worked in super markets before and whilst it was shitty work, it was no different to any other job (unionizing attacked, shit wages, shit conditions poor hours)

I don't defend petty bourgeoisie seeking to defend their interests in the face of better competition.

I do defend the rights of workers to, at the very least, have some sort of negotiatable power (even though I am critical about unions).


Martov, your signature says it perfectly: "Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. He has not come; he never will come." This is exactly an argument against the kind of thinking which is exemplified by the "eventualist" line of reductionist Marxism that you are defending here.I'm not defending that line, nor do I agree with it.

We should never idly sit by and think that capitalism will abolish itself.

It takes class struggle.

But who's class?

[Vanguard1917]

No of course I don't support idly sitting by. I support movements in which I can see a verifiable gain for the working class.

How does defending small business owners do this?


It doesn't. The distinctively petit-bourgeois opposition to Wal-Mart is definitely one which should not be shared by socialists.

Historically speaking, i cannot think of any significant socialist movement which rallied against the opening of a new supermarket, factory or other large workplace. Indeed, socialists welcomed such expansions of large-scale capitalism over small-scale capitalism, because it created jobs for masses of working class people.

The answer to worker exploitation is working class organisation, which you should be helping to bring about if you genuinely do care about workers' wages and working conditions. But the proletarianisation of small, petit-bourgeois communities is how, objectively, the working class grows, spreads and increases in social weight.

Where i agree with YSR is where he says that socialists should not regard change as inevitable, bowing down to the deterministic and fatalistic line: '"oh, let's just let capitalism work out its natural course"'.

The problem is, throughout the West, the working class has largely retreated from political life. Those of us who want to see a progressive, working class alternative to capitalism are faced with a political situation in which those who 'criticise' large-scale capitalists are sections of the more instinctively reactionary sections of society. In the UK, for example, some of the most vocal opponents of Britain's biggest supermarket chain, Tesco, are conservatives and various snotty middle class miserabilists who hate mass consumption of the goods which previously only they could afford to consume.

I would recommend this excellent article which was published last year - "What's behind the rise of 'Tescophobia'?" (http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/reviewofbooks_article/3371/). It explains the reasons behind why a 'degenerate alliance of blue-blooded conservatives and tired old left-wingers has declared war on Tesco', and why we should oppose this.

[Black Cross]

Martov, no one gives a rat's ass about the petty bourgoise. Just because we happen to slightly help them is no excuse to be apathetic. Wal-Mart is a working class antagonist on its face, and its spread and growth should be halted.

[YSR]

Did you mean petty bourgeoisie in this sentence?: "There are many well-documented cases of Wal-Mart moving in to small towns and completely destroying them." or small towns?

I meant towns themselves. Sorry for not being clear.


The answer to worker exploitation is working class organisation, which you should be helping to bring about if you genuinely do care about workers' wages and working conditions. But the proletarianisation of small, petit-bourgeois communities is how, objectively, the working class grows, spreads and increases in social weight.

I think you're misrepresenting the class composition of small communities. You're presenting the difference as "lots of petit-bourgeois" and post-wal-mart as "lots of proletarians, a couple bosses." But of course, small towns are just as class stratified as the cities. The lines may be harder to identify, but there's still worker-boss relationships in almost every workplace. Working class organization is not dead in small towns.

As to the rest of your point: I am not arguing against the introduction of large business into small towns. I am, however, arguing that it is in workers' interests to stop Wal-Mart specifically from entering. Not because I give a shit about the "wal-martization" of culture or other such idealist things that prompt petit-bourgeois concerns. I argued hard when working against Wal-Mart that these issues were not the most important ones.

No, I oppose Wal-Mart because of the concrete concerns that I expressed earlier: the most anti-union workplace in America, a tendency to deflate wages across whole areas that it affects. Working class organization is nearly impossible at that retailer from within the store. Massive business unions have spent lots of their money and totally failed to organize Wal-Mart employees. If they do get a union there, Wal-Mart simply leaves and destroys the local economy.

Fighting Wal-Mart is concretely in the working class's interests. Does it fall into very narrow traditional categories of what constitutes "appropriate" working class activity? Absolutely not. Rather, it indicates an understanding of a fully integrated capitalist system, that a blow against it in one place is a blow against the whole thing.

[Vanguard1917]

I think you're misrepresenting the class composition of small communities. You're presenting the difference as "lots of petit-bourgeois" and post-wal-mart as "lots of proletarians, a couple bosses." But of course, small towns are just as class stratified as the cities. The lines may be harder to identify, but there's still worker-boss relationships in almost every workplace. Working class organization is not dead in small towns.

But the level of working class presence and concentration which we see in urban areas is clearly not present in small towns and in the countryside. For this reason, throughout history, radical working class movements have tended to arise out of the large towns.



No, I oppose Wal-Mart because of the concrete concerns that I expressed earlier: the most anti-union workplace in America, a tendency to deflate wages across whole areas that it affects. Working class organization is nearly impossible at that retailer from within the store. Massive business unions have spent lots of their money and totally failed to organize Wal-Mart employees. If they do get a union there, Wal-Mart simply leaves and destroys the local economy.


OK, but such sentiments do not guide the anti-supermarket movements which we have today. If they did, then we could engage with these movements and deal with their arguments. Instead, these movements are marked by their conservatism and middle class composition and anti-growth prejudices.

The article which i linked in my previous post really needs to be read, as it deals in detail with a lot of the issues brought up here.

[Lenin II]

Martov an YSR, you are both essentially right on key points. Theoretically speaking, all capitalist businesses are exploitive and unjust. Anything you buy in capitalist countries is sweatshop-made, whether it’s sold at Wal-Mart or mom-and-pop stores. Corporatism and monopolization are inevitable side effects that only increase the working people’s class consciousness and destroy their faith in capitalism. However, certain petty-bourgeoisie businesses can be progressive (certainly more progressive than Wal-Mart), such as ones that buy their products for fair prices or are collectively owned by their employees. But will acknowledging these preferences or differences within the petty-bourgeoisie encourage reformism? Will it make Starbucks liberals out of us? Not if we don't let it and never let it substitute for political work.

[INDK]

Because Wal-Mart systematically lowers the wage of areas in which it moves. This is particularly true in small towns. The petite-bourgeois which tends to operate most businesses in such areas cannot possibly compete with Wal-Mart. There are many well-documented cases of Wal-Mart moving in to small towns and completely destroying them.

Reminds of that episode of South Park... :laugh:

On a serious note, You can attempt to get a job there and shake up production, organize and protest if you can, and things of that nature, but, to tell ya the absolute truth, you usually can't beat Wal-Mart. Not to mention lots of ignorant people who think a big superstore with great low prices is productive for society in the long-run.

[Spasiba]

Why are you against the opening of this store exactly?
Well, it's just completely unnecessary, for one. This is just a town, and like I said, there are already 2 within a 15 mile radus of this one, whats the point? I understand that small-businesses aren't great either, but they're better than this being that I see as being a truly capitalist monster, and I'd rather it not keep growing over the world.
They've already broken ground, so there's no stopping the building now.

[Vanguard1917]

Well, it's just completely unnecessary, for one. This is just a town, and like I said, there are already 2 within a 15 mile radus of this one, whats the point? I understand that small-businesses aren't great either, but they're better than this being that I see as being a truly capitalist monster, and I'd rather it not keep growing over the world.


Having supermarkets growing all over the world is better than any other capitalist alternative - certainly better than the petit-bourgeois alternative espoused by the trendy middle class anti-Wal-Mart movement.

[chimx]

I would hate it given the differences in the quality of products.

[MarxSchmarx]

To be fair, there's a lot of idiocy in the anti-walmart movement. But some of it is useful propaganda. If you can get the "blue-bloods" to make life hell for a union-busting company, even if their motivations are laughable, who cares?

Moreover, the point about not shopping at stores that bust unions to save 5% is fair. How is this any more "reactionary" than patronizing a worker-owned co-op, even if the goods are 5% more expensive? Or, for that matter, working to get the building permit denied to walmart different from working to get the bldg permit approved for the worker's co-op?


Not to mention lots of ignorant people who think a big superstore with great low prices is productive for society in the long-run.

It IS productive for society in the long-run, all else being equal. Unfortunately in walmarts case the low prices are achieved through lower costs. They pull this scam by (1) monopolizing the market for suppliers and (2) crappy working conditions.

[Vanguard1917]

To be fair, there's a lot of idiocy in the anti-walmart movement. But some of it is useful propaganda. If you can get the "blue-bloods" to make life hell for a union-busting company, even if their motivations are laughable, who cares?


Even if their motivations are utterly reactionary? There is, as i'm sure you're aware, nothing necessarily progressive about attacking big business. Indeed, some of the most vocal 'opponents' of 'corporayshuns' today are people who have no real interest in progressive social change.

See, for example, this 250+ post thread from Stormfront - w ww.***************/forum/showthread.php/my-trip-wal-mart-435073.html - where various neo-nazis show that they're bitterly hostile to Wal-Mart causing 'mass consumption', 'waste', small shopkeepers going bankrupt, etc., along with immigrants having jobs. Take away the far-right rhetoric and their criticisms are almost identical to those of mainstream anti-Wal-Mart crusaders.

This is not coincidental. In the absence of a working class critique, criticisms of capitalism tend, as a rule of thumb, to be reactionary, which is what is happening here with our Western middle class phoney 'anti-capitalists' who hate large supermarket chains for all the wrong reasons.

[Che Garcia]

Fight it!! Nonviolently try organizing a group of people who agree with you and take the issue to your city hall or council. if the dont listen break out the picket signs. that land can be uses for something better than a wal-mart

[ironguy]

trust me, we can fight this and WE can with this.

all you need to do is exploit the corruption that this entity represents.

walmart
watch. com/

wakeupwalm
art. com/

hel-mart.
com
/links .php

walmartm
ovie. com/


MOST OF ALL!
video.google.
com/videoplay?
docid=-3836296181471292925&q=high+cost+of+low+prices&total=474&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

That video is important.

you have your information, now what?

now print this information out. find some key points, throw it into photoshop, gimpII, or whatever you can to make a flyer or poster. take a few dollors out of your bank acount and run over to the nearest kinkos or whatever printing store you can and print your work.

Rally the people! start a partition for everyone to sign it. i am not 100% sure but i think you need at least 100 (its not as bad as it may sound)

send this to wal-mart and a copy to your govner, mayor, and other political officials in your area.

I live in dunkirk, MD. this worked for the most part. the Wal-mart that WAS going to be built here, would had been a super wal-mart... it would had made our farms look small and impotent. Eventuelly people decided that we will let the wal-mart build here, ONLY if it is a very, very small one. and so it was. it didn't hurt buisness that much, if at all. stores still do compete and still can win in our area. if anything its more of an attraction now to draw people to the smaller businesses here. (yes thats how small we have gotten it, people come here expecting a big one and see a small one covered by small stores...) the best part is, you can get pretty much anything from these smaller stores that you can get at the wal-mart. personlly i never shoped there. but ya...

--- SORRY! i posted link when i know i am not allowed yet, but this is important and so im sure this can be overlooked. sorry once again.

[YSR]

Vanguard. A working class critique of Wal-Mart has been outlined. In this thread even. Why are you continuing to repeat irrelevant things about reactionaries? We know they're reactionaries, but so is Sam Walton's company.

[Vanguard1917]

A working class critique of Wal-Mart has been outlined.


Not really. There has not been a single coherent explanation of how opposing the opening of a new Wal-Mart store is in the interests of the working class. Most working class people welcome the opening of a large supermarket near their homes because it makes their lives easiers.



Why are you continuing to repeat irrelevant things about reactionaries?


It's not irrelevant: mainstream criticisms of Wal-Mart are shared by far-right reactionaries precisely because such criticisms arereactionary in content.


We know they're reactionaries, but so is Sam Walton's company.

There's nothing specially reactionary about Wal-Mart. All companies which employ workers exploit workers. The reason that it has become fashionable to attack Wal-Mart has little to do with its exploitation of workers, and more to do with the fact that it represents all the things which the Western middle class hates: mass consumption and economic growth.

[Individuality]

Not really. There has not been a single coherent explanation of how opposing the opening of a new Wal-Mart store is in the interests of the working class. Most working class people welcome the opening of a large supermarket near their homes because it makes their lives easiers.
I have to applaud you. I agree 100%. Walmart provides unbelievable service to those that really need it.

[Labor Shall Rule]

I come from a small town, and there is greater collective cohesion between the petit-bourgeois and the working class in those areas. In my former house, for example, I was neighbors with the owner of a supermarket, and a rubber plant worker, who both would meet up every weekend to watch the football game.

There was actually a strike at a cannery plant a few years back, and I remember local pizza parlors and bakeries provided the workers with free tents and food.

The existence of a tight-nit community is progressive, in that it is opposed to everything that capitalism represents. To take the 'orthodox' position would be alienating; most people would be incredibly turned off to the message that they must submit to the will of corporate "competitiveness," squeezing out other local retailers, as well as seeing the rate of exploitation increase to unheard of levels. The wages (as mentioned) would decrease as the low wage job market would be monopolized, and employees would have no access to health care insurance.

Marx, when asked about the prospects of revolution in Russia, related to the 'close ties' of certain peasants' communes with the cities. Of course, all work was entirely collective, but I think it holds relevance to this discussion—Marx did not hold on to the stereotypical adage of "the more immiserating the condition, the better," and recommended that the 'archaic' that was based on close bonds with the working class could actually detach itself from its reactionary character later on in time through socialist revolution.


From the historical point of view the only serious argument put forward in favor of the fatal dissolution of the Russian peasants’ commune is this: By going back a long way communal property of a more or less archaic type may be found throughout Western Europe; everywhere it has disappeared with increasing social progress. Why should it be able to escape the same fate in Russia alone? I reply: because in Russia, thanks to a unique combination of circumstances, the rural commune, still established on a nationwide scale, may gradually detach itself from its primitive features and develop directly as an element of collective production on a nationwide scale. It is precisely thanks to its contemporaneity with capitalist production that it may appropriate the latter’s positive acquisitions without experiencing all its frightful misfortunes. Russia does not live in isolation from the modern world; neither is it the prey of a foreign invader like the East Indies.

[ironguy]

I have to applaud you. I agree 100%. Walmart provides unbelievable service to those that really need it.

personally pall, i am somewhat of a capitalist and even i recognize how Wal-mart is a horrible company and even defeats capitalism with this horrible corrupted form of near fascism. the perfect merger of state of corpret power.

did you know they will on average raise your taxes by a few hundred dollars? they do not look out for their employees (i know this because i worked for them) they have horrible health insurance that is too expensive. they eat up smaller stores. they exploit the workers here in America and China. they over externalize the costs of there goods at the expense of the workers. they even under hire and work there current employees as hard as they can in order to save cash. the Walton family even made a crisis foundation to help other Wal-mart employees in need. Wal-mart employees contributed nearly 5 million to help other employees. the Walton family only gave 6000 bucks. yet they make over a billion a year. there is something wrong with this picture pall.

I like the ideas behind capitalism, and i like the ideas behind socialism. but i sure as Heck hate fascism.

[ironguy]

They've already broken ground, so there's no stopping the building now.

Tell that to the people in Dunkirk... :cool:

[Comrade Nadezhda]

In Racine Walmart has been around for a long time [even longer in Kenosha]. Most people in Racine are working-class. Since the factories shut down the majority of work found is retail, restaurant, etc. leaving the majority of working-class people without better work than at grocery stores, walmart, starbucks, mcdonalds, burger king, subway, etc. Many proletarians are unemployed. Walmart is able to take advantage of the situation which proletarians face. They pay low wages but there isn't much said against it because of the reality faced in daily life - there isn't much better. In that regard, the only way to eliminate walmart would be through revolution.

[erupt]

There has not been a single coherent explanation of how opposing the opening of a new Wal-Mart store is in the interests of the working class. Most working class people welcome the opening of a large supermarket near their homes because it makes their lives easiers.
I agree, Wal Mart's prices for things like jackets, working pants, paint, etc. are cheap comparable to other super markets. I don't like Wal-Mart, and I want to get that across; but that doesn't mean that if worker's are forced to live in a capitalistic society they can't help themselves by spending less money at Wal-Mart.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

There was actually a strike at a cannery plant a few years back, and I remember local pizza parlors and bakeries provided the workers with free tents and food.

During the 2005 transit workers' strike in New York City, some bakeries, restaurants and bodegas brought food to the picket lines and/or gave striking workers discounts. New York is hardly a "small town."

Anyway, I'm not really sure how your assertion/analysis would be relevant even if it were entirely correct.

If the workers in one of those "local pizza shops" try to unionize, what do you think would happen? Would other "local pizza shops" send pizza's over to them when they were on the line?

* * *

A lot of the arguments being put forward against Wal-Mart in this thread, and more generally, come from a liberal perspective.

Calls to permanently boycott Wal-Mart, stop its openings, etc., are basically class-devoid, liberal, 'consumer'-focused "shop with your dollars" ideas.

Communists don't chastise workers for shopping where things are the cheapest and easiest to get. What we do is fight to organize the workers at Wal-Mart and its various suppliers.

[careyprice31]

In our capital city st johns, there was a walmart. They moved.....I'll tell u something else about walmart other than the fact that they exploit sweat shop labor. Walmart likes to remain in one place and take all the costumers away from smaller capitalists. Once they have driven almost everyone else almost out of business they then move to a new location. They've done this a couple times now. That's capitalists for you.

[Cmde. Slavyanski]

One should not forget that often times, certain middle-class small business owners, who don't think they will be affected by a wal-mart, actually welcome them in.

[AGITprop]

Well, it's just completely unnecessary, for one. This is just a town, and like I said, there are already 2 within a 15 mile radus of this one, whats the point? I understand that small-businesses aren't great either, but they're better than this being that I see as being a truly capitalist monster, and I'd rather it not keep growing over the world.
They've already broken ground, so there's no stopping the building now.

The fact of the matter is, working class people need cheap shit.Wal Mart has it. Fighting Wal-Mart opening is not totally unproductive though, as you can use it as a tool for propaganda and help create class consciousness. You will never be able to stop them, but if you are going to fight them, use your time efficiently to help raise awareness.