by Zach Bigalke

Created on: March 11, 2008

Bentonville, Arkansas saw the humble birth of an eventual behemoth on July 2, 1962, when Sam Walton opened his first five-and-dime store. The trend of the time, Walton would grow his franchise into a worldwide enterprise grossing over $300 billion in sales in 2005. The American consumer has found a place where one can acquire mass-produced goods for an inexpensive price...

As it blossomed, it lost its community focus to become a conglomerate concerned with profit. The damage it does to America is threefold:

1. Independent business has been replaced by big-box stores.
2. Manufacturing jobs have departed to cheaper labor markets.
3. A disposable-consumption society has grown due to cheap and readily-available products.

Yet what is this mass consumption REALLY achieving? The Walton family takes treasure baths every night, while their workers toil for minimum wage and meager benefits. The American community has devolved beyond the game of having it better than the Joneses - now we want it better and cheaper AND faster! Quality locally-made crafts have been replaced by carbon-copy plastic baubles... we have become a disposable society thanks to the example set by Wal-Mart. Is your blender broken? Buy another! Is the DVD player busted? Don't fix it... BUY ANOTHER! Buy, buy, BUY...

To manufacture all these low-quality, low-price items, jobs have traveled overseas to where the labor is cheap and plentiful. Americans are increasingly being forced out of higher-paying manufacturing jobs and right into the arms of... low-paying jobs such as those provided by... you guessed it, Wal-Mart! It is a dangerous corkscrew descent where our economy becomes even more fractious and the gap becomes even wider. As Wal-Mart's dividend share grows, so too does its destructive power over American society...

And as Wal-Mart opens new stores all the while, it does so to the detriment of the businesses already in the community. When Wal-Mart moves in, independent local businesses are already at a disadvantage to compete with the prices offered by the retail chain. Couple that with the diversion of retail traffic to parts of town segregated from traditional commercial centers, and Wal-Mart contributes to destroy the spirit of healthy competitive business...

Sam Walton and his corporation have done well for themselves... but it has done nothing but promote wasteful consumption and destroy the American job market. Wal-Mart is incalculably terrible for America and American interests...

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