I would say that in all, wal-mart is an "evil" company. For instance, the sexual discrimination in areas that women could perform perfectly well in (i.e store management, which requires no "man power" at all), and the fact that they are not being honest with their sales tactics ("Buy America" campaign). The problem is, I cannot see what could possibly be done to stop Walmart, seeing as they have such a large percent of society dependent on their low prices.
After reading the data, I would venture to say that Walmart is an "evil" corporation. One of the main reasons is that the average salary per hour and yearly salary are lower than America's average. In order to be an efficient corporation, a company should not have to compromise its workers in the process. As a "good" corporation, Walmart should be able to maintain a high worth and treat its employees well financially. In addition to the low median salary, there also comes the issue of gender discrimination. The lack of women in management positions is astounding. Choosing someone based on their qualifications should always be the way of determining who receives a job. By having only 33% of women in management jobs, it's quite obvious that discrimination is occurring because women are just as capable of performing those tasks as men. Another issue making Walmart an "evil" corporation is the false marketing of foreign products as American under the "Buy America" Campaign. Granted, I believe that any competent person should be able to tell whether a product is made in America, I do think that is proves the evil in the company. By doing this, Walmart is indirectly hurting America by promoting foreign goods under the false name of our country.
In regards to wages, I do not think Walmart is necessarily an evil corporation. Walmart found its success by selling their goods at extremely low prices, and it would not be so popular otherwise. By becoming such a successful company, they were able to expand and employ well over a million people across the country. Although their employees' wages are 30 cents shy of the national average, it is very probable that these workers would not have jobs at all if it weren't for the success of Walmart. With that said, Walmart should by no means drop its wages any lower in proportion to the national average or they would be unreasonably exploiting their employees. On the contrary, Walmart can be classified as evil through their obvious discrimination against women and their pretentious "Buy America" slogan. It is absolutely crass that some people are still so blinded by ignorance in assuming women are less qualified to fulfill higher management positions. Merit, not gender, should be the only deciding element when choosing positions. Lastly, Walmart should not blatantly lie in such a nationwide campaign in an effort to deceitfully manipulate customers' decisions.
Walmart does create jobs, supply low priced goods for consumers, participate in philanthropy, and prompt a hilarious website featuring pictures of their "interesting" shoppers. So I wouldn't classify them as evil, necessarily. However, it seems to me that strengthening the private sector through their "job creation" has two sides to it. In this case, it looks like quantity does not necessarily mean quality. Their average salary is below the average nationwide salary and the statistics about how often they are sued for various employee reasons is frightening. They could probably create more and better jobs if their CEO wasn't raking in as much as he is. Then again one could argue that their philanthropy would decrease. Low paying jobs like these are the ones that convince people on unemployment to stay on unemployment. That is evil. I want to bring attention to another well known store that is a personal favorite of mine and I think is doing fabulous things for the economy: COSTCO! This link is an article about their generous hourly wage of $19.50 for those who have worked there 4 or more years:http://current.com/shows/viewpoint/blog/high-wages-dont-mean-low-profits-and-costco-proves-it/ This article also says each employee has very nice health benefits, and the company has fairly high profit. This shows that it is completely possible to keep employees happy, make a decent profit, and keep prices low for consumers. My dad swears by Costco, and you could have a nice sized meal there just from free samples. I just dug a little deeper into the Wal-Mart v. Costco story and discovered that Costco's revenue per employee is about five times higher than that of Wal-Mart. Also, Costco's long term growth is projected to be higher than that of Wal-Mart. (I'm getting this info from a new website: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2008/06/wage_against_the_machine.2.html). The possible issue with Costco, though, is that most of their employees belong to the Teamster Union, which might be the reason for the high wages (rather than just CEO benevolence). But multiple statements from Costco's CEO have revealed that he believes in treating his employees well and he doesn't seem to mind that Costco has a lower margin than Wal-Mart. After my analysis of Costco v. Wal-Mart, I do believe Wal-Mart is evil, in comparison. Costco seems to practice my personal favorite theory of communist capitalism which is practicing capitalism with everyone's net happiness in mind. Costco seems to be looking out for everyone and worries about net happiness over their own personal profit. Based on the stats that we were given, Wal-Mart seems not to abide by communist capitalism, but rather by capitalist capitalism: make more profit, always.
Walmart is a great company that creates thousands of jobs and sells products and low, desirable prices to consumers. With regards to how they pay their workers, the employees of Walmart chose to work there. They were not forced into working there. If they don't like it, they can go work at Costco (per Shawn's wonderful anaylsis) or somewhere else.
For those who believe that Walmart is "evil": How would you prefer Walmart to be regulated to end so-called "discrimination"? Would you like government to do so? You mean the same government that is more inefficient and costly that the private sector? The same government that can't pay its bills and that has a Treasury Secretary who was convicted of tax evasion?
Free-market capitalism regulates markets more than government ever can. If you don't like how Walmart treats its workers, don't shop there. If enough people disapprove of how Walmart runs its company, Walmart will dissolve and go out of business, per the desires of the free and open market. And don't demonize the management of the company for running a successful corporation.
When I mentioned this assignment to my father, he ironically told me that he had lunch with the CFO of Walmart today, along with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. The three of them discussed this very issue. My father told me that Walmart's CFO expressed amazement at the idea that people still love working for Walmart even though the company has to shell out millions of dollars per year to settle its worker lawsuits. This leads me to think... Do people ACTUALLY hate working for Walmart? If they did, then Walmart would not have nearly the number of employees it has today.
I am always dumbfounded by those who demonize a wealthy corporation that employs thousands of Americans and contributes so much to America's national output and the U.S. and global economy.
Also, the unions that "represent" the workers of Walmart are exploiting their power. They give unsubstantiated and reckless reasons for wanting to increase wages. Increased wages means Walamrt loses profit, which means that they are forced to hire fewer workers, thereby increasing the unemployment rate. Unions and their leaders should have a basic understanding of economics before they speak about wages worker sustainability.
The free market is a healthy thing. It resolves all of our conflicts and problems better and more efficiently than government can.
I would say that as a whole, Walmart is evil. Walmart is giving its employees a salary that is less than the national average. By no means should their salary be below the national average. I personally think that it should be higher than the national average, not the same. Every time I go to a Walmart, the employees look miserable. They probably do their job as to the amount of money they get paid. They probably do not do anything extra to stand out from the rest. Not to be mean to anyone or anything, but they are all lazy! If a portion of employees and everyone struggling for a job was not lazy and tried to achieve something good, they might get somewhere. So I think that if they were payed a little more, they would probably do more for the buck. And make my shopping experience better. I also think it's nice and all that Walmart donates so much money, but if they didnt do that, they could give that money to their employees and fix their own mess.
Walmart is not evil. It has done what every corporation in a capitalist society strives to do - succeed. They've gotten by on low wages, low prices, and lots of return, and this is a big business success. If they're able to do this and still make as much money as they do, which is a lot, there should really be no problem with Walmart. They're certainly not a monopoly by any means... just more successful than some like to see.
Of course, the discrimination in the work place is a situation that needs to be dealt with, but on a case by case basis. Although the statistics make it appear otherwise, there's really no way that every Walmart across the nation made a universal decision to prevent women from having higher ranks. I'd like to see this compared to the statistics for women in ANY corporation... because that is always surprisingly lower than we think. Walmart might not be an odd man out.
If the wage issue becomes too problematic, people will find new places of work, or band together in protest until Walmart concedes. But by no means do these low wages make Walmart evil. They are making more money and people still need jobs. It's above minimum wage.
However, blatantly lying about imported items being "Made in America" is just dumb.
P.S. Walmart gives SEB $3,000 every year to help us get gifts for the low-income kids for our Holiday Project, so they're more philanthropic than it appears comparatively :)
Wal-Mart is not an evil corporation. It employs 1.4 million Americans in a time where most business's are cutting back. They supply people with cheap and affordable goods and make an absurd amount of revenue. Just because they are successful doesn't mean they are evil. The average salary stat of $20K can be misleading because how many of their employees have singled out Wal-Mart as their 'career.' Hundreds if not thousands of their 1.4 million employees may consist of teens working a summer job, or a college student just trying to pay for textbooks. Their higher management positions make a appropriate amount of money yearly which doesn't reflect the $20K figure. A few comments on some of some of those facts... the Walton family shouldn't be expected to give back any of their net worth if they earned it and shouldn't be faulted for not doing so. And the fact that Wal-Mart would be the 19th largest economy is simply awesome.
What's your point, bro? It's really easy to make an infographic displaying all of the undesirable traits of a corporation, but the fact is that they exist within the free-market economy we created - the same one that has historically proved itself to be the largest and most effective in the world. No one is forcing anyone to work at Walmart; theoretically, if there were better, higher paying jobs available, these employees would take them. Having a capitalist economy means that some people will in fact make $20,000 annually; that's just the nature of the beast, and, as it happens, Walmart employs a disproportionate amount of those low-income people. So what, the Walton family is gloriously wealthy and Mike Duke makes 924 times as much as his employees? A nineteen million dollar salar isn't even comparatively gargantuan (although, admittedly, he probably makes even more off of stock options). There is no legislation that says that this family must give to charity, and yet they have still given thousands if not millions of times the amount of money to charity than will anyone in this classroom. Walmart has played by the sacred rules of free-market capitalism; to condemn them is to condemn the economic principles on which we built this, the world's most productive, economy.
Wal-Mart is in no way an "evil company". To quote Mitt Romney "its good to be successful" in this country. An entrepreneur Sam Walton started a small business in 1940, which today has created over 1.4 Million jobs just within the company and millions of other jobs for people who make what they sell. They provide a vast amount of varying products at a low price which helps consumers in tough economic times. As for their "low wages", the millions of people who are employed by Wal-Mart chose to work there, and if they work hard they can move up the ladder and earn more.
Whether Wal-Mart is good or evil depends on what aspect you look at. From an economic standpoint, they're just competing to create the lowest prices in a free market, which is totally fine and would land them in the "good" category. As Dylan said the wages are the result of the free market and people still have the right to protest them with lawsuits and such and Wal-Mart isn't breaking any minimum wage laws. However, from a human rights/general moral standpoint they seem to be more in the "evil" category: discriminating based on race and/or sex, building over burial grounds, false advertising ("'Made in America' banners hanging over imported goods"), etc. I'm sure the company could function totally fine without these violations and then they wouldn't have so many lawsuits to deal with.
WalMart is not an evil corporation. The corporation has become successful, which is ideal for any other big business, especially in today's economy. WalMart is keeping their prices low and their wages low and if it's such a problem than people don't have to work there. There may not be a broad spectrum of jobs to choose from, but everyone still has a choice as to where they work. WalMart hasn't broken any laws regarding minimum wage, WalMart is just working with in the capitalist economy.
Regarding the discrimination I don't think that's a factor that makes a corporation evil or good. Yes, it factors in, but it seems to be a problem among many other corporations as Dylan pointed out. This is a problem that WalMart can deal with on its own.
WalMart is a successful business in today's capitalist economy and the company should not be punished for achieving success.
I do believe that Walmart needs to take measures to deal with their apparent discrimination of workers (especially in the high management positions), and that they should stop their delusive advertisement of "Made in America" goods that are actually being produced overseas. However, by no means do I consider Walmart to be an evil company. Walmart is an extremely successful company that is able to serve billions of customers nationwide by providing them with low priced goods, and they should not be criticized for this success. Walmart stimulates our economy by supplying 1.4 million people with jobs and are providing them with salaries well over minimum wage. If these employees believe that they should be making a higher wage, they should work harder to gain a higher position, or attempt to find a job elsewhere if they are truly miserable. I'm sure there are plenty of people who would be more than willing to do the work for an annual salary of $20,000. The bottom line is that in the free-market which we have created, there are always going to be employees making a yearly $20k and those making billions, like the Walton family. I think that if negative aspects of any business were displayed and focused on like this, it could be equally as shocking to some people, and that Walmart should not be singled out solely because it's success trumps other corporations of its kind (even though Target is way better).
Wal-Mart is by no means an evil corporation. The Company’s unprecedented success’s is the envy of it’s competitors,, those of which would trade places with Wal-Mart any day. Wal-Mart employs nearly 1.4 million people. It was one of the view companies that kept hiring during the recession, and acted as a “fail safe” for Americans without a job. Wal-Mart is the paragon of American capitalism. Also, the lower priced goods allow low-income families to purchase luxury items and not become penniless. Regarding discrimination, Wal-Mart is not to blame for the discrimination in the workplace, the people are. If anything, Wal-Mart is indicative of the US manufacturing sector failing to compete with our international competitors. In response to statistic regarding donations, I find it comical that they would even use that tidbit of information because the money Wal-Mart makes is their own, and have donated far more than you are I every will. So to say that they aren’t generous is purely arbitrary and lacks sufficient logic to back up this claim.
Walmart is not evil but rather it is beneficial to the United States. About .5% of the United States works for Walmart, but almost all Americans have access to their cheap goods. Though the employee's of Walmart get paid low wages they should use the experience and skills they get from Walmart to try and get better job. Though many people call Walmart evil they obviously do not see the benefits of Walmart. Because of Walmart everyone has access to cheap goods. Many complain about the high salary of the CEO of Walmart but I and many other Libratarians would argue that he has earned that pay because of his qualifications and the decision made by the board of directors. The way the Walton family spends their money is not important because Sam Walton worked hard to build one of the largest companies of all time and the money his family has is theirs and people have no right to decide how others should spend their money.
I don't believe that this issue is black or white. Walmart is neither good nor evil, rather a combination of both. I do think that Walmart can and should take measures to improve itself. It should increase the salary for the average employer and work to improve itself by paying genders equal wages for the same job. However, Walmart is doing what a business needs to do to survive. They keep wages low and product prices low. The Walton family also gives 2% of their net worth to charities every year. Although that may seem very low compared to the percent Bill Gates gives away, it is still a significantly larger amount than what most Americans give to charity every year. Walmart has aspects that are both good and evil, and every company can take measures to improve themselves.
Walmart has had numerous issues with sex discrimination and unfair wages, but that does not necessarily make Walmart "evil." Any business will experience these types of problems, even though Walmart experiences these issues more often and by a quite larger number of people. Walmart has had these issues, and they have to deal with these like any other business would. This may influence Walmart to be a little less honest in order to keep sales up. For instance, with their participation in a "Buy America" campaign is dishonest --not evil-- when they import $30 billion from China each year. It makes no sense to participate in this type of campaign when 80% of their merchandise is from China. However, on the other hand, Walmart supports Americans making less than $40,000 annually, although that portion of sales is only 42%. Even if you argue that the Walton family donates 2% of their net worth to charities each year, 2% of their net worth is minute compared to what they could be donating. Donating money also does not make a person good or evil. I do believe that the Walton family is doing what they have to do to make money, whether dishonest or bad to their name, that should not make them evil or good. The issue of Walmart being good or evil will get you answers that vary just as the people answering vary. Part of what they do, I think, may be a bit evil, but overall, I do not believe that Walmart is evil.
I don't believe Walmart is an evil company, I believe other companies are just trying to belittle them where ever they can, to gain more customers and to try and compete against the "general store" superpower. Walmart is regulatory criticized for their low wages to employ's, but very few know how many people Walmart actually employs, its around 1.4 million. Now, Walmart is a business so of course they are trying to make a profit. But if the average pay per hour is $11.75.... $11.75 * 1.4 million is.... $16,450,000 dollars in wages alone for one hour of every employ. Walmart also has hundreds of millions of dollars tied in other affairs too, so when you have people complaining about wages, they need to look at the whole picture and see that Walmart is actually being generous. Now of course I don't agree with Walmart's sex discrimination, according to the charts not very many women have management. Now of course that could just be coincidence, but I personally would like that to go up in the near future. Walmart offers a great atmosphere for their employ's and offers great savings for there customers. I just believe that Walmart is competing in our competitive capitalist market and trying to become as successful as it can. Also in this free market if people are upset with Walmart .....then why is it still one of the most profitably stores in the country?
I would say that in all, wal-mart is an "evil" company. For instance, the sexual discrimination in areas that women could perform perfectly well in (i.e store management, which requires no "man power" at all), and the fact that they are not being honest with their sales tactics ("Buy America" campaign). The problem is, I cannot see what could possibly be done to stop Walmart, seeing as they have such a large percent of society dependent on their low prices.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the data, I would venture to say that Walmart is an "evil" corporation. One of the main reasons is that the average salary per hour and yearly salary are lower than America's average. In order to be an efficient corporation, a company should not have to compromise its workers in the process. As a "good" corporation, Walmart should be able to maintain a high worth and treat its employees well financially.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to the low median salary, there also comes the issue of gender discrimination. The lack of women in management positions is astounding. Choosing someone based on their qualifications should always be the way of determining who receives a job. By having only 33% of women in management jobs, it's quite obvious that discrimination is occurring because women are just as capable of performing those tasks as men.
Another issue making Walmart an "evil" corporation is the false marketing of foreign products as American under the "Buy America" Campaign. Granted, I believe that any competent person should be able to tell whether a product is made in America, I do think that is proves the evil in the company. By doing this, Walmart is indirectly hurting America by promoting foreign goods under the false name of our country.
In regards to wages, I do not think Walmart is necessarily an evil corporation. Walmart found its success by selling their goods at extremely low prices, and it would not be so popular otherwise. By becoming such a successful company, they were able to expand and employ well over a million people across the country. Although their employees' wages are 30 cents shy of the national average, it is very probable that these workers would not have jobs at all if it weren't for the success of Walmart. With that said, Walmart should by no means drop its wages any lower in proportion to the national average or they would be unreasonably exploiting their employees.
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary, Walmart can be classified as evil through their obvious discrimination against women and their pretentious "Buy America" slogan. It is absolutely crass that some people are still so blinded by ignorance in assuming women are less qualified to fulfill higher management positions. Merit, not gender, should be the only deciding element when choosing positions. Lastly, Walmart should not blatantly lie in such a nationwide campaign in an effort to deceitfully manipulate customers' decisions.
Walmart does create jobs, supply low priced goods for consumers, participate in philanthropy, and prompt a hilarious website featuring pictures of their "interesting" shoppers. So I wouldn't classify them as evil, necessarily. However, it seems to me that strengthening the private sector through their "job creation" has two sides to it. In this case, it looks like quantity does not necessarily mean quality. Their average salary is below the average nationwide salary and the statistics about how often they are sued for various employee reasons is frightening. They could probably create more and better jobs if their CEO wasn't raking in as much as he is. Then again one could argue that their philanthropy would decrease. Low paying jobs like these are the ones that convince people on unemployment to stay on unemployment. That is evil.
ReplyDeleteI want to bring attention to another well known store that is a personal favorite of mine and I think is doing fabulous things for the economy: COSTCO!
This link is an article about their generous hourly wage of $19.50 for those who have worked there 4 or more years:http://current.com/shows/viewpoint/blog/high-wages-dont-mean-low-profits-and-costco-proves-it/
This article also says each employee has very nice health benefits, and the company has fairly high profit. This shows that it is completely possible to keep employees happy, make a decent profit, and keep prices low for consumers. My dad swears by Costco, and you could have a nice sized meal there just from free samples. I just dug a little deeper into the Wal-Mart v. Costco story and discovered that Costco's revenue per employee is about five times higher than that of Wal-Mart. Also, Costco's long term growth is projected to be higher than that of Wal-Mart. (I'm getting this info from a new website: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2008/06/wage_against_the_machine.2.html). The possible issue with Costco, though, is that most of their employees belong to the Teamster Union, which might be the reason for the high wages (rather than just CEO benevolence). But multiple statements from Costco's CEO have revealed that he believes in treating his employees well and he doesn't seem to mind that Costco has a lower margin than Wal-Mart.
After my analysis of Costco v. Wal-Mart, I do believe Wal-Mart is evil, in comparison. Costco seems to practice my personal favorite theory of communist capitalism which is practicing capitalism with everyone's net happiness in mind. Costco seems to be looking out for everyone and worries about net happiness over their own personal profit. Based on the stats that we were given, Wal-Mart seems not to abide by communist capitalism, but rather by capitalist capitalism: make more profit, always.
Walmart is a great company that creates thousands of jobs and sells products and low, desirable prices to consumers. With regards to how they pay their workers, the employees of Walmart chose to work there. They were not forced into working there. If they don't like it, they can go work at Costco (per Shawn's wonderful anaylsis) or somewhere else.
ReplyDeleteFor those who believe that Walmart is "evil": How would you prefer Walmart to be regulated to end so-called "discrimination"? Would you like government to do so? You mean the same government that is more inefficient and costly that the private sector? The same government that can't pay its bills and that has a Treasury Secretary who was convicted of tax evasion?
Free-market capitalism regulates markets more than government ever can. If you don't like how Walmart treats its workers, don't shop there. If enough people disapprove of how Walmart runs its company, Walmart will dissolve and go out of business, per the desires of the free and open market. And don't demonize the management of the company for running a successful corporation.
When I mentioned this assignment to my father, he ironically told me that he had lunch with the CFO of Walmart today, along with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. The three of them discussed this very issue. My father told me that Walmart's CFO expressed amazement at the idea that people still love working for Walmart even though the company has to shell out millions of dollars per year to settle its worker lawsuits. This leads me to think... Do people ACTUALLY hate working for Walmart? If they did, then Walmart would not have nearly the number of employees it has today.
I am always dumbfounded by those who demonize a wealthy corporation that employs thousands of Americans and contributes so much to America's national output and the U.S. and global economy.
Also, the unions that "represent" the workers of Walmart are exploiting their power. They give unsubstantiated and reckless reasons for wanting to increase wages. Increased wages means Walamrt loses profit, which means that they are forced to hire fewer workers, thereby increasing the unemployment rate. Unions and their leaders should have a basic understanding of economics before they speak about wages worker sustainability.
The free market is a healthy thing. It resolves all of our conflicts and problems better and more efficiently than government can.
I would say that as a whole, Walmart is evil. Walmart is giving its employees a salary that is less than the national average. By no means should their salary be below the national average. I personally think that it should be higher than the national average, not the same. Every time I go to a Walmart, the employees look miserable. They probably do their job as to the amount of money they get paid. They probably do not do anything extra to stand out from the rest. Not to be mean to anyone or anything, but they are all lazy! If a portion of employees and everyone struggling for a job was not lazy and tried to achieve something good, they might get somewhere. So I think that if they were payed a little more, they would probably do more for the buck. And make my shopping experience better. I also think it's nice and all that Walmart donates so much money, but if they didnt do that, they could give that money to their employees and fix their own mess.
ReplyDeleteWalmart is not evil. It has done what every corporation in a capitalist society strives to do - succeed. They've gotten by on low wages, low prices, and lots of return, and this is a big business success. If they're able to do this and still make as much money as they do, which is a lot, there should really be no problem with Walmart. They're certainly not a monopoly by any means... just more successful than some like to see.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the discrimination in the work place is a situation that needs to be dealt with, but on a case by case basis. Although the statistics make it appear otherwise, there's really no way that every Walmart across the nation made a universal decision to prevent women from having higher ranks. I'd like to see this compared to the statistics for women in ANY corporation... because that is always surprisingly lower than we think. Walmart might not be an odd man out.
If the wage issue becomes too problematic, people will find new places of work, or band together in protest until Walmart concedes. But by no means do these low wages make Walmart evil. They are making more money and people still need jobs. It's above minimum wage.
However, blatantly lying about imported items being "Made in America" is just dumb.
P.S. Walmart gives SEB $3,000 every year to help us get gifts for the low-income kids for our Holiday Project, so they're more philanthropic than it appears comparatively :)
Wal-Mart is not an evil corporation. It employs 1.4 million Americans in a time where most business's are cutting back. They supply people with cheap and affordable goods and make an absurd amount of revenue. Just because they are successful doesn't mean they are evil. The average salary stat of $20K can be misleading because how many of their employees have singled out Wal-Mart as their 'career.' Hundreds if not thousands of their 1.4 million employees may consist of teens working a summer job, or a college student just trying to pay for textbooks. Their higher management positions make a appropriate amount of money yearly which doesn't reflect the $20K figure.
ReplyDeleteA few comments on some of some of those facts... the Walton family shouldn't be expected to give back any of their net worth if they earned it and shouldn't be faulted for not doing so. And the fact that Wal-Mart would be the 19th largest economy is simply awesome.
What's your point, bro? It's really easy to make an infographic displaying all of the undesirable traits of a corporation, but the fact is that they exist within the free-market economy we created - the same one that has historically proved itself to be the largest and most effective in the world. No one is forcing anyone to work at Walmart; theoretically, if there were better, higher paying jobs available, these employees would take them. Having a capitalist economy means that some people will in fact make $20,000 annually; that's just the nature of the beast, and, as it happens, Walmart employs a disproportionate amount of those low-income people. So what, the Walton family is gloriously wealthy and Mike Duke makes 924 times as much as his employees? A nineteen million dollar salar isn't even comparatively gargantuan (although, admittedly, he probably makes even more off of stock options). There is no legislation that says that this family must give to charity, and yet they have still given thousands if not millions of times the amount of money to charity than will anyone in this classroom. Walmart has played by the sacred rules of free-market capitalism; to condemn them is to condemn the economic principles on which we built this, the world's most productive, economy.
ReplyDeleteI meant "salary" that's my b.
ReplyDeleteWal-Mart is in no way an "evil company". To quote Mitt Romney "its good to be successful" in this country. An entrepreneur Sam Walton started a small business in 1940, which today has created over 1.4 Million jobs just within the company and millions of other jobs for people who make what they sell. They provide a vast amount of varying products at a low price which helps consumers in tough economic times. As for their "low wages", the millions of people who are employed by Wal-Mart chose to work there, and if they work hard they can move up the ladder and earn more.
ReplyDeleteWhether Wal-Mart is good or evil depends on what aspect you look at. From an economic standpoint, they're just competing to create the lowest prices in a free market, which is totally fine and would land them in the "good" category. As Dylan said the wages are the result of the free market and people still have the right to protest them with lawsuits and such and Wal-Mart isn't breaking any minimum wage laws.
ReplyDeleteHowever, from a human rights/general moral standpoint they seem to be more in the "evil" category: discriminating based on race and/or sex, building over burial grounds, false advertising ("'Made in America' banners hanging over imported goods"), etc. I'm sure the company could function totally fine without these violations and then they wouldn't have so many lawsuits to deal with.
WalMart is not an evil corporation. The corporation has become successful, which is ideal for any other big business, especially in today's economy. WalMart is keeping their prices low and their wages low and if it's such a problem than people don't have to work there. There may not be a broad spectrum of jobs to choose from, but everyone still has a choice as to where they work. WalMart hasn't broken any laws regarding minimum wage, WalMart is just working with in the capitalist economy.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the discrimination I don't think that's a factor that makes a corporation evil or good. Yes, it factors in, but it seems to be a problem among many other corporations as Dylan pointed out. This is a problem that WalMart can deal with on its own.
WalMart is a successful business in today's capitalist economy and the company should not be punished for achieving success.
I do believe that Walmart needs to take measures to deal with their apparent discrimination of workers (especially in the high management positions), and that they should stop their delusive advertisement of "Made in America" goods that are actually being produced overseas. However, by no means do I consider Walmart to be an evil company. Walmart is an extremely successful company that is able to serve billions of customers nationwide by providing them with low priced goods, and they should not be criticized for this success. Walmart stimulates our economy by supplying 1.4 million people with jobs and are providing them with salaries well over minimum wage. If these employees believe that they should be making a higher wage, they should work harder to gain a higher position, or attempt to find a job elsewhere if they are truly miserable. I'm sure there are plenty of people who would be more than willing to do the work for an annual salary of $20,000. The bottom line is that in the free-market which we have created, there are always going to be employees making a yearly $20k and those making billions, like the Walton family. I think that if negative aspects of any business were displayed and focused on like this, it could be equally as shocking to some people, and that Walmart should not be singled out solely because it's success trumps other corporations of its kind (even though Target is way better).
ReplyDeleteWal-Mart is by no means an evil corporation. The Company’s unprecedented success’s is the envy of it’s competitors,, those of which would trade places with Wal-Mart any day. Wal-Mart employs nearly 1.4 million people. It was one of the view companies that kept hiring during the recession, and acted as a “fail safe” for Americans without a job. Wal-Mart is the paragon of American capitalism. Also, the lower priced goods allow low-income families to purchase luxury items and not become penniless. Regarding discrimination, Wal-Mart is not to blame for the discrimination in the workplace, the people are. If anything, Wal-Mart is indicative of the US manufacturing sector failing to compete with our international competitors. In response to statistic regarding donations, I find it comical that they would even use that tidbit of information because the money Wal-Mart makes is their own, and have donated far more than you are I every will. So to say that they aren’t generous is purely arbitrary and lacks sufficient logic to back up this claim.
ReplyDeleteWalmart is not evil but rather it is beneficial to the United States. About .5% of the United States works for Walmart, but almost all Americans have access to their cheap goods. Though the employee's of Walmart get paid low wages they should use the experience and skills they get from Walmart to try and get better job. Though many people call Walmart evil they obviously do not see the benefits of Walmart. Because of Walmart everyone has access to cheap goods. Many complain about the high salary of the CEO of Walmart but I and many other Libratarians would argue that he has earned that pay because of his qualifications and the decision made by the board of directors. The way the Walton family spends their money is not important because Sam Walton worked hard to build one of the largest companies of all time and the money his family has is theirs and people have no right to decide how others should spend their money.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that this issue is black or white. Walmart is neither good nor evil, rather a combination of both. I do think that Walmart can and should take measures to improve itself. It should increase the salary for the average employer and work to improve itself by paying genders equal wages for the same job. However, Walmart is doing what a business needs to do to survive. They keep wages low and product prices low. The Walton family also gives 2% of their net worth to charities every year. Although that may seem very low compared to the percent Bill Gates gives away, it is still a significantly larger amount than what most Americans give to charity every year. Walmart has aspects that are both good and evil, and every company can take measures to improve themselves.
ReplyDeleteWalmart has had numerous issues with sex discrimination and unfair wages, but that does not necessarily make Walmart "evil." Any business will experience these types of problems, even though Walmart experiences these issues more often and by a quite larger number of people. Walmart has had these issues, and they have to deal with these like any other business would. This may influence Walmart to be a little less honest in order to keep sales up. For instance, with their participation in a "Buy America" campaign is dishonest --not evil-- when they import $30 billion from China each year. It makes no sense to participate in this type of campaign when 80% of their merchandise is from China. However, on the other hand, Walmart supports Americans making less than $40,000 annually, although that portion of sales is only 42%. Even if you argue that the Walton family donates 2% of their net worth to charities each year, 2% of their net worth is minute compared to what they could be donating. Donating money also does not make a person good or evil. I do believe that the Walton family is doing what they have to do to make money, whether dishonest or bad to their name, that should not make them evil or good. The issue of Walmart being good or evil will get you answers that vary just as the people answering vary. Part of what they do, I think, may be a bit evil, but overall, I do not believe that Walmart is evil.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe Walmart is an evil company, I believe other companies are just trying to belittle them where ever they can, to gain more customers and to try and compete against the "general store" superpower. Walmart is regulatory criticized for their low wages to employ's, but very few know how many people Walmart actually employs, its around 1.4 million. Now, Walmart is a business so of course they are trying to make a profit. But if the average pay per hour is $11.75.... $11.75 * 1.4 million is.... $16,450,000 dollars in wages alone for one hour of every employ. Walmart also has hundreds of millions of dollars tied in other affairs too, so when you have people complaining about wages, they need to look at the whole picture and see that Walmart is actually being generous. Now of course I don't agree with Walmart's sex discrimination, according to the charts not very many women have management. Now of course that could just be coincidence, but I personally would like that to go up in the near future. Walmart offers a great atmosphere for their employ's and offers great savings for there customers. I just believe that Walmart is competing in our competitive capitalist market and trying to become as successful as it can. Also in this free market if people are upset with Walmart .....then why is it still one of the most profitably stores in the country?
ReplyDelete