America is exceptional, primarily because of its free market system. Meritocracy, as the foundation of the free market system, dictates that one must exercise not only personal responsibility, but passion and determination in order to achieve success. Consumerism, the wheel that keep the free market system turning, is the driving force behind the success of the free market system.
Enter Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Wal-Mart is the paradigm of what success in corporate America is. Wal-Mart is often targeted as aggressive in its approach, but the truth is, Wal-Mart has been able to maximize profits while serving a demographic that a vast majority of corporations exclude: the working class.
The retail giant isn’t doing anything wrong. What they’ve done for the free market system — by providing price points and employment for America’s working class — makes the corporation it’s Holy Grail.
On Feb. 23, “The New York Times” reported that Wal-Mart was founded in 1962 by, now Chairman, Sam Walton, and is the largest retailer in the United States. The national chain discount corporation is laying the foundation for becoming the largest global retailer with the current purchase of Massart Holdings — South Africa’s largest chain retail stores — for $4.2 Billion, as well as expansion into China and Brazil, and the purchase of ownership in retail chain corporations in Chile and El Salvador.
Wal-Mart has been the respondent in several lawsuits and has often found itself at the center of national debates on immigration, labor unions, affirmative action, education, health care, and gender and age discrimination. Despite political woes, Wal-Mart is thriving. The corporation reported sales increases for its fourth quarter, with an increase of domestic sales of 2.4 percent and sales at stores open at least year increased 1.5 percent.
What would interest the general population is that Wal-Mart actually decreased prices and brought more than 10,000 items back to stores during the fourth quarter, which resulted in a decrease in the corporation’s fourth quarter domestic profit margin. So, while they earned more income, the share of that income that was profit for the corporation was dramatically less.
An ideal free enterprise system would consist of corporations that offer price points for every type of consumer. The American free enterprise system is designed to cater to the middle class. With the downsizing of the middle class in the 2000s, most estimates now put the working class at 40-50 percent of the American populous.
The closest we have to a corporation that offers price points for the working class in America is Wal-Mart. There is no other place where the working class can shop that offers as much variety and economy as Wal-Mart. In addition, the retail giant is one of a handful of corporations that have been able to achieve the impossible; strike a balance between wages, prices and profits.
Many might cite wages, gender discrimination and work conditions as reasons why the corporate culture at Wal-Mart needs to be restructured. I beg to differ. What many fail to realize is that in the grand scheme that is the American workforce, the economy that we knew is not going to return. Americans aren’t as innovative and inspired as they once were. Now that the world is so interconnected, what we will see, once we emerge from the great recession, is one unified economy in which countries play primary roles in this larger, connected economy. For example, China, obviously enough, will be the world’s manufacturer and America will be the world’s salesperson and manager.
With all of this being considered, if your gripe is that Wal-Mart is un-ethical and immoral in its business practices, my advice to you is this: stay in college and get at least a Master’s degree. Once the new, unified economy emerges, if you’re not well-educated, you’ll have to work for and shop at Wal-Mart and corporations like it.
