The StuSie: Time for a paradigm shift?

Dienstag, Juli 04, 2006

Time for a paradigm shift?

I hate to chime in with something so remote from the going topic of the World Cup just as it reaches its climax, but I can only bitch about flopping and lackluster performances for so long. What prompted me to interrupt the sports theme were two recently published articles, one from Harper's monthly and one from the Economist...
Based on my knowledge of my esteemed Stusie-readership, I would think that most if not all of us would love to see a nationwide boycott of Walmart. I would also think that most of us know plenty of reasons why Walmart should be boycotted. Aside from bleeding the life from already suffering corners of our nation - regions that are plagued already by the shift toward industrial farming, lack of water, or the decline of various mining activities - Walmart also treats its employees quite simply as property. Concisely stated, only one thing matters to Walmart, and that is its heinously massive earnings. I knew before that Walmart was huge, but when you consider the fact that it handles 30 percent of all retail transactions in the US, one realizes just how out of control this giant is.
But if we really hope to strike back at the beast that is this tacky retailer, we have to look at just how it accumulated all of its power. Walmart, according to the Harper's article, is the most ruthless buyer of consumer goods in the world. Following the elimination of anti-trust laws during the Reagan administration, Walmart proceeded to grow like a cancer, horizontally instead of vertically. What this means is that instead of striving to master all of the stages of production of a particular product, Walmart saw more potential in selling people literally everything they may need in one hideously massive, rectangular-shaped building. Sounds harmless, and maybe even convenient at first, but the consequences of this are pretty vicious. After rapidly accumulating more and more power, and sliding into more and more out-of-business Kmart buildings (Walmart either overtakes old retailers buildings or leases them from builders - a strategy that allows them to move around to the most profitable regions without the costs of constructing a building. They often come into a community, create some jobs, then leave without warning. The residents of the area then stand there with their privates in their hands, if you will), Walmart was soon able to control the prices it paid for consumer goods (called monopsony) from selling corporations. Those falling prices don't mean that Walmart really would like to help out your pocket book; it means that Walmart is squeezing the life from the free market, taking the idea of buying power to a perverted extreme.
In short, Walmart is a seething mass of goo sliming up our already sick economic system. What is even more concerning is that Walmart is simply the first company to reach such heights, but it is by no means an exception. In virtually every other sector of the economy, other coporations are watching Walmart make pantloads of cash, and are following suit. Telecommunications companies, banks, media giants, and even the very sellers that are currently getting jabbed in the ass by Walmart, are merging and growing to form their own seething masses. Let's just say that if things continue in such a way, Italy's Serie A will look like a cozy club of boyscouts compared to our 'free market'. There is no room for such things as collusion and corruption in an economy of monopolies because it simply isn't necessary anymore. Corporations will simply do whatever they please, leaving us in a situation that is ironically similar to the oligopolies of Soviet Russia. I don't think this is exactly what we're going for.
And that brings me to article number 2, seemingly unrelated to Walmart, about the development of Interstate freeways in the United States and its influence on urban and rural landscapes. Born after the dawn of computers, after the break-up of the Beatles, and after Dicky Nixon, none of us really have a conception of the world without interstate freeways. They are something we take for granted, and see as the only way to get from here to there. In fact, the interstates weren't really created so that Americans could more easily visit friends and family or road trip it from NY to CA in about two days. Eisenhower started building them in the 50's because he saw what they did for Ger

many in WWII. Hitler and Albert Speer saw that more efficient intranational travel meant a more effective defense, and that's exactly what drove Ike to build the extensive network across the country.
The US invasion hasen't happened (yet), but the effect of the interstates has nonetheless been substatial. It has transformed the growth of our country's cities and formed the way we live our lives. In particular, it has made the US a country of suburbs, cars, and convenience shopping. Here's how it happened, and here's how Walmart profited from it: one of the first things one notices about freeways is their goal of bypassing major cities to save travel time. Logical, but the side effect was that it allowed for urban sprawl and the rapid growth of suburbs. As commuting travel was made easier, central downtown areas became business centers rather than living spaces. With the suburbs in place commercial clusters began to pop up in these new suburbs. Because everyone had cars and the growth was so fast, the old fashioned system of the "main street" and town center with bakeries, butchers, hardware stores and theaters was replaced with strip malls, shopping centers, and retail juggernauts like Walmart. In a way, road systems not only contributed to, but made possible and accelerated the transformation of cities in the United States, and I think that as young people - in combination with the information about Walmart above - we need to be aware that there is an alternative to the route that has been paved by our interstate freeways and the lifestyle it has spawned. After thinking about it, I think this is the thing that gives us such an aversion toward urban sprawl and America in general, and it is the thing that draws us toward Europe in such a strong way. Because their cities were already formed and large before the dawn of the freeway system, the dawn of this system has taken place much later if at all.