In a complicated world, good intentions can have terrible consequences, Arnold Kling reminds us — in his hypothetical high school graduation speech:
If you judge people by how their life’s work contributed to better lives for people and less poverty in the world, then I will gladly stack up the Henry Fords and Thomas Edisons against the Mother Theresas. Collectively, the capitalists and entrepreneurs have a much better claim on our gratitude than do the icons of community service.
What would you rather have in your community? Would you rather have the Wal-mart that hires the workers that other businesses cannot use and for whom politicians can offer no assistance–people with little education or training, including people with disabilities? Or would you rather have the “activists” who fight to keep out Wal-Mart or who insist that they should dictate Wal-Mart’s labor policies?
In a complicated world, good intentions can have terrible consequences. One hundred years ago, many well-intentioned people championed Communism. When Lenin took power in Russia in 1917, he actually believed that the economy would organize itself, and that without profits production would be more efficient and more equitable. When both his ideas and his leadership proved unpopular, he responded with ruthless tyranny. His took his self-righteousness to a mad extreme, but I am afraid that there is a little bit of Lenin lurking among all of those who are so certain that community service is morally superior to business.
If those of you who are graduating today go on to attend a liberal arts college, you will hear constantly from people who equate moral character with political expressions of approval for non-profits and disapproval of business. They judge you not be the content of your character but by the conformity of your political expression. I urge you to reject their doctrines.
“Would you rather have the Wal-mart that hires the workers that other businesses cannot use and for whom politicians can offer no assistance–people with little education or training, including people with disabilities? Or would you rather have the “activists” who fight to keep out Wal-Mart or who insist that they should dictate Wal-Mart’s labor policies?”
If that’s the question the answer is obvious. The activists are parasites who depend on the existence of Wal-Mart anyway.
I don’t think that’s the question.
I think the question is:
Would you rather live in a society where the highest value is getting the most cheap imported plastic crap for the least money or not?
Put that way the answer is far different.
You’re going to have to work a little harder than: “a society where the highest value is”
Full time Walmart employees are subsidized with billions of dollars a year in welfare and Walmart makes 14 billion dollars a year in food stamps so not exactly a bastion of capitalism.
Mother Theresa vs Ford and Edison? I’d take Theresa every time…
And what’s up with libertarians and Walmart? Barnabas is right on the money.
Libertarians supporting food stamps and welfare seem rather thin on the ground in my experience.
“You’re going to have to work a little harder than: “a society where the highest value is””
Ok, here goes.
Wal-Mart vs communism – easy win for Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart sells things that let people enjoy their lives, spend time with their families, entertain their children, etc. Stuff that, on some level, helps in living a good life.
Wal-Mart hasn’t been around that long though and lots of things necessary for Wal-Mart to exist aren’t so great for a society.
Wal-Mart needs a pipeline of really cheap goods. Goods so cheap that no one can make much of a living making them – unless you’re the person who owns dozens of factories churning out Wal-Mart feed by the container-load. People work at Wal-Mart and, as someone above pointed out, collect food stamps.
What does Wal-Mart sell? Nothing well made. Not a lot of artisans improving their craft selling to the Wal-Mart customer base.
Still, Wal-Mart only replaced a sick society – towns would have a store on Main Street that was badly run and overpriced because, hey, what choice do you have?
I don’t have the answers but if Wal-Marts exist then I do know that your country is in deep trouble.
Firstly, as far as foodstamps go, if you got rid of foodstamps et. al. Wal-mart would change various prices and wages somewhat, some people would eat more beans and rice, then things would carry on much as before. Some peoples taxes would be a little lower, and that would have various effects too. Some people would (re)enter the labor market, possibly from the informal sector.
The real deal with Wal-mart, I think, is that the division of labor is limited by the extent of the market. The extent of the market for mass manufacturing is world wide, but in the towns where Wal-Mart has such a big impact are themselves small. Of late, the sort of people who would be willing to pay a premium for boutique goods and services have been moving to the cities where there’s a bigger local market, more choices, and where Wal-Mart is not such a big deal one way or another.
In short, Camden County, NC, say, is going to be poor whether or not there’s a Wal-Mart there, but at least with one there, the people can get cheap stuff. The problem of poverty there is mostly fixed by leaving it for cities like Raleigh, which paradoxically, leaves the people who stay poorer still on average.
If you got rid of food stamps a lot of people would get married. Joe $10–15 per hour has three kids with Jane $10–15 per hour. If they marry they get half as much gubment money. Would you marry if it took food money from your children’s mouths?
I’d like to see all welfare replaced by a National Basic income, c’ Milton Friedman and Hayek.
A lot of these problems go away if we had a reasonable tariff and sane immigration policy, as we did as recently as the early 1960′s, but of course we can’t have that; it would be good for the American working class and lower middle class, and they are, like SO uncool…
Neither. I’d rather have the government which pays for the healthcare of Wal-Mart’s disabled employees. Wal-Mart’s minimum-wage employees don’t get healthcare through the company; they get Medicaid.