Does wal-mart do more good or bad in the world - Essay Example

This many perceive to be corporate nonsense. Most jobs and careers associate Wal-Mart to a corporate that pays low wages compared to other corporate in the same job category and this engenders a sense of loathing from people getting such low wages. Due to this, Wal-Mart has received much resentment and scorn from all over as compared to other corporate entities. It is also seen as a large and powerful anti-industry, anti-free market call trap as its chain of stores is destroying small towns. This is achieved by acquisition of property in rural areas, thus maintaining monopoly.

The rural as well as the town folks are availed open doors to convenient, one-stop shopping venue with ample supply of products at considerable cheap prices. This improves their efficiency in carrying out their activities and thus is appreciated by many. According to Coster, (Para. 5) there is a belief among the Americans that the Wal-Mart prices override the prices of other stalls due to the ability to have large stores, this economically it can be said that the reduced prices result from the ability to take advantage of the economies of scale.

The domination by the corporate has not won favour among many Americans as they are not keen on strategies of clout and domination. On the other hand, these low prices drive the small and local competitors out of business as they do not have the ability to compete with Wal-Mart’s pricing and product selection. This is seen as an initiative to make Wal-Mart a monopoly which will then set high prices and make huge profits after driving out the competitive players who would have otherwise regulated its price.

The strategy here is to drive the small competitors to shut down due to its low prices. The corporate would then look into the future in advance and set prices of goods just below costs long enough to corner the market. Afterwards through trial and error, find a new price that would be high enough to make super-profits but low enough to keep potential customers from driving to another town to get the same products. This new price should be able to recoup the initial losses incurred when driving away the little players in the market.

In general, the picture created in a small town is an easy way to drive competitors out of business but again this small town will remain with bitter memories among its population of the pricing strategy and small enough to boycott Wal-Mart before the strategy succeeded. In a larger town, the competitors are many hence much harder to drive away competitors and Wal-Mart remains with the option of lowering its price to a low level enough to attract customers. The low prices attract the not so well off population and hence concurring with Featherstone, (Para. 4) in that it’s the poor who make Wal-Mart tick.

To the well-off members of the society, expensive commodities are observed to be of sound quality as compared to cheap commodities, where shortcuts might have been used in their production. To the poor, they have to survive with the little they have and thus quantity rather than quality is most considered. As such, low prices that are offered always cot down the society along the social status lines. Reich (Para.1) on the other hand is of the view that symbolic analysts who solve, identify