Discount Nation: Is Wal-Mart Good For America?

Many corporations move to the mandate of a global capitalistic economy, and over the past quarter-century, several large multi-store retailers have experienced considerable growth. Wal-Mart is one of the leading industry giants with a presence in scores of markets that virtually all other vendors cannot compete. In a 2003 New York Times article “Ideas & Trends: Discount Nation: Is Wal-Mart Good for America?” Columnist Steve Lohrdec reported that “Wal-Mart points the way to a grim Darwinian world of bankrupt competitors, low wages, inadequate health benefits, jobs lost to imports and destroyed downtowns and rural areas across America.” (Lohrdec, 2003) So, is the company good for the American economy? According to Lohrdec, “Wal-Mart is an agent

From shared operating and advertising costs to exposure to diverse customer demands. However, the ability to respond to changing consumer needs and a combination of wholesaling and retailing operations led to the biggest and most noticeable effect, lower prices to consumers. The heart of the Wal-Mart strategy was to aggressively plan, organize and outthink their competitors by providing the best products, values, and prices. The Wal-Mart mission and vision statement “Saving people money so that they can live better.” (Wal-Mart, Inc., 2017) The company’s primary goal “To be America’s one-stop shop.” (Wal-Mart, Inc., 2017) The organizational strategy of Wal-Mart is to keep costs low and make a profit on high turnover sales, which result in volume revenue. A plan designed to dominate the retail market by way of a push to pull production model, which allowed retailers to direct manufacturer what to make or produce and at what price point. As a result, this model gave Wal-Mart a competitive advantage to control the market and offer low prices to customers. In correlation to economist Peter Drucker’s S.M.A.R.T principles, Wal-Mart was (S) specific, (M) measurable, (A) achievable, (R) realistic and (T) time-bound in their decision-making, which gave them a competitive advantage over their competition aimed at

This disruptive influence on the economy seen as a process of “creative destruction.” A term described by economist Joseph Schumpeter, when a capitalistic system is driven by an economic change due to “competition from a new commodity, new technology, new source of supply, new type of organization which commands a decisive cost or quality advantage and strikes not at the margins of the profits and the outputs of the existing firms but at their foundations and their very lives.” (Schumpeter, 1942) Wal-Mart accomplished this by forming a new mode of production that is more efficient and robust that ultimately destroys competitors. Therefore, creating a dynamic that undercuts pricing and the ability for existing businesses to survive making Wal-Mart the world’s most influential