@brianluce

Btw, damage from Amazon and B&H is not smaller :-)

Here, much smarter men than me defend it: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/04/why-economists-love-wal-mart.html

@danabrams But your discounting the influence of publicity and advertising -- among other things. Wallmart exerts enormous influence through its marketing campaigns. As I've said, I reject the gospel that superstores have the best prices. So it's untrue to say it's a simple case of the best man winning the race or people acting out of self interest. If people were acting out of self interest then they wouldn't shop at Wallmart, because over the long term Wallmart destroys the middle class, corrupts government and ultimately is monopolistic.

Regarding tricky moral positions, you're making a defacto case for unfettered capitalism. Even Alan Greenspan believes, finally, at long last, that markets need to be managed. I've yet to read anything other that the most short sighted argument for Superstores. Personally I'm not sure the best solutions are through public policy because if LA bans them, as they've done, Wallmart will just go next door to some sleazy shithole like Vernon or South Gate and set up camp.

And no one votes Wallmart into an area, as Vitaliy says, they come in with an armada of lawyers, giant lobbying budgets and drop anchor. I've never heard of people demonstrating in the streets to "Please give us Wallmart!". It's coercion, arm twisting, back room deals, political payoffs, and finally heavy equipment that bulldozes a way of life that has made America strong vis-a-vis the middle class. Eventually they get people thinking Wallmart is part of Americana that deserves worship along with mom, Jesus, and apple pie.

Greg Mankiw was the leader of GWB's economic team -- the guys who ran the economy off the cliff. Now he's telling us Wallmart is a great thing.

@Vitaliy I don't know that much about the scale of B&H but there are lots of small retailers that match or beat their (BH's) prices on select items. Either way, the larger issue is the peril of a single mega store vacuuming up 100% a region's retail and turning middle class small business owners into $7/hour store clerks -- not to mention subverting public policy in order to create publicly funded infrastructure that supports the Walton family and their shareholders.

May be, but who knows about them?

All the members of Personal View!

Btw, a lot of the data from that Harvard linked study on the virtues of Wallmart was provided by a firm that was hired by ummm...Wallmart.

@brianluce Greg Mankiw, a famous MODERATE economist (a moderate who is the head of the economics program at that conservative bastion, Harvard) was quoting An article about research by Jason Furman of NYU, a liberal economist and one of the main advisers to John Kerry and Deputy Director of Obama's Economic Council. Jason's research has shown that Walmart has caused a small reduction in wages, about $5 billion annually in the US, which is offset by a huge reduction in prices: about $263 billion annually. That's a savings of over $2,300 a year.

Everyone on this chain keeps saying WalMart is MORE expensive (based on what data, I don't know) but studies have shown over and over that WalMart is less expensive than similar stores that it's customers otherwise shop at, substantially so (between 8-40%).

@vitaley_kiselev saying "people are stupid" goes against the fundamental idea on which all economics, from Marx to Von Mises, that all economics is built on: that people respond rationally to incentives.

Perhaps you believe that people are ignorant, unaware of other choices. Perhaps you're right. Perhaps there's some alternative that is cheaper. But the fact remains that people choose to shop at Walmart because it is better than other shops they've tried in some way. You don't know what their alternatives are. You and I are both completely ignorant of their lives and what stores they have around them. I'm lucky to live in one of the most metropolitan places in the world and to have a little bit of extra money to shop at an expensive boutique or buy organic milk if I choose. But millions of people choose to shop at WalMrt on a daily basis. And frankly, if I had one near me, I probably would choose to go there occassionally too.

I reiterate my question. For all the people on the WalMart is more expensive bandwagon, when's the last time you actually went to one?

We went to a smartypants "Stop Walmart Superstore in Our Nice Town" protest. My three year old daughter was up on my shoulders. Everyone was shouting: "Stop Walmart, Fuck Walmart..!". Well that rolled over like a lead donut with my little girl. As soon as she figured out what they were chanting about, she burst into tears and cried out, "Don't fick Walmart!" I love Barbie! I LOVE Walmart..!" True story. So I do have a bit of love for Wally, just indirectly:)

@danabrams

that people respond rationally to incentives.

Classical right-wing economists like Greg Mankiw -- the ones who were proven disastrously wrong in advance of and during the current world-wide depression -- love to claim that economic decisions are rational, because it supposedly proves that markets can do no wrong and therefore government regulation is evil. But these economists never actually present any evidence to prove that economic decisions actually are rational -- it's an assumption they use to prove itself, despite the indefensibly stupid decisions people make every day. And even if decisions were rational, the systems are so large and complex today, and so susceptible to corruption by powerful interests, that no single actor could hope to navigate them intelligently, even assuming choices were free and unlimited (clearly not the case, once Walmart moves to town). And if decisions were rational, what's the point of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on advertising in the U.S.? Is it informational -- a public service from Corporate America? Or is it meant to persuade the public of things which aren't true?

This self-serving school of economics is also apparently unaware of inconveniences like evolutionary adaptation, which condition all sorts of behaviors which, today, either make no sense or are actively harmful to the species. For example, many people in the industrialized are currently eating themselves to death, in no small part thanks to retailers like Walmart. Is this rational?

On the other hand, maybe holding these positions is economically rational for Greg Mankiw and Glenn Hubbard (both advisers to Romney, and formerly George W Bush), because both get huge consulting and speaking fees from corporate America.

@Mark_the_Harp

It is also interesting to note that any big reduction of work hours, if you could accompany it with reduction in mass entertainment consumption, present big danger to any stable system.
Guy who is thinking, talking, observing and making his own conclusions is quite dangerous motherfucker.

Wal Mart is threatened by the Walton family. Those poor billionaires had to divide up Sam's windfall amongst each other! Spare a thought for those poor billionaires!