Re: [PEN-L] Robert Reich on consumer interests vs. worker/citizen interests
February 28, 2005/New York TIMES OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Don't Blame Wal-Mart By ROBERT B. REICH Berkeley, Calif. - BOWING to intense pressure from neighborhood and labor groups, a real estate developer has just given up plans to include a Wal-Mart store in a mall in Queens, thereby blocking Wal-Mart's plan to open its first store in New York City. In the eyes of Wal-Mart's detractors, the Arkansas-based chain embodies the worst kind of economic exploitation: it pays its 1.2 million American workers an average of only $9.68 an hour, doesn't provide most of them with health insurance, keeps out unions, has a checkered history on labor law and turns main streets into ghost towns by sucking business away from small retailers. This, btw, is exactly the same approach that Jared Diamond has to the question of pollution in Montana. He puts the burden on the taxpayer rather than the corporation. -- www.marxmail.org
Re: [PEN-L] Robert Reich on consumer interests vs. worker/citizen interests
This is such nonsense. It's as if Walmart is nothing more than a purveyor of cheap goods, as if it has no political clout and does nothing to structure our society outside of the transactions it conducts with consumers. Bill
Re: [PEN-L] Robert Reich on consumer interests vs. worker/citizen interests
You could blame people who wore cotton clothing for slavery by the same logic. Montesquieu wrote It must be said that slavery is against nature, though in certain countries it is founded upon natural reason. One may distinguish between such countries and those in which natural reasons reject it. One must therefore limit slavery to certain portions of the earth. He added, Sugar would be too expensive if one did not use slave labor. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: [PEN-L] Robert Reich on consumer interests vs. worker/citizen interests
I think this misses Reich's point, i.e., that the citizen/worker inside our heads would and should rebel against slavery even though the consumer of sugar would favor its existence. Bill's point is more germane: the slave-owners had a lot of political power -- enough to keep slavery going for much, much too long -- and, similarly, it's not us citizen/workers but Wal-Mart and its ilk that dominate politics. Typically, Reich is appealing to the liberal public (specifically, the readers of the NYT), assuming that they have a lot of political power -- and that they will transcend their narrow consumerist greed. Nonetheless, I liked Reich's cleverness. Jim Devine, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine/ -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael Perelman Sent: Monday, February 28, 2005 1:52 PM To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Robert Reich on consumer interests vs. worker/citizen interests You could blame people who wore cotton clothing for slavery by the same logic. Montesquieu wrote It must be said that slavery is against nature, though in certain countries it is founded upon natural reason. One may distinguish between such countries and those in which natural reasons reject it. One must therefore limit slavery to certain portions of the earth. He added, Sugar would be too expensive if one did not use slave labor. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
