Exclusive: Jonathan Rees Reviews “The Wal-Mart Revolution” - Part 2

Dr. Jonathan Rees of Colorado State University, Pueblo, reviews the new book ”The Wal-Mart Revolution.” Here’s the second of two parts:

The Wal-Mart Effect by Charles Fishman was one of the most widely-acclaimed business books of 2006. The reviewer for the Houston Chronicle called it “the best [Wal-Mart book] yet measured by depth and breadth of research, writing style and evenhanded treatment.”

Richard Vedder and Wendell Cox think otherwise. In a footnote from their book, the Wal-Mart Revolution: How Big Box Stores Benefit Consumers, Workers, and the Economy, they call The Wal-Mart Effect “a book that purports to be evenhanded but which, in fact, is rather critical of Wal-Mart.” In the text itself they call Fishman “somewhat less hysterically subjective” than the author of a book called How Wal-Mart is Destroying America.

What accounts for this difference of opinion over Fishman’s book? It’s quite simple, really. Another person’s bias depends upon your own. After exchanging many e-mails with Charles Fishman, I’d like to think I can consider him a friend of mine. Nevertheless, I think Fishman is not nearly as critical of Wal-Mart as he should be. That said, I still appreciate Fishman’s work for his willingness to look at Wal-Mart in ways that few other authors ever bother to even consider.

But to Vedder and Cox, you or either for Wal-Mart or against it. There is no room for shades of gray in their world. Although they tell us that where Wal-Mart critics get their money does not necessarily make them wrong, their chapter on “Wal-Mart and its Critics” does almost nothing else but explain the interests that supposedly drive their misguided attacks.

Let me take this opportunity to propose the following truce for all parties involved in the Wal-Mart wars: From now on, all Wal-Mart advocates, including Wal-Mart itself, will hereby cease and desist from making the argument that the other side are merely paid critics. In exchange, all Wal-Mart critics will stop dismissing arguments in Wal-Mart’s favor out of hand simply because they come from or are paid for by Wal-Mart.

Had Vedder and Cox followed this logic, they would have produced a much more useful book. While our blog, The Writing on the Wal, may not have the prominence of Wal-Mart Watch or Wake-Up Wal-Mart in the great scheme of Wal-Mart criticism, I, for one, can barely recognize what I think in the pastiche of anti-Wal-Mart arguments that Vedder and Cox systematically shoot down.

Take their characterization of the critique of Wal-Mart’s healthcare benefits, “Wal-Mart does not provide healthcare benefits for its employees.” Of course, Wal-Mart provides healthcare benefits for its employees. The problem is that those healthcare benefits are so bad (generally because the deductibles are so expensive) that a high percentage of Wal-Mart workers go elsewhere for their coverage, including Medicaid.

Another characterization of Wal-Mart critics’ position that Vedder and Cox make is, “Wal-Mart pays low wages and thus lowers incomes.” In doing so, Vedder and Cox conveniently ignore constant criticism of Wal-Mart for not providing its workers enough hours to survive at whatever wage they pay. Had Vedder and Cox asked a Wal-Mart worker about this issue, they might have come to understand this crucial distinction.

I’ve already noted that Vedder and Cox make the case that wages at Wal-Mart are not significantly worse than other retail jobs, but this does not mean that Wal-Mart workers are necessarily happy. To this point, Vedder and Cox reply, “[I]f Wal-Mart workers are so unhappy with their conditions, why haven’t they unionized?” The answer to that question is simple: if you so much as whisper the word “union” at Wal-Mart you’ll be fired on the spot (despite what the National Labor Relations Act says about a worker’s right to organize).

“If Wal-Mart is systematically and intentionally breaking the law,” they write elsewhere in the book, “it is a criminal menace that needs to be eradicated and brought to justice in order to maintain the rule of law.” This isn’t exactly how I’d put it, but I do agree with the “brought to justice” part. Wal-Mart has a long history of cases brought against it before the National Labor Relations Board, but when it comes to Wal-Mart, Vedder and Cox prefer to hear no evil.

Lastly, let’s discuss their characterization of Wal-Mart’s critics’ position on free trade. They quote Wake-Up Wal-Mart’s “plea for Wal-Mart to “Buy American. Establish a ‘Buy America’ program that annually increases the percentage of ‘Made in America’ goods purchased by Wal-Mart so as to protect American jobs.” In response Vedder and Cox argue the economics textbook point that free trade creates jobs even as it destroys them.

Tell that to the people whose jobs a real Buy American program would have protected. In the epilogue to the Wal-Mart Effect, Charles Fishman prints a transcript of an interview of former workers for the L.R. Nelson Sprinkler Company who used to work in Peoria, Illinois until the company moved its production operation to China. Unlike other companies, the President of that firm publicly placed the blame for the move squarely on Wal-Mart. As Fishman explains it, “Wal-Mart effectively ordered Nelson to fire its American factory workers.”

“It was like having a knife twisted in your gut,” explained Terri Graham. “You are watching your job leave.” I’d like to hear what Vedder and Cox have to say to people like Terri Graham. Would it be something like, “We’re sorry you lost your job, but you have to take one for the team so that other Americans can buy more unnecessary plastic items?” Would they really be that callous?

We may not be able to introduce Vedder and Cox to Terri Graham, but it seems that Richard Vedder will be meeting former Wal-Mart Watch executive director Andrew Grossman at a forum in Washington on February 20th. Andrew, if you’re reading this, would you please ask him what he has to say to Terri? After all, it’s easy for people like Vedder and Cox to defend Wal-Mart as long as they ignore the people who their revolution is displacing.

Posted by Russ Fagaly on Tuesday, February 13, 2007