The Providence Wal-Mart

Many middle-to-upper-middle class types hate Wal-Mart, for reasons including, but not limited to: overseas sweatshops, union busting, wage and insurance problems, sexism, racism, censorship, and driving local merchants out of business. Upper class types, also known as the aristocracy (landed gentry, nobility, and Madonna) love Wal-Mart because it's a glorious gem in their portfolios, actually gaining value when the economy goes to pot and their shares in Bombardier Learjet collapse (this joke is especially funny to aristocrats, because Bombardier is traded on the Toronto stock exchange).

A few weeks ago, I voluntarily visited our newish local Wal-Mart to purchase an obscure household item that I might otherwise have had to order online. On the way there, I made a wrong turn and found myself passing through housing projects, which, like any good projects, were easily identifiable as projects because they look exactly like projects. As I came to the end of the block, I saw the monolithic white letters looming only a few hundred yards directly in front of me.

As it turns out, the only Wal-Mart in Providence is right across Route 146 from the housing projects. This is, of course, not coincidental. Rich people avoid Wal-Mart like they avoid general seating. There is no Wal-Mart on the East Side, where I live, nor are there any train yards or highways, unless you count 195 or that post-apocalyptic arrangement that feeds the Henderson bridge.


There are not many white people in Wal-Mart, either. When you do see one, he's probably a manager. That is not a joke. I was there on a particularly busy day, and walking around, every now and then I would pass another white customer, looking lost and bewildered, who was clearly only visiting Wal-Mart as a last resort, and each time they would look at me with a long, blank stare as if to say "boy, don't you hate that we have to come to this place?" It was so gross.

I have occasionally found myself in an argument with someone over Wal-Mart (typically a libertarian, also middle-to-upper-middle class). I present my litany of charges, all the "bad" Wal-Mart does, but I am countered with the suggestion that Wal-Mart's low low prices are a boon to low-income families, immigrants, and basically anyone who has to struggle to pay bills. On this particular visit, I was struck by how many people were checking out with a basket of sundries. For many customers there, this is doubtlessly a primary weekly stop for groceries and supplies. Is it not therefore horrendously classist of me to suggest that these people, who really benefit from Always Low Prices Always, shouldn't have access to this place? So here's the logic I use to justify my horrendous classism. It also relieves cognitive dissonance, as it turns out:

In the case of Wal-Mart, in order for something morally "good" to be performed (low prices and, therefore, more opportunity for low-income households), a whole string of morally "bad" acts precede it. Someone with a strong sense of morality would likely only see the "bad" -- because Wal-Mart is taking an action, or set of actions, that increases suffering somewhere for someone, often within their own stores. A good Machiavellian or neoclassical economist, on the other hand, would be most interested in the net effect: "does the cumulative good performed by Wal-Mart outweigh the cumulative bad?" After all, weren't a few astronaut deaths necessary to make space travel possible? Sacrifice, as many would have you believe, is necessary for advancement.

Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing the true net effect of Wal-Mart's actions, either the good or the bad, so this is a useless standard. And any sacrifice that leads to suffering should only be made by those choosing to sacrifice, not by those Wal-Mart steamrolls. I therefore think that morality is the only standard we have to make this judgment. Money and profits are amoral. That is, they are absent morality. (Not the same as "immoral" -- meaning the opposite of moral). Money and profits exist on their own, outside our moralizing. We as humans must chose where and when something stops being a financial issue and starts becoming a moral issue. And I'm afraid that most Americans set the bar far too high. We love money way too much, but money doesn't love us. Money only loves other money.

Wal-Mart is bad. I haven't changed my mind, even though they had exactly the item I needed and saved me time and cash. I'd still rather it not be there at all; taunting me with its ambiguous ethical constitution.