Walmart Protests Amount to Little

Walmart reported its best Black Friday ever (Black Thursday, really, since the sales started on Thanksgiving night), in spite of union-inspired strikes at a number of stores across the country. “We work hard, so we just want a decent wage,” said one participant.

Now please, I already know that Walmart trucks use government roads, etc. Not the point.

Gary North, one of the few people I willingly pay to read, was correct in his predictions. An excerpt:

Then there is this: union membership has been falling constantly in the United States for a generation. Shoppers are no longer intimidated by a picket line. There are so few union members left in the economy who will honor another union’s picket line that picket lines no longer have any effect. I haven’t seen one in a long time at any retail establishment where I shop. So, the entire strategy of striking against a retail chain has not worked for so long that younger voters don’t know what a picket line is, and they don’t know they are supposed to honor that picket line by refusing to go into the store and buy something.

The American economy has changed radically since 1970. Attitudes towards the labor movement have changed. To imagine that a tactic that has not worked for a generation will somehow work in pressuring America’s largest retail establishment into reversing its corporate policies that have been in effect since the beginning in the 1950s is, as I have said, utterly naïve. It makes me wonder why anyone would accept the leadership of a union whose officers think that this particular tactic is still viable in the United States.

It is very difficult to organize white-collar workers. It is becoming increasingly difficult to organize blue-collar workers who rely on computerized retail systems to earn their livings. Someone can stand at a cash register and punch in a few numbers. That person has no crucial skills. The only way for the union to keep high wages is to make it illegal for people with minimal skills to bid for the protected jobs. The only way to get the government to support the union in this action is to get 51% of the workers to vote for the union. But this proves almost impossible these days. Other workers want jobs, and they recognize that they don’t want a bruising fight to keep those jobs in a company whose very existence is based on competitive volume purchases of all assets, including labor. Nonunion members perceive that unionizing the store will affect their careers negatively. They are no longer willing to vote to join the union.

In the USA, unions are a legacy of the past. I think we will see this on Black Thursday. We will see this by not seeing picket lines. The invisibility of the lines will make the failure of the union’s strategy visible to anyone who has heard about the strike.

Left Wing Mole

Never knew I had to honor it.
Libertylover501

Sorry unions, people still get to buy low cost stuff.
vox

We should all learn about and welcome an increasingly free market, free from centralized government controls, which is what unions ultimately result in. I don’t disagree with people voluntarily organizing to better bargain, but I disagree with the political clout they’ve held (and still hold in some industries), to the detriment of property rights. Robert Wenzel recently published that imported shoe tariffs can reach nearly 67 percent. Taxes are theft. Employers don’t owe us anything beyond what we voluntarily and mutally agree to. We would all be better off without resorting to coercive laws that restrict trade, wealth-building, and the betterment of people materially and beyond.
Joel Poindexter

Of course another irony in all of this is that Wal-Mart pays above the minimum wage. So, according to the standard line of interventionists, their employees ought to be paid more than enough.
Arash

Tom, how is Walmart viewed from a Rothbardian Libertarian point of view? Do they violate any free market principles?

I once watched a documentary that argued that Walmart was bad from a conservative point of view (can’t find the video on youtube). As best as I can remember, its points where as follows:

1. Walmart is the biggest purchaser of Chinese goods in the US, shipping money out of the country

2. Walmart underpays its employees and encourages them to get government welfare, effectively making the government subsidize its wages.

3. Walmart moves into neighborhoods, lowers it prices enough to crush local competition, then brings its prices up once the mom and pop stores go out of business.

4. Walmart hurts the environment by leaving hazardous materials on and off site, and has no system of accountability when local citizens voice their concerns. (mentioned a lot about heavy bureaucracy and local governments doing nothing to prosecute)

5. Walmart does not tolerate any talks of unions, and actually has a team on standby that is ready to fly to any location that is under threat of being unionized.

6. Walmart buys up really huge lots, constructs large stores and then closes down these stores, causing a lot of waste. (note- I think the documentary stated that Walmart had local governments subsidize construction. I could be wrong).

I don’t find most of these points valid, but I wonder about #2. Though perhaps it’s a question of business ethics, rather than corporatism?
Ellen

You are blessed. Here in Australia, we have a government that is very closely linked to the union movement, and there’s some pretty dodgy stuff going on in some of those unions. Union power has grown over the life of this government.
http://www.facebook.com/poindexterstoo Joel Poindexter

Most of those points are the result of the state, not Wal-Mart directly. It’s sort of like people who blame immigrants for “taking free stuff,” when the real problem is the welfare state. As for number three, I’ve yet to see any actual evidence of this, though simple supply and demand would suggest that with more stores, prices would fall; once the other shops close, prices would rise again as there would be fewer suppliers.
Jim

Off-topic, but I am curious about something… Over the years I have seen people claim that Gary North is an advocate of stoning to death disobedient children, people who disagree with religious views, homosexuals, etc., but I have never actually seen any quotes from North on this. Is it true? And if it is, then how can libertarians not condemn him as crazy/evil?
Jim

* with his religious views
http://www.facebook.com/jasonray.anderson Jason Ray Anderson

Gary North is a Christian Reconstructionist so when it comes to just law and just punishments for breaking the law he probably gets his view from scripture alone. Now, a person can judge his views as crazy but if someone looks at why and how he comes to his views, he would see that they are formed from an epistemology called presuppositionalism and it is hard to deny the insights into moral philosophy that this point of view provides. North is a brilliant economist. His book Honest Money is a book every Christian should read. He is strongly Austrian as well.
http://www.facebook.com/jasonray.anderson Jason Ray Anderson

I would also point out that Wal-Mart doesn’t cause local businesses to go out of business. It is the people in the community that choose to buy from Wal-Mart instead of other businesses that cause local businesses to go out of business.
Jim

Yeah yeah, I get that he’s a brilliant economist. I just want to know if he is an advocate of beaming stones at toddlers’ heads. I don’t care what his epistemology is. I just want a straight yes or no: Gary North, are you pro- beaming toddlers with stones? He could put this whole thing to rest very easily with one blog post going, “Relax, everybody. I don’t want to stone anyone.”
http://www.facebook.com/jasonray.anderson Jason Ray Anderson

It is amazing to me that on the one hand you think North’s views are crazy but at the same time you do not care what his epistemology is, which is how he came to hold his views, which would be the only way to properly judge whether his views were crazy or sane. Finally, you can Google search and see exactly what North advocates and why.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Dave-Carroll/100003342890124 Dave Carroll

I think it’s relatively easy to see why someone would find beaming stones at a toddler’s head crazy regardless of the epistemology behind it.
Jim

Thank you, exactly. I’m not interested in intellectualizing the crushing of toddler skulls. The insanity/evil therein should be axiomatic enough. *Shudders*
http://www.facebook.com/jasonray.anderson Jason Ray Anderson

I don’t share his views and I don’t think he is for stoning toddlers. I do however know why he believes the OT is the only just blueprint for civil law. But Libertarians can learn from people who have views that another person thinks is evil. For instance, I think Rothbard’s view on abortion was and is evil, butI still consume his works. North being a theonomist shouldn’t keep Libertarians from learning from him. I assure you though that if you looked into presuppositionalism, you may disagree but I believe you will find it well thought out and reasoned.
C_T

Jim,

North is a big fan of RJ Rushdoony. Read the guy’s books to better understand what kind of world he would subject the rest of us to – if you can stomach them that is.
Although North is an excellent economist, politically he is most certainly not libertarian (he’d have you killed for many acts of mutual consent). In fact, I don’t think North is allowed publishing on anything but monetary matters on the Mises Institute.
Anonymous

US pols in pockets of unions too.
Anonymous

Interesting explanation. Will pursue.