Wal-Mart follows the law. Capitalism is 100% legal. If Wal-Mart ever breaks a rule, we hear about it and they are brought to justice. Don’t worry.

Someone said that a complaint about wal-mart is that they call the police for every peice of gum. I think you forget out NYC became from number 1 crime city to one of the lowest crime for big cities. They charged everyone who littered, everyone who broke a window, everyone who did anything they brought them to justice. It’s actually petty that you say that Wal-Mart can’t call the cops for someone who is breaking the law. If someone steals anything from me by god I call the police no matter what they steal. When someone steals from Wal-Mart they are stealing from the associates and the custumers. Wal-Mart actually changes their prices based on how bad they shrink out. The associates get a profit share based on profit and shrinkage.

You can say what you like, but Wal-Mart is legit. Wal-Mart can force any mom and pops shop out…. It’s legal and ethical

The isolationist approach is not going to work with China. I acknowledge that reasonable people can disagree with what I’m going to say, but I don’t believe that a company doing business with China is a mark against it. The reason is that China is too big to leave to totalitarian control. True, China’s economic expansion and advances enable it become more powerful militarily, and threatening to its own citizens and its neighbors. Trading with China is a two-edged sword for this reason, but we have to have faith in the process of liberalization and that the future of China, which are the reformers, the capitalists, the new generations. We have to help them make their case and make the transition into a prosperous and peaceful China. To shut the doors of economic cooperation with that nation wouldn’t be smart.

You mentioned the Kelo case in your Wal-Mart is bad comment, but notice that it was not the conservatives on the court who supported that ruling. But I think that you strengthen the case for Wal-Mart in a strange way, quoting from your link: “Cash-strapped cities often use eminent domain in the context of making deals with big business–car dealerships, big-box stores like Wal-Mart and Costco, casinos, football stadiums or any number of developers with plans for upscale housing, hotels or retail.” The economic impact of this application of eminent domain by state and local governments appears to be positive, but that is really unfair and wrong. Now, the fact that Wal-Mart provides cheap goods (to be honest I don’t really go there often) and doesn’t unionize (people don’t marry their job and politicize it) seems great to me.

Also, I don’ t think that I’m being unfair by associating Marx’s call for a workers jihad with the totalitarian regimes that Marxism produces. The damage that Marx caused stems directly from his economic ignorance based fanaticism. Calling for the abolition of property and the right of the individual to be the captain of their own destiny was plain playing God. Regardless of how much you identify or sympathize with his rhetoric, you have to measure its actual value.

Marx argues that free-market economics “compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image….” I wouldn’t call the statement hypocritical, but self-evidently schizophrenic.

The man just didn’t understand economics, for instance: “The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralised the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands.” Marx/Engels, social scientists no doubt, made some serious conceptual errors which it is difficult for anyone, especially post-modernists, to untangle.

Let me try.

First, there will always be “concentrated property in a few hands” which does not necessarily harm us, because as individuals we make discoveries about our environment sovereignly. And that in turn reflects only the fact that for every cause there is an effect. Imagine kindergarteners revolting against their teacher who has “concentrated property” in the form of her intellectual and personal belongings demanding to abolish the fact of her posession. The epistemology here is just absurd. Does everyone have to own a car dealership, an oil refinery, a television station, an airport, a shipyard, a club, to feel good about themselves or for life to finally be fair?

Second, when Marx/Engels spoke of the means of production, they had a static view of its dynamics. How are we supposed to make progress if we are told that the proletarian revolution can only happen if we fight against the constant refinement of the processes of production? The Marxist doctrine, lest we forget, calls for that action, ignoring the laws of economics and following fantasies about them; hence the material and technological backwardness of Marxist nations, which in turn intensify the hardships of individuals who have deal with the moral conundrums of life.

Another glaring example of economic ignorance is the constant railing against centralization from the godfather of intellectually sanctioned oligarchy. This is not hyperbole, see Ludwig von Mises’ Liberty & Property for the what and how.

The argument was made that capitalism was inherently corrupt because it was based on the feudal society. Someone should have reminded Marx/Engels/Marxists that rhetoric is not necessarily logic. There have always been conflicts of interest and people with different views (eg. Marxists vs Capitalists), but the division of the human universe between burgeois and proletariat was simplistic ideation that followed from genuine observations and frustrations.

The left’s faith is that life is a senseless pursuit of self-gratification. Thus the inordinate mortification of the call to defend civilization whenever it is threatened- the cloaking of fear with idealism. Thus the utopian impatience and attachment to Marxist misconceptions.

Marx’s criticisms and prescriptions turned out not to be constructive, but quite the opposite. Anyone can criticize the world, but if we don’t understand the way that it works we have to be careful with the way that we go about trying to improve it. Not all of us can make a contribution in the way that we like, and it takes maturity to realize that.

Marx, like Muhammed, called for revolution without solution, and that is always dangerous and irresponsible. If I envision an omelette on my plate and I keep getting botulinum toxin instead, something is wrong with my recipe.

I agree with you, in a sense, about America not being a free-market economy in as much as there are and have been people who oppose free market economics in this nation. The essense of the American enterprise is liberty, but we are still in the middle of “growing pains” which are comprised of misunderstandings and some social incoherence. Yet, the economy of the United States was meant to be and still is fundamentally driven by free-market economics, people power, not socialism. That is the qualification for my characterization of the American economy as a free-market economy.

Since we’re sharing views here, I’ll say that “communism” is a unity in vision, and Marx’s was fundamentally flawed. He couldn’t get past the materialist’s epistemological problem of what a human being really is; if we are simply machines then of course we need dictators to improve upon “it”.. but don’t mistake the alternative of that approach to be the opposition to improvement.

The American form of government is really the pinnacle of civilization, you are not even forced to subscribe to the faith and values that form its invisible foundations.

“Phlegyas deposits them at a great Iron Gate which they find to be guarded by Rebellious Angels. These creatures of Ultimate Evil, rebel against God Himself, refuse to let the poets pass. Even Virgil is powerless against them, for Human Reason by itself cannot cope with the essence of Evil. Only Divine Aid can bring hope. Virgil accordingly sends up a prayer for assistance and waits anxiously for a Heavenly Messenger to appear.” –John Ciardi describing Canto VIII, The Inferno

When you walk in, you don’t primarily see rich white customers like you do in other grocery stores, what you see is primarily poor minority customers, certainly more so than at any other grocery store. Why would these poor minorities shop there in such large numbers if not for the better prices and better benefits Wal-Mart gives?

…when you se that, you realize, this isn’t a joke.

Thank God for Wal-Mart! The savior of poor people and the jobless! Hoorah!

Seriously, dude, A1 tree-mendous satire. Congrats.

Sadly, there are always a few who don’t seem to get the joke. Don’t let them discourage you.

Here’s an idea for your next one: “Child Labor Laws Unfair to Nation’s Youth.” Take it — it’s yours. In your capable hands, I’m sure we’ll all be screaming with laughter soon.

Poor explanation; for example you want to find a no cost checking account and compare three banks. One offers an account for $10 a month, another for $7.50 a month and the last one offers ‘free checking.’ You take the later offer but your first bank statement contains a $5 service fee. When you complain to the bank manager, she tells you that “they mean it in terms of comparisons to other banks, meaning that our in general, our checking account tends to be more free than other banks.”