Last
Sunday I had the misfortune to enter a violent spat of indigestion over
breakfast. It was not the peanut-butter toast, but rather, an editorial in ‘The
Oregonian’ that sent my stomach churning. Spelled out in bold relief, the
article is titled ‘The demonization of Wal-Mart,’ and covers the ongoing feud
between the residents of Sherwood and Wal-Mart over the super-retailer’s
attempt to construct a big-box store in the center of town. The article seethes
with condescension, sounding not unlike a tightly-wound adult who feels the
need to lecture a child about the importance of washing behind the ears. To
give you a sense of this, it is worth quoting directly from the article. The
writer begins by claiming that “even by Wal-Mart standards, Sherwood’s reaction
to the nation’s largest retailer is jaw-dropping,” going on to explain “less
clinically” that “the citizens of Sherwood need to get a grip.” Local efforts
to stop the super-retailer from constructing a store there are not only naive
but misguided; they can only do damage to the city’s image and economy in the
long-run. Construction is inevitable, the benefits undeniable and the economic
logic irrefutable. What Sherwood is going through now are just growing pains
which will soon pass. Don’t send the “town down the wrong path” with pesky
regulations and red-tape; rather, realize that you are part of the twenty-first
century and get your head in the game.
As you can probably guess, there are
several claims that I take issue with in the article, the entire piece, to be
precise. For one, the article’s eagerness to dismiss Sherwood’s grassroots
campaign against Wal-Mart as mere anxiety over the city’s rapid growth smacks
of the small town, small minds cliché. The language used conjures up images of
a “sleepy” town peopled by short-tempered simpletons who are always looking to
find fault with innovation. Secondly, and more significantly, the editorial
glosses over the very real substance of the resident’s concerns. Wal-Mart is
infamous for violating federal labor laws, depressing its employee’s wages and
engaging in exploitative practices domestically as well as overseas. Yet these
substantial facts are only alluded to in the breeziest manner, likely because
they complicate the cookie-cutter narrative that the writer chose to pursue.
Reading between the lines, however, it
is apparent that ‘The Oregonian’ editorial is the result of more than sloppy
journalism, but in fact, a national crisis of democracy. The views articulated
are not by any means exceptional; actually, they are what one would expect from
a middle-of-the road American newspaper. And this is a cause for grave concern.
For Sherwood’s grassroots campaign against Wal-Mart, far from being a
reactionary initiative, is democracy in action. The fact that ‘The Oregonian’
failed to recognize its fundamentally democratic character is symptomatic of a
degraded understanding of what democracy means and how it is practiced.
Unfortunately, this degraded understanding of democracy has seeped into
consciousness of the American public, politics and the media, including ‘The
Oregonian.’ Instead of being participatory and empowering, this ideal is
dictated by those at the top to those at the bottom, recoils at the thought of
public involvement and believes that only a handful of ‘movers’ is needed to
govern. When other people start to voice their own opinions, their efforts are dismissed
as quaint. If they begin to take action – like Wal-Mart workers who have tried
to unionize – they are attacked without a second thought. As shown below, this
crisis of democracy has far-reaching consequences and is intimately tied to the
global economic situation, especially where it concerns Wal-Mart.
________
At the core of the editorial is an
economic ideology which is firmly opposed to democracy – that is, rule by the
consent of the people. Economic growth is assumed to be an inexorable force,
one that cannot be stopped even if it is not desired by those whom it entangles.
Or as the writer explains, “Sherwood was growing rapidly before Wal-Mart came
calling and likely will continue to grow rapidly after the retailer opens its
store,” meaning that citizens “whose goal is to stop Wal-Mart should realize
it’s too late.” But why is it “too late” and why is this growth inevitable? The
truth of the matter is that this type of economic expansion is always a choice:
it is not as if Wal-Mart’s arrival is the result of a hurricane, a shift in
tectonic plates or some other natural cataclysm. Quite frankly, the supposed
inevitability of economic expansion is a myth, though one that has many
disciples even as we trudge our way out of the Great Recession (an event that
disproves the inevitable growth thesis in spades). And not only is the logic
sloppy but it is dangerous. Environmental degradation, wage-slavery and looming
inequality are explained away with the same spurious talk of inevitability.
Those who engineer this misery are implicitly liberated of all guilt since – after
all – it was going to happen anyway.
As you can imagine, this economic
mantra works against democracy because those who engineer the growth are always
allowed to have their way; all other opinions appear irrelevant under the
storm-cloud of the inevitable. Capitalism’s fatalism, in this regard, is strikingly
similar to Communism’s faith in historical materialism, or the idea that
history progresses in predetermined stages through the interplay of economic
forces. In other words, for the capitalist the theology of inevitable growth is
the equivalent of the communist’s belief that class conflict drives history.
Each brand of fatalism is incompatible with the ideal of democracy, which
recognizes not only the potential for social action, but asserts that society
is only as good as it empowers its members act separately and in concert
towards meaningful change. Naturally this is impossible in the economic realm
if the ‘economic movers’ are the only ones who get to call the shots.
Most economists, particularly those
favored by Wal-Mart, would be quick to respond that the current system is
democratic because it allows for each actor to freely compete with its
competitors. After all, every company operates in the same ‘free market.’ These
sentiments are shared by ‘The Oregonian,’ which states that Wal-Mart will face
steep “competition” in Sherwood, before adding somewhat incongruously that the
“best way to ensure that Wal-Mart thrives is to make it difficult for new
competitors to open in Sherwood.” This tension in terms, what most would call a
contradiction, hints at a more basic truth. To call the relationship between
local stores and Wal-Mart – the biggest, richest and most powerful retailer in
history – “competition” is like calling a boxing match between a toddler and
Mohammed Ali fair. The statement is too absurd to take seriously. But it is.
A related indicator of the decline in
democracy is the tendency to accord corporations the status of individuals, a
development which impinges on the ability of real people to participate in the
political process. Within the last several decades, the Supreme Court has
repeatedly affirmed the right of corporate elites to commandeer the legislative
process through their control over campaign financing. Spending money in
support of a certain candidate is a form of ‘free speech,’ or so we are told. If
corporate interests choose to buy off politicians by deluging the political
process with cash, then this is just democracy in motion, ‘free speech.’ This
logic could have been taken straight out of a Lewis Carol story, though Orwell
is perhaps more apropos for our purpose. Apparently the irony of money being
likened, indeed equated, with ‘free’ speech does not rub off on the Supreme
Court, or much of mainstream America for that matter. Free speech, a value
enshrined in the Bill of Rights, is still ‘free’ but you will have to pay for
it if you want your ‘free’ speech to count. And since some people own more
money they also have more ‘free’ speech. To borrow from Orwell, within
America’s democracy all people are equal but some are more equal than others. All
people have free speech but some people have more (and costlier) ‘free’ speech
than others.
Recognition of corporate personhood is
implicit in ‘The Oregonian’ article, though not in the way one might imagine.
For in practice, corporate personhood not only gives the corporation the rights
of individuals, but these rights tend to carry more weight than the equivalents
accorded to real citizens. Put another way, not only do corporations enjoy the
fruits of citizenship but they are something of a super-citizen, enjoying V.I.P.
influence when it comes to how political decisions are made. This favoritism is
clearly shared by ‘The Oregonian,’ which suggests that Wal-Mart and City
Council should not hesitate to ride roughshod over the will of the citizens –
that is, the real people: “the committee exploring business regulations would
be wise to heed two pieces of advice… shared with the council: Don’t let fear
determine your actions. And remember what your goals are. Put less clinically,
the citizens of Sherwood need to get a grip.” In other words, the City Council
should not waste time listening to the demands of the people – those whose expressed
will is leading the Council to second-guess itself, or “fear” – but should act
unilaterally, pursuing “your goals” first. Sometimes the people are too stupid
to know what is good for them. In such cases the movers and shakers should
dictate the terms, which is to say, help them “get a grip.”
While this logic would find itself at
home in a fascist society, it is hardly compatible with a democratic one. Contrary
to the claims of ‘The Oregonian,’ the will of the people does matter; in fact,
it is the foundation of all democratic governance. Yet kowtowing to corporate largesse
and elite power has become a hallmark of the political process. And this
knee-jerk deference to authority is as keenly practiced by mainstream
journalists as anyone. Indeed, if the
media is a ‘fourth estate’ then it is one whose land has become incestuously
intermixed with the estates of Wal-Mart and other vested interests. Robert
Fisk, the best English language journalist on the Middle-East, cheekily described
this process when he suggested that ‘The New York Times’ should change its name
to “American Officials Say,” seeing as it regularly rehashes the official
version of events instead of launching its own investigation. One cannot help
but wonder, for example, if the Iraq War would have happened if the media had
chosen to question the findings of the Bush administration on WMD. By
publishing the official story of an Iraq saturated with weapons the media greased
the way for war, preparing the Bush line for public consumption side-by-side
with the perjurers at the White House. And the presentation of the ‘facts’ was
not simply complicated by misinterpretation or a misplaced emphasis on both
‘sides’ of the story in pursuit of ‘objectivity.’ Every major international
organization and creditable expert said that there was no WMD in Iraq; still,
the content of the major newspapers was “American Officials Say.”
This uncritical deference to power,
whether corporate or governmental, continues in the media’s handling of the
Snowden affair. Recent revelations about the National Security Agency’s surveillance
of private citizens – activities which by definition violate the constitution –
were greeted by the press with hellfire and brimstone, against Edward Snowden that
is. One would think that the ‘fourth estate,’ a supposed bastion of
transparency and free discourse, would have welcomed the revelations. After
all, investigative journalists rely on similar sources to perform their work.
Instead, Snowden has been vilified by journalists from all milieus: David
Brooks on public television, Jeffrey Toobin in ‘The New Yorker,’ and every
major broadcasting station in America. To hear all the major news organs parrot
the government line at the same time is as amusing as it is disturbing. In a
rare moment of candor, the masks of ‘objectivity’ and ‘independence’ have been
swiftly cast off. It is like watching a group of avowedly independent
anarchists suddenly engage in an elaborate synchronized swimming routine.
Needless to say, ‘The Oregonian’ has been equally reticent to call Snowden a
whistleblower, preferring to describe him with more ‘neutral’ language when not
simply hashing-out articles from the Associated Press or another major news
organ.
________
Having spent the first part of this
essay explaining why democracy is in a state of crisis, I would like to spend
the remaining portion examining why what’s going on in Sherwood is democracy in
action. When I returned home last month from school, I was stunned by the
number of no build signs posted around Sherwood. Residents have been packing
into City Council meetings, circulating a no build petition and organizing at
the grassroots level in opposition to the super-retailer. The tension is
visceral: anti-Wal-Mart signs have found their way into every neighborhood and
Wal-Mart, contrary to insinuations in ‘The Oregonian,’ has yet to build at the
site. Residents are choosing to overcome apathy, ideology and the inertia of
their personal problems to unite in demanding that the city not allow a corrupt
corporation to plant its roots here. To paraphrase Thoreau, they have decided
to cast their whole vote.
And this is a cause worth fighting for.
Wal-Mart embodies much of what is wrong with democracy today. Being the largest
retailer in the world, the company uses many overseas suppliers which are
involved in human-trafficking, wage-slaving and other illegal enterprises.
Human Rights Watch has found that at one shrimp supplier in Thailand, for
example, many of the workers had been brought to the plant under false pretenses
before being forced to work as indentured labor. The company illegally
confiscated workers’ passports, workplace conditions were unsafe and the
workforce had been procured with the help of human traffickers.
When HRW brought these findings to
Wal-Mart the company stated that it would investigate work conditions at the
plant, acknowledging that they regularly received shrimp shipments from the
supplier in question. Later the company asserted that it did not receive shrimp
shipments from that supplier, contradicting previous statements and a mass of
evidence suggesting otherwise. Workers say that inspectors had previously
visited the site but failed to lodge any complaints about the supplier’s
misconduct. And as HRW’s John Sifton writes, “It is comic – or, actually,
tragic – to imagine a Sam’s Club buyer visiting the Song Khla facility, saying,
‘thank you’ to a cadre of indentured laborers who are unable to speak openly
about their labor woes.”
It is also well known that Wal-Mart
applies downward pricing pressure in the clothing industry, pursuing a policy
which increases profit margins by slicing the wages of workers at the bottom rung
of the supply-chain. Put in bleaker terms, the company makes money by taking it
away from the poorest and most vulnerable workers, oftentimes destitute widows
and children. Workplace conditions for these employees are just as appalling. During
a November 2012 sweat-shop fire in Bangladesh, 112 workers died deaths which
could have been prevented if not for hazardous working conditions. The site
supplied clothing to Wal-Mart, the biggest and wealthiest retailer in the world.
And after the most recently publicized sweatshop blaze, Wal-Mart refused to
join the European Union in agreeing to stricter safety standards for it
suppliers, a disturbing indicator of where its true priorities lie.
You do not have to travel overseas,
though, to witness the company’s unspeakable behavior. More sexual
discrimination lawsuits have been lodged against Wal-Mart than against any
other organization in the U.S. The sheer number of cases is so great that the
company has succeeded in convincing the government that these cases should not
be considered together. Since lawsuits have been filed in every corner of the
country, the company asserts that they are too numerous and diverse to be considered
the same form of discrimination – or so the reasoning goes. Yet one could
equally argue that in light of the unprecedented number and commonality of the
claims, it would be a serious lapse in judgment on the part of U.S. officials
if they were not considered together. Unfortunately, it seems that the wishes
of a single corporate ‘person’ will trump the grievances of 1.5 million real women.
As Amanda Reed, a blogger for NOW, writes:
“Many female Walmart employees have
been paid less than male coworkers. In 2001, female workers earned $5,200 less
per year on average than male workers. The company paid those who had hourly
jobs, where the average yearly earnings were $18,000, $1.16 less per hour
($1,100 less per year) than men in the same position. Female employees who held
salaried positions with average yearly earnings of $50,000 were paid $14,500
less per year than men in the same position. Despite this gap in wages, female
Walmart employees on average have longer tenure and higher performance ratings.
“In Dukes v. Walmart -- the
largest class action gender discrimination lawsuit in U.S. history -- 1.5
million female employees accused Walmart of discrimination in promotions, pay
and job assignments. The case included 120 affidavits relating to 235 stores.
When the Supreme Court heard the case in 2011, it ruled that ‘[e]ven if every
single one of these accounts is true, that would not demonstrate that the
entire company operate[s] under a general policy of discrimination.’ Today,
many of the plaintiffs are in the process of filing smaller suits against the
corporation.”
Wal-Mart is also renowned for attacking
employees who attempt to unionize, a basic right under U.S. law but one which
the company has fiercely resisted. Journalist Steven Greenhouse quotes a Human
Rights Watch report which states that “when Wal-Mart faced unionization drives,
the company often broke the law by, for example, eavesdropping on workers,
training surveillance cameras on them and firing those who favored unions.”
Moreover, the company’s crimes potentially reverberate far beyond its doors and
the lives of its employees. Carol Pier, senior researcher at Human Rights
Watch, notes that “When the largest private employer in the United States seems
to be able to violate U.S. law with virtual impunity, that’s a very serious
cause for concern, both with respect to its impact on employees, but also by
other employers in the United States.”
The super-retailer’s assault on unions
is also an assault on democracy. Within unions, workers are allowed to register
grievances, voice their opinion and partake in the company’s decision-making
process. At its finest, it is a perfect microcosm of democracy. I do not doubt
that many readers will be put-off by hearing me saying this, but it is true. Consider.
The fact that the word “union” arouses bad connotations is itself a measure of
how successful corporate interest groups have been in deluding the public with
their propaganda. We are told that if we do not live in a “right to work”
state, we will be forced to join a union and pay unnecessary fees to maintain
it. These corporate-backed propagandists neglect to mention, however, that
under federal law no one can be forced to join a union. They also forget to
mention that people who are members of a union generally have higher wages,
more benefits and securer jobs than those performing the same work outside of
one. Today people are inclined to forget that accident-insurance, the
eight-hour workday and pensions were all brought about by labor activism and
the unions that coalesced out of it. It does not take an economist to see why companies
like Wal-Mart hate unions, it is the same reason they cut the wages of
destitute children in Bangladesh: they are only concerned about making money.
But if the workplace can be a model
democracy then it can also be a mirror of what is wrong in society. We have
already noted Wal-Mart’s exploitation of the Global South, sexual
discrimination and attack on free expression in the workplace. All of these problems,
however, could just have easily have been noted by examining the retailer’s
wage-structure; that is, who gets what on the company-ladder. Rose Aguilar
writes that, “Wal-Mart, the country’s largest employer, posted $3.64 bn [billion]
in profits for the third quarter alone [in 2012] and has already registered
$444 bn in sales this year. Wal-Mart heir Robson Walton, whose net worth is $26
bn, took in more than $420 m [million] in dividends last year, while the
average employee makes $8.81 an hour or $15,500 a year. The Walton family has
more wealth than the bottom 42% of American families combined. In 2010, CEO
Michael Duke’s annual salary of $35 m gives him more in an hour than a
full-time employee makes in an entire year.” For a society in which wealth
trickles upward at vacuum speed, it is no wonder that Wal-Mart has its
apologists – the company creates and replicates the very order within which the
ultra-wealthy pad their (multiple) wallet(s).
Sherwood’s grassroots campaign against
Wal-Mart’s newest store proposal is democracy in action and a cause worth
fighting for. Citizens are realizing that democracy is not a noun but a verb:
it is difficult, often thankless and always requires action. ‘The Oregonian’
editorial’s quicksilver critique of Sherwood is, in truth, a resounding affirmation
of their cause. Simply put, it would not make much sense if a major newspaper,
a bastion of status quo values, did support this grassroots initiative. The
fact that the citizens of Sherwood have so thoroughly chagrined those at ‘The
Oregonian’ is really a vindication of their efforts; it is something to take genuine
pride in.
And, as the facts make clear,
opposition to Wal-Mart is not just a political issue but a moral one. Sherwood,
an affluent community, has chosen to break from its role in the consumption
chain; residents are refusing to taste the fruits of indentured-labor. Some
critics, undoubtedly those at ‘The Oregonian,’ will respond by saying that the
moral argument is understandable but unrealistic. But if Americans are not
willing to address the moral problems that are visible, in fact, an entire
city-block long, then where will they start? Again, none of these problems –
human trafficking, sexual discrimination or depressed wages – are ‘inevitable.’
They are all rooted in decisions made by people and all human action implies
choice. And even if we assume that Sherwood is being ‘unrealistic,’ it hardly
seems ‘realistic’ to expect that these problems will go away if people choose
to do nothing about them. It is worth noting that those who subscribe to this
logic always call the plans which are destructive ‘realistic’ – deforestation,
pollution and war – while all positive action is dismissed as ‘unrealistic’ –
fair wages, sexual equality and conservation. As with the fallacy of the ‘free
market,’ such fatalism is convenient for the powerful but dangerous for the
powerless, especially if they happen to be performing sweated labor for
Wal-Mart. And not only is it dangerous, it is stupid. The residents of Sherwood
refuse to accept it and their decision should be respected.
________
In the field of economics there are
some principles which attain the status of ‘laws.’ These principals are held to
be true in virtually every instance and over time they may begin to take on an
aura of the natural or immutable. The so-called ‘iron law of wages’ may begin
to appear to be as natural as a law of physics, for example. This appearance of
naturalness or immutability is misleading though, since economics always occurs
within a particular social order which is organized by human-beings. The ‘laws’
may, then, describe how people act within the order they have constructed, but
this order and the laws which describe it are, in the end, constructed ones.
Over time, however, it becomes all too easy for the economist, politician or
corporate executive to mistake these ‘laws’ for natural laws, like the laws of
physics; they begin to believe that what is manmade is actually natural, true
for all times and places.
This common mistake underlies many, if not most, of the problems we now
face. Free-will, which is implied by democracy, is subjugated to the fatalism
of economic ‘law.’ What goes unnoticed is the fact that all of these ‘laws’
arose out of decisions which were made by people and thus can be changed by
people. For corporations, then, to suggest that they cannot afford to pay their
employees a living-wage because of an ‘iron law of wages,’ or the ‘laws’ of the
market is misleading. Yes, they may have to alter their business-model, the
government’s role may change and consumers’ expectations will have to evolve,
but change is always possible. And for the sake of democracy in America,
indeed, for the sake of the human race, change must come.
In conclusion, there may be an ‘iron
law of wages’ but the iron that composes it was smelt with human hands. And
there may be an ‘iron law of Wal-Mart’ which asserts its inevitability, but the
people of Sherwood refuse to follow it.
For the sake of human decency, I hope
they succeed.
Note: For those who want to sign the no build petition, please go to Jennifer Harris' petition at change.org. The petition is titled, "Walmart Corporation: Do not Bring Walmart to Sherwood, Oregon." The URL is: http://www.change.org/petitions/walmart-corporation-do-not-bring-walmart-to-sherwood-oregon
Note: For those who want to sign the no build petition, please go to Jennifer Harris' petition at change.org. The petition is titled, "Walmart Corporation: Do not Bring Walmart to Sherwood, Oregon." The URL is: http://www.change.org/petitions/walmart-corporation-do-not-bring-walmart-to-sherwood-oregon
To add on to your working conditions post, in March the Rana Plaza factory, which supplied clothing to Walmart, Primark, and Gap, collapsed killing 1300 workers+ and Walmart refused to even sign a pac that requires retailers pay $500,000 per year towards safety improvements over a five year period.
ReplyDeleteThe largest retailer in the world is so stingy and anti-humane, it refuses to fork over a measly fraction of its profits to ensure safer conditions for its workers.