America learns to hate Wal-Mart by Walsh Maurice

America learns to hate Wal-Mart is an article authored by Walsh Maurice. To start with walmart is famous company based in the United States and which has been able to achieve great success within the retail industry. The company has over the years has over the years moved gaining more and more market power thus increasing its ability to control prices in the market. The kind of market monopoly that Wal-Mart has been designed to develop may be viewed to for its accomplishments but from a different perspective there are businesses and people eventually become victims and therefore suffer as Wal-Mart’s continues to prosper. As much Wal-Mart is so much concerned about realizing success through increasing its profit margins day by day there is greater for the management of the company fosters ethical practices in a bid to promote good relations with the society, customers as well as its competitors. Herein focus is on the article “America learns to hate Wal-Mart from a business ethics point of view.

In his article Walsh demonstrates that Walmart Company has been able to acquire a great deal of success among its competitors hence a very large share of the market. however, he argues that the success is coupled with some dilemmas due to the fact that there are other companies in the retail industry which have been disadvantaged and some forced out of business due to lack of capacity and ability to compete with Wal-Mart. In the article Walsh presents a case whereby the citizens of Ashland, Virginia did not want anything to do with Wal-Mart Company setting up another branch of its retail stores in this region. The Wal-Mart located in this place has been described to be quite attractive and impressive and with a very large parking lot for vehicles. Nevertheless, besides Walmart Company having a very good reputation in this region the citizens no longer wish to continue doing business with this global company. The issue in question simply revolves around ethics in business.

The fact of the matter as illustrated by Walsh relates to a takeover bid that Wal-Mart engaged in for a British supermarket chain by the name Asda. The details of the case indicate that Wal-Mart is not interested in taking over control of only one store. The company actually seems to want to build another store in the regions in order to boost its sales. This is something that the citizens of Ashland find to be very unethical. Walsh presents that there are actually companies that have been driven out of business due to the strategies as well as models that are used by Wal-Mart towards becoming a monopoly at the expense of other businesses.

Activists such as Al Norman are presented to spearhead the fight against Wal-Mart in different places in the United States through guerilla warfare virtually via the internet. Norman is indicated to be a person who visits different states in the United States which have groups already set up to resist Wal-Mart and its operations. He basically provides guidance to the groups from different states on how they can campaign against Wal-Mart as well as linking them to one another in order to show the society that Wal-Mart is actually a giant monopoly that aims at sapping out the life of American towns. It is quite essential to note that Walmart’s gain of market power does not seem ethical at all due to the impact that this company has had in the society which includes influencing the larger economy and how the market operates. Despite the fact that the company operates in an era of free and unrestrained commerce the company seems to put consumerism ahead of humanism. This is not at ethical and is exactly what has ignited the war against this company.

Walsh presents examples of town and businesses that have crushed down due to the manner in which Wal-Mart does business and the greater control of the market that this company has. A very good example presented is a town located in Texas by the name Hearne. This town is said to have gained prosperity 20 years back however due to Wal-Mart’s influence of the market and its moves towards becoming a monopoly the town is no more. In this case Wal-Mart demonstrates some worry due to the fact that its image is tattered and the fact that towns such as Hearne clearly shows that the company as much it is operating in a free market economy it lacks some sense of humanism. Due to the negative reaction that some consumers have against Wal-Mart the company is aware of the fact that by pricing its products at low is enough to gain loyalty and trust from the customers.

There is greater need for Wal-Mart Company to rethink on various aspects on how it aims at acquiring market power. Driving other entities especially local business traders out of market and them disappearing from the region as it is in the case of Hearne is not at all ethical hence not a means through which the company can be said to promoting humanism. The company needs to take realize that it is endangering its success if it continues to promote consumerism in this era of capitalism at the expense of humanism.