Wal-Mart is printing flyers and voter information guides for its employees to try to "inform" their employees about candidates who are highly critical of Wal-Mart and its business practices. Wal-Mart's move is another in the ongoing stream of violations of the basic principles of liberal democracy.
According to philosophers, modernity began around the time of the Renaissance, approximately 500 years ago. Modern thought involved the differentiation of the spheres of human conduct that were previously all wrapped up together. Under feudalism, the church, business, and the state were all the same thing. The de Medicis of Renaissance Florence would go to the Pope to absolve the sin of charging interest in their banks, for example. Commit a crime against that state, and one could be tried not only for treason (a crime against the state), but also for heresy (a crime against the church). It was an undifferentiated world.
The roots of liberalism grew down into the earth as modern thought differentiated these three realms of being. Over several hundred years of development, they became restated as "separation of church and state" and "the two things you don't discuss at work are religion and politics." These notions are woven into modern thought and actually guide how these three great realms of human being relate to one another in the modern world.
Wal-Mart's new campaign increases spillage of corporate interests into the political arena. Wal-Mart grew into the enormous company it has become due to the unique privileges of incorporation granted to it (and every other corporation) by the people. Without those privileges, it could have no significant influence. It was granted those privileges--aggregate capital, freedom from liability for investors, the ability to outlive its founder--in exchange for the economic benefits such corporations provide. But the trade is being corrupted as the corporate entity its using its economic power to change political outcomes. This is not development, but rather a collapse into pre-modern, feudal thinking and ways of doing business. Under our current extension of the rights of citizens to corporate entities, I suppose Wal-Mart has every right to say what it wants. But doing so is not right; it is the corruption of modern thought and the differentiations that allow liberal democracy to flourish. When corporate sector and states merge, a feudal-like fascism is developing. Wal-Mart is taking another step toward that outcome.
Check out my forthcoming book Call to Liberty: Bridging the Divide Between Liberals and Conservatives. I regularly blog at http://www.calltoliberty.net. This post was cross-posted there.