The personal vs the poltical--NOT about Schiavo

Believe it or not :-).

There's other issues being bandied about that cross, or blur, or don't completely understand, the line between the personal or the political. Schiavo is a current example of that--where some people who should know better have politicized what should be a personal issue--but there's more. And some of the others are far more subtle.

And one of them, that a lot of people around here don't get--is Walmart.

More after the flip.

I have posted previously that I'm a paycheck-to-paycheck person. We are not poor, but we do bargain shop. There are three grocery store chains in Northeast MA and I shop at the least pleasant one--Market Basket--because they're considerably cheaper. I HATE the place, but I'm there every week. If I won the lottery tomorrow I'd be in Stop and Shop forever.

And I occasionally buy things at Walmart.

We're not going to argue here whether or not they really are cheaper, because if you maintain they aren't I'm going to disagree. Not for everything, no. But for lots of things, yes they absolutely are, and I do comparison shop and I work in retail. And it's not just the no-brand loss leaders either--I've previously posted that I went to buy an new TV for my bedroom with some Christmas money, and Walmart had a Magnavox (a name brand) for 110 bucks. The same TV was 20 more in Best Buy and 30 more in Circuit City. A lot of times, for name brand stuff, they are cheaper. I don't just blindly accept that--I look around. And nobody beats them on kids' clothes. Target comes close, but Walmart's still cheaper.

So, we're going to start from a premise that they're cheaper, overall, than their competitors.

So, how are you going to convince me not to shop there?

You're not. EVER. Period.

OK, I'm going to play devil's advocate just a little. Because I am more politically aware than the average Walmart shopper. But I'm going to speak from my non-politically-aware side here. And I think the average lower-middle-class paycheck-to-paycheck Walmart shopper would agree with this.

Walmart employees get paid shit? Who cares, so do I. Their health insurance sucks? Who cares, so does mine. The bosses treat the employees like shit? Who cares, so do mine. Nobody that lives paycheck-to-paycheck works a job anybody wants--we work the jobs we can get. We don't like them. Which gives us no sympathy for the downtrodden Walmart employee, because we're in the same boat.

So, tell me, again, why I should give up saving precious money to make a poltical point?

This is the disconnect: I do NOT NOT NOT decide where to shop based on poltical considerations, because I can't afford to do that. Shopping decisions are personal, especially when you're trying to save money. Shopping decisions only become political when saving money ceases to be the primary concern. Guess what? Saving money is the primary concern for a whole shitload of your fellow citizens.

Walmart bashing is 'limousine liberalism' at its most pointed. Don't get me wrong, I don't like Walmart. However, I like an empty wallet a whole hell of a lot less. And there are other personal reasons people might shop at Walmart--convenience being one of them. You want people working two jobs with limited time to drive all over holy creation to buy stuff to make a political point? Yeah, that's going to go over real well!

However, if you want to get political about it--alienating Walmart shoppers is so counterproductive I can't believe it. Jesus, folks, these are our natural allies--the working class! And bashing Walmart might make perfect sense to those of you who are looking at it from a highfalutin' poltical view--but it won't make sense to people who are shopping there for personal "It's cheaper" reasons. It makes you look like you're completely out of touch with the very people we want voting Democratic.

The bottom line is this--calls for boycotting Walmart will never work and will only alienate people that shop there. The way to deal with Walmart is above--on the government level. Regulating their relationships with their suppliers. Putting teeth back into fair labor laws. Mandating they supply health insurance (or going single-payer). Raising the minimum wage up to ten bucks or so.

There have been some places that have defeated Walmarts in their towns. However, I notice that these never seem to happen in Hardscrabble, Arkansas. They don't happen in Lynn, MA, a city of 100,000 near me that is poor and where the majority of people shopping in the Walmart there no habla ingles. To people in Lynn, Walmart is a fucking gift from heaven. You have to understand that.

So, those of you that have the financial wherewithal to make shopping decisions politically--congratulations. Now, realize that there are a whole LOT of people that don't. And Walmart is a symptom, not the disease. I've seen jokes that Walmart doesn't pay their people so they have to shop at Walmart. Well, I don't work at Walmart and I still have to shop there. You think Walmart invented low-paid retail employees? I've worked in retail long before there were any Walmarts in my area, and retail paid shitty back then too. Walmart gets the most attention because they're so big--but, let me tell you, Costco is an abberation. Walmart, at least around here, pays average for retail. None of us are getting rich.

If you want people to stop shopping at Walmart, they're going to need a personal, not a political, reason to do so. And I'm not sure there are any. Most people who have personal reasons to shop elsewhere already do. People who are shopping at Walmart are doing so for personal reasons. Poltical braying and calling for boycotts isn't ever going to change that.

•  Tip jar

  ...or flame jar, whichever :-)

  by ChurchofBruce on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 06:30:20 AM PDT

  •  Important Diary

    There have been some battles against Wal-Mart in working class communities (hell, where else does Wal-Mart locate?) but what is important about this diary is the reminder that Wal-Mart shoppers should not be alienated. Does that mean boycotts never make sense? No, but the boycott must come from the people being asked to boycott. The Black community of Montgomery, Alabama depended on the bus system to get to work and would never have responded to a call to boycott from outside their community. It was precisely when their own conciousness was ready for action that the call for a boycott resonated. A lot of the "boycotts" I hear calls for these days are not serious boycotts, they are really exercises in self-congratulation that will have no appreciable impact on the targetted company. We do have power as consumers but it is not limitless and it requires strategic focus and effective organization if it is to be exercised with any effect.

    Wal-Mart is pernicious and while they are the leading edge of what they do, they are being followed by their competitors. Really confronting them requires:
    

    1. Organizing the workers at Wal-Mart and
       
    2. Organizing the workers (in China and elsewhere) who produce what Wal-Mart sells.

    Only when such organizing campaigns are seriously under way will calls for boycotts have any prospect for success (and still they will face considerable resistance from folks who depend on Wal-Marts low prices). In such situations boycotts should be viewed not as an expresion of generalized distaste for the practices of a company, but as a TACTIC designed to bring pressure to achieve a specific goal. Wal-Mart isn't going to change its practices to satisfy folks who would never shop there anyway, so boycotts are ONLY effective when they actually speak to the people who PRESENTLY shop at Wal-Mart and might be expected to do so again after a boycott has achieved its goals.

    Discretionary consumer behavior should not be confused with effective political action. Choose not to shop somewhere because you don't like them if you want, but don't kid yourself into thinking that act uis about anything other than salving your own conscience unless it is part of a seriousl collective organizing effort.

    by Christopher Day on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 07:03:54 AM PDT

    •  The thing about goods made in China

      ...is that's everywhere.

      And, that's another issue entirely. I worked in consumer electronics for a number of years. Do you know how many electronic devices are not made in China or other similarly-repressive places? Not a lot.

      I always thought it would be an interesting experiment: get two DVD players. Identical in every way. Both name-brands. One, with a big MADE IN CHINA sign, for sixty bucks. Right next to it--again, identical--with a big MADE IN USA sign for eighty bucks. Play it up further if you want: "Made in the repressive Commie regime of China by indentured servants making peanuts" vs "made in the good ol' USA by your neighbors--suppport the American worker!"  I wonder how much we would've sold of each. My educated guess? The cheaper made in China one by a good 75-90%. I don't think it would be close.

      And you wonder why I snort at boycotts of Walmart. I've worked in retail too long :-)

      by ChurchofBruce on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 07:49:39 AM PDT

      •  As long as its an individual consumer act

        you are absolutely correct.

        What I object to is the notion that people are incapable of making ethical choices that involve an element of sacrifice. People can and will when they have reason to believe that their actions are effective and when they are genuine acts of solidarity, that is to say when they are attached to a larger collective or community project. The problem is that most boycotts today are in fact acts of "limousine liberalism" (or "Subaru socialism") that are completely disconnected from efforts to ORGANIZE the power of poor and working class people.

        There is little question that we are well-trained to be amoral consumers. But this is not an expression of human nature so much as an expression of the atomization and amorality of consumer capitalism and most of us feel, consciously or unconsciously, a little yucky about it. The project is not to wag our fingers at people to make them into moral consumers, but rather to concretely build class and community consciousness so that we no longer find our personal validation through buying things but rather from our relations with each other as human beings.

        by Christopher Day on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 08:05:24 AM PDT

•  Wal-Mart

  The major reason I avoid Wal-Mart, honestly, is that everything I've ever bought there has broken.  Towels that shed, covered wastebaskets with faulty springs, and so on.  It's cheaper for me to go elsewhere in the long run.
   

  by astralagos on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 06:33:16 AM PDT

  •  That's a completely different issue

    and if I'd had that experience I'd not shop there either.

    That is a personal, not political, reason not to shop there.

    by ChurchofBruce on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 06:39:31 AM PDT

•  I don't shop there

  Mainly because I think there stuff is pretty crappy usually.  I go to K-Mart because my mom works for them, although their stuff is crappy also.

  ChurchofBruce, you do what you can do.  I don't think it's bad to shop at Wal-Mart if that's what you think is best.

  by Unstable Isotope on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 07:05:57 AM PDT

•  I left Lynn 12 years ago.

   And boy am I not sorry. I used to shop at the Star Market and live in the Vamp building. Sec 8 apartments. So I know about being broke and shopping where you can and not where you want.
   But at some point you have to make a choice. My choice was get an education and get the f-out of town. 12 years later I'm in a position to NOT shop at walmart.

  by BobX on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 07:06:35 AM PDT

  •  You see, that's my point...

    "My choice was to get an education and the the f out of town."

    Do you realize how, er, Republican that sounds?

    by ChurchofBruce on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 07:41:30 AM PDT

    •  Thats the Problem with Liberalism

      Because it refuse to make real critique of capitalism it finds itself always falling back on the ideology of individual responsibility. It is a middle class ideology that regards the condition of the poor and working class not as structural to capitalism but rather as a result of some sort of failing. What distinguishes liberalism from conservatis is that it has a broader sense of responsibility for that failing, but at the end of the day their is the still the unsupportable beliefe that if given the proper opportunity everybody could achieve a middle class standard of living when in fact the wealth of some always rests on the poverty of many.

      by Christopher Day on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 08:10:30 AM PDT

    •  No as a matter of fact I don't.

       How is bettering my life republican? Am I supposed to stay in one place, on public assistance, in a crime ridden area, just to be a liberal? I went to school, opened a business, and bought my own home.  In the 3 short years I did live there, my wife was threatened to be killed by someone who worked for me as an aid, got robbed, and a neighbor was shot to death. Not staying in Lynn my whole life was my motivation, as a matter fact I still have not set foot in that place for 12 years, and won't anytime in the near future.
      I used what is/was available to better my life. So how you think wanting something better and getting out of a bad situation is republican is beyond me.

      by BobX on Tue Mar 29, 2005 at 03:47:16 AM PDT

      •  You bettering your life isn't what sounded Repub

        ...it was how you phrased it. "Sometimes you have to make a choice" sounded to me like the tired old "well, if you'd just pull yourself up by your bootstraps...." crap.

        Some people are NEVER gonna get out of Lynn.

        BTW, just so we're clear, I live in Peabody, not Lynn :-)

        by ChurchofBruce on Tue Mar 29, 2005 at 05:01:09 AM PDT

        •  Well choice is the frame

          Sometimes you do have to make a choice, you choose to shop at walmart because you can stretch your cash and I don't have a problem with that, you need to take care of your family and yourself. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps is not crap, it is an attitude, if I did not think this way I would have laid down dead years ago. In 1987 I had an accident that left me paralyzed and wheelchair bound for the rest of my life. A good attitude is the ONLY thing that keeps me going. And no some people will NEVER leave Lynn, I still have friends who live in Lynn who will never leave and that is not by their choice(more disabled than myself and can not persue and education or employment). There is also the other side of the coin, those that could better their lives and don't and I know some  these people up close and personal and they are comfortable where they are at. That just wasn't me.

          FYI, grew up in West Peabody (Russell St.)and Everett.
          

          by BobX on Tue Mar 29, 2005 at 06:23:51 AM PDT

•  Inglewood, CA-- A Case Study

  Inglewood, CA is a working-class (2000 median income- $34, 269), predominantly black (47%) and Latino (46%) city located in Los Angeles County, where grocery shopping ain't cheap.  Yet, the people of Inglewood overwhelming (60%) voted against Walmart in a referendum that would have given the superstore the right to build in the community.

  Voters in Inglewood, CA reject Walmart Superstore

  Sometimes what appears to be beneficial in lower prices is really bad for the community when taking into consideration the lower wages, and the destruction of local businesses that contribute more to the fabric of the community.

  While I agree that Walmart bashing can come across of elitist, working class and poor people in areas that Walmart targets for new stores should be alarmed when Walmart plans on becoming the town's "company store"  and must take a good look at the pros and cons.  The people of Inglewood made the right choice.

  by Grand Poobah on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 07:15:05 AM PDT

  •  Good for Inglewood

    but I wonder how the 40% that voted for Walmart feel about it.

    by ChurchofBruce on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 07:42:36 AM PDT

    •  They Can Go...

      ...to a much smaller Walmart just a few miles away in South Los Angeles to purchase discount clothes and electronics, and still shop for groceries at local supermarkets in Inglewood.  

      No community will ever 100% agree on development.  Point is that the people of Inglewood were able to make their choices on the merits of the proposed development without neighborhoods pitted against each other based on socioeconomic status.  

      by Grand Poobah on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 08:05:26 AM PDT

  •  The Significance of Race

    It is noteworthy that it is an overwhelmingly Black and Latino community that has the class consiousness to stand up to the blandishments of Wal-Mart. It is WHITE working class folks who have been most effectively sucked into the ethos of "get a good deal and screw everybody else." They are also (contrary to some of the sloopy claims about the Latino vote in the recent election) the only section of the working class to vote Republican in significant numbers.

    by Christopher Day on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 08:16:13 AM PDT

•  i think you've hit a nerve

  In the town where I live, they kept Wal-Mart out for 7 years, and the "poor" people in town accused the lefties in town of being insensitive to the fact that Wal-Mart offers cheap prices for people on a budget. You've brought up an incredibly important point--that it's easy to boycott this and that when you have the money to do so. One of the things that gets me is the "eating healthy" thing. Do you know how expensive or time-consuming it is to eat healthily? Have you priced organic vegetables versus regular vegetables? Do you have time to cook beans and rice to save money? Do you have time when you're holding down a full-time job and being a single parent and trying to do right by your kids?
  I don't shop at Wal-Mart because their politics scare the bejesus out of me. I hate the fact that they pay their workers so poorly. But I know that I can't judge people on what they have to do to save money. We're all doing the best we can.

  by lorraine on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 07:21:14 AM PDT

  •  Eating Healthy

    I shop at the Park Slope Food Co-Op in Brooklyn, an institution that positively screams "limousine liberalism." But the funny thing is that its actually significantly cheaper than shopping at a supermarket. So much so that I can buy organic produce and dairy there for less than I can buy the pesticide laden stuff at Stop and Shop. And despite its location in a yuppie neighborhood there is a significant minority of members who travel from poorer and working class parts of town to get the benefits. Obviously this isn't an option in most cities where there aren't food co-ops and health food stores are just big rip-offs. But its worth knowing that alternatives are possible.

    by Christopher Day on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 08:22:05 AM PDT

    •  thanks

      our local co-op is expensive, as is our local grocery stores that carry organic.

      by lorraine on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 08:27:03 AM PDT

•  I was there last night.....

  I gave you a `4' and recommended this diary because I think this is an important discussion to have  - and the perspective you just articulated should be at the core of the debate when we have it.

  First  - a confession.  I was at Wal Mart last night.  Guiltily, but there I was.  I am often dragged in there.  Each time I protest and repeat the usual litany of reasons to boycott, and each time I end up allowing myself to be worn down.  On some level I must want to be worn down because the prices are low and the selection is wide - and the alternative is shopping at several different stores while dealing with familial stress because I made everybody's life so much harder.  So...I tag along.  Reluctantly I put a few things in the cart of my own, always being careful to come up with some moral justification for doing so.

  Frankly I'm sick of the whole thing.  I wish they'd go away or do something horrible enough to tick off my loved ones.  But the fact is, I really don't to spend my life fighting this battle at home.  My wife and I share basic values, but she does not want to live the life of an activist.  She wants cheap fabric softener.    

  I live my life with a lot of guilt.  I bank with an evil bank because I hate paying the ATM charges when I cannot find one.  I buy products knowing that they are cheap as a result of worker exploitation in third world countries.  I compromise my values daily, occasionally choosing an arbitrary stand to take or symbolic gesture to make.  I soothe my conscience by saying that human beings are not consistent animals.  That doing some things is better than doing nothing.  That meeting the responsibilities of fatherhood and family exempt me from the life of a hard-core activist.  I tell myself all of this, but I don't believe it.  Rather it becomes like much high triglycerides or the 30 pounds I need to lose - something on the `to do' list.  I tell myself I'll get disciplined eventually and figure out how to eat right, exercise, and parent better and make responsible shopping decisions.  Some day.

  And remember - I'm a committed liberal.  

  How are we going to get the rest of the country on the program if I can't even get myself together?

  In the end, we need to create simple alternatives.  I honestly don't know who to bank with or exactly which companies I can feel good about supporting.  I know that this information is out there and I've thumbed through books on the subject - but they seldom offer pragmatic options.  So that's the challenge.  How do we make responsible liberalism convenient?
  

  by snout on Mon Mar 28, 2005 at 08:38:25 AM PDT

•  Their clothes are cheaper

  because they pressure their manufacturers to use a lower cotton count, say, than Target does in their socks, for example.  So you pay less, but the socks wear out or get holes in them much more quickly. You then have to buy new ones more often.

  Hence, they are not cheaper on clothes.

  by adigal on Tue Mar 29, 2005 at 11:16:10 AM PDT

  •  I was talking about clothes for my kids

    Who are 9 and 4. Who, therefore, will outgrow the clothes long before they wear out.

    by ChurchofBruce on Wed Mar 30, 2005 at 05:50:07 AM PDT