Mallory Knocks Down W**-M**t

Mallory has a good post about Wal-Mart’s impact on small businesses, which supplements the well-known story of their impact on retail workers. IMO, we should also think about their likely direct and indirect impact on small town tax bases, city planning, fuel usage, run-off pollution, light pollution, public transportation, destructive changes in traffic patterns, indirect impact on water supplies and sewage processing, abusive labor practices abroad, increased corruption in politics at all levels, our inflexible commitment to highway culture, increased travel time and expenditures, opportunity costs for customers, future horizontal integration of retail markets, vertical integration of suppliers, shippers, facilities maintenance, construction companies, ... I'm getting tired. Mallory also points to a site that does this job full time.

I believe that our government must start taking seriously its duty to control the development of monopolistic organizations and practices. I also think that Wal-Mart wouldn't be such a severe problem if our government were to take measures to support the price of fuel, most favorably with a direct tax on it. Transportation should be expensive enough to favor local businesses.

7/26/2005 4:42 PM