The Real Walmart

• Date: 01 September 2015
• Published date: 01 September 2015
• Author: Callie McNally,Walter E. Block,Juan Morillo
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/basr.12060

The Real Walmart

JUAN MORILLO, CALLIE MCNALLY, AND WALTER E. BLOCK

ABSTRACT

The Walmart Company is one of the favorite punching

bags of market critics. They accuse this firm of under-

paying employees, dealing unfairly with customers,

exploiting suppliers, and bankrupting small competi-

tors. Various political jurisdictions have banned this

firm from their environs, either implicitly or explicitly.

The present article offers a more nuanced position on

the behemoth from Arkansas. Although it has some

flaws, there is an overwhelming case to be made in its

behalf as an employer, competitor, purchaser, benefac-

tor of customers.

INTRODUCTION

Walmart is a prime example of what the market system is

capable of accomplishing. It is a huge store packed with

quality products at cutting-edge low prices that is

extending its services throughout our entire nation, and indeed,

throughout the world. Walmart efficiently operates as they utilize

Juan Morillo is Professor of Economics and Business, Universidad Internacional de la Rioja

(UNIR), Madrid, Spain. E-mail: juan.morillo@unir.net. Callie McNally is Independent scholar at

Joseph A. Butt, S.J. College of Business, Loyola University New Orleans, New Orleans, LA.

E-mail: ccmcnall@loyno.edu. Walter E. Block is a Harold E. Wirth Eminent Scholar Endowed

Chair and Professor of Economics at Joseph A. Butt, S.J. College of Business, Loyola

University New Orleans, New Orleans, LA. E-mail: wblock@loyno.edu.

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Business and Society Review 120:3 385–408

© 2015 Center for Business Ethics at Bentley University. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.,

350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK.

their limited time, talent, and resources to make strides in new

technologies and efficient procedural techniques. It also manages

to maintain a reputation of integrity in business circles. Walmart

should be nothing but praised by society as they continually

create wealth and consequently raise our standard of living.

However, critics have grabbed hold of the media and defamed

Walmart’s good name. These negative comments are derived from

misconceptions about economic policies that allow antimarket

ideologues to indulge their personal biases and foist an irrational

dislike of an innovative company on an unsuspecting public.

Critics rail against Walmart claiming that they cause unemploy-

ment, lower wages, and of greedy consumerism. Their cries have

been heard as 56% of citizens polled by Zogby now believe that

“Walmart is bad for America.” But this company is not at all the

great evil the media portrays them to be (Kirklin 2006, p. 2).

Looking through the lenses of economic growth and progress,

Walmart can be seen for the contributions it has made to society

as it makes strides at improving our standard of living. It does so

by making wealth more accessible to the poorest people in our

nation, taking advantage of the global trade market, and improv-

ing the efficiency of its trade partners.1

In our analysis, we must keep in mind the casual antecedents

of prosperity and economic growth. As a whole, the science of

economics is poorly grasped by our population, and without basic

knowledge of this science, the citizens are left susceptible to their

personal biases. This ignorance also renders the populace sus-

ceptible to the manipulation of those with the large microphone.

This article is an attempt to logically approach Walmart’s contri-

butions to our nation from an economic standpoint. To under-

stand these contributions to economic progress, we must first

gain an understanding of what economic progress requires. It is

defined as an increase in the level of wealth for both the indi-

vidual, and the nation as a whole.

Walmart is a producer of wealth.2This company not only

creates wealth, but also does so in the most efficient and cost-

effective way in order to keep prices low. When companies

succeed in this regard, this is not an act of exploitation; it is the

very opposite. Lowering the price of a product is a direct means of

increasing a population’s standard of living, because people are

able to obtain more of that product, at lower prices. This is what

386 BUSINESS AND SOCIETY REVIEW