Christopher Orquera
LBS 3001
Response Paper 3
While reading Nelson Lichtenstein’s piece titled “Supply-Chain Tourist: Or How Walmart Has Transformed the Contemporary Labor Question”, I think it does a great job by putting into perspective just how big these corporations and massive companies really are. He talks about how he toured the Wal-Mart offices in the small town of Bentonville, Arkansas, as well as how he went and toured a number of factories throughout a number of provinces in China. In doing so, I think Lichtenstein is able to show how, even when we may not realize it, these massive corporations essentially run the world.
When we talk about a company like Wal-Mart, usually the first thing that will pop into our heads is how they are everywhere. You can travel to almost any city, big or small, within the continental United States, and, more often than not, you will probably find a Wal-Mart somewhere in that city. Coming to this type of realization, it really made me think not only how big Wal-Mart really is, but also how influential a company like this can be, whether for better or worse. Often times when a new Wal-Mart location opens in a new area, you more or less see a trend start to develop. At first people tend to get all hell bent over the idea of a Wal-Mart invading their personal space. People begin to argue about how much traffic a store likes this will create and how it will put small businesses out of business. But as that opening date of a new location gets a closer and closer, those same people that were complaining just a couple months ago, now seem to have forgotten all about it. And when that brand-new Wal-Mart finally opens its doors, everybody acts like nothing ever happened and continues to shop there like the rest of us. I can’t argue with this because, well, I’ve experienced, and I’ve been one of those people. You tend to get caught up in the emotion of it all, but when it is all said and done, what am suppose do to? Not shop at the Wal-Mart? And I think that is what issue boils down to. When it’s all said and done, a massive company like a Wal-Mart will always be able to provide products and services at a fraction of the cost than that of a mom-and-pop shop because of just how much capital they control. While one might think that a company like Wal-Mart owns and controls so much within the United States, when we look at...
