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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

Wal-Mart Sovereignty

By CHRISTOPHER CALDWELL

Published: December 12, 2004

Americans claim they favor leaders who understand their wants, have a track 
record of creating jobs and can be ruthless when required. Sounds like 
Wal-Mart! Maybe that's why, last spring, the Arkansas-based retail behemoth 
asked the citizens of Inglewood, Calif., to hand it the reins of 
government. When the Inglewood City Council rejected Wal-Mart's bid to open 
a 130,000-square-foot superstore, company executives did not sulk. They 
disparaged the council as the captive of outside special interests, 
particularly organized labor. And with the help of election professionals, 
they collected more than 10,000 signatures to sponsor a ballot referendum 
to reverse the decision. In the ensuing referendum campaign, the company 
spent more than $1 million to convey the idea that it would create hundreds 
of jobs and pump up the local tax base. Opponents emphasized what they saw 
as the company's legacy of blighted downtowns and falling wages.

Ultimately, though, voters were most upset by something else: Wal-Mart's 
initiative would have exempted the company from Inglewood's zoning, 
planning and environmental laws and established a provision whereby the 
deal could be altered only by a two-thirds vote of the public. By the time 
voters rejected the initiative at the ballot box in April, this strategy 
had acquired a name: Wal-Mart Sovereignty.

There's nothing new about the urge to turn economic power into political 
power (and vice versa). Misgivings about it aren't new, either. But in 
times of economic transformation, when society renegotiates what is public 
and what is private, the questions that arise get really nettlesome. Should 
inmates pay their debt to society through the middleman of a for-profit 
prison company? Would you say no even if it meant more criminals on the 
street? Should sports moguls pocket fortunes from publicly financed 
stadiums? Would you say no even if it meant your city lost its baseball team?

For a long time, Wal-Mart steered clear of such quarrels. It was out of 
sight, out of mind, building retail space mostly on the ahistorical, 
apolitical exurban frontier. But more and more, it is encroaching on 
communities that are more settled -- Inglewood is part of Los Angeles 
County -- more ideological or snobbier. The Inglewood referendum won't be 
the last time voters are invited to trade citizen rights for consumer 
rights -- and no one should make any glib assumptions about which of those 
rights Americans hold more dear.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/magazine/12WALMART.html