Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

homestead - [Homestead] Wal-Mart Sovereignty

homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Homestead mailing list

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
  • To: "homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org" <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Homestead] Wal-Mart Sovereignty
  • Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 20:22:50 -0700

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







Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page