Heather Mallick and Wal-mart

Here's the link to Heather's May 1 article [url=http://www.rabble.ca/columnists_full.shtml?x=70822]Cheap and convenient come at a cost[/url]

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Originally posted by Patricia Smiley:
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There are some people (particularly with children) who find the bargains at Wal-Mart and Zellers helpful. It was the best place I knew when my kids were in elementary school to find good quality running shoes. What was my alternative? Reeboks or Nikes - and just who profits from the sale of those? Certainly not me or my kids. Both those are made in Third world sweatshops.
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Actually, Nike has a really good record for *not* using sweatshops. Walmart, on the other hand, does not. For more information about how overseas businesses are audited, see [url=http://www.alternet.org/workplace/83767/?page=entire]this web page[/url] on alternet.

Funny what the original poster says about H&M sizing - in Europe they are known as a place that has up to size 16-18 in their regular sizing, and an excellent, stylish plus department. I have a friend in Paris who is tall and, well, very heavy, and she is thrilled to be able to find nice clothes she can wear there. I think they are trying to project a more upscale image here (since they are European - in Europe they are just a cheap but relatively fashionable chain) and alas cutting out plus sizing seems to be part of that image.

I doubt H&M is a particularly good employer, but it is not known as such an egregiously bad one as Walmart. As for sweatshops, H&M claims to pride itself on fair working conditions for its producers, but rather inevitably for any major chain, cases of sweatshop production have turned up.

I think Heather's point about very cheap goods, other than the exploitative conditions under which they are made, is that they are no bargain in the long run. But of course people who are indigent often have no choice but to make choices to solve their immediate problem, whether buying something crappy or making do with less-than nutritious food.

Heather's grumpy and brittle comments are part of her persona - I don't think she was looking down at people in small towns; she has written much kinder things about them. I suspect she'd be just as hard on teenagers in posh city and suburban areas...

[url=http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/facts/]speaking of WalMart....[/url]

I find the idea that it's OK for poor people to shop at Wal-Mart but it's wrong for everyone else to do so, to be extremely repugnant.

I also question the idea that consumer choices will have any real effect on the economic injustices of capitalism, which is based on the common fallacy that consumers have the real economic power in society. We do not.

Those of us who are not in abject poverty may have a choice to act contrary to "free" market principles by consciously avoiding buying the cheapest goods, but we should have no illusions that by doing so we are subverting the market system.

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I find the idea that it's OK for poor people to shop at Wal-Mart but it's wrong for everyone else to do so, to be extremely repugnant.

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I agree hidden in this assumption is that it is somehow necessary and beneficial for impoverished people to shop at Walmart and they have no choice. There is another assumptioin that all poverty is is the lack of stuff, if people are able to access more cheap stuff they will no longer be poor. This ignores the realites and experience of poverty the lack of power the lack of necessary resources be it housing, education, decent labour conditions, or healthy communities and community health. Having a pile of cheap stuff isn't going to change that nor will it change the social and economic conditions that underly inequality it will only increase them. It is also worth noting that to the poorest of the poor in Canada people on welfare, disability or pensions, shopping at walmart would be a luxury. I also don't think consipicous consumption is any more acceptable if it is done by the working class or the middle class it is still conspicous consumption wasteful and damaging.

You would also think by the way some people defend Walmart that there have never been bargain or discount stores before,the reality is Walmart killed off all the other discount stores.

I think Mallick is also making an important point about cheap goods, I don't think she is mocking the poor for their inability to buy luxury or expensive goods. I think she is pointing out a noticeable trend in the process of production and consumption, everything is becoming cheap and disposable and non-repairable. Planned obselesence is certainly not a new idea but it has become more flagrant obvious but also somehow culturally acceptable. Where can anyone find decently contructed items like a broom or mop, snow shovel, toaster, kettle, vegetable peeler, kichen knife, all this stuff is cheap crap that breaks within a year or two. My parents have tools and appliance that have lasted a life time, again not luxury items just some basic household items those things are no longer manufactured that way.

I think this is also tied into what Mallick talks about in offshoring of manufacturing( another blow to the working class) in which production and manufacturing have become completely separated from and alienated from those who consume these item. The relationship between customer and manufacturer no longer exists, when things used to break down you could actually contact the manufacturer and complain, now mostly people just throw it out and replace it. Most of these items are designed not to be repairable so they just end up in a landfill rather than going to a repairshop or being sold second hand.

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Originally posted by KeyStone:
[b]I think we can all agree that where we vote with our consumer dollar is just as important as voting on E-day...[/b]

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No, not me.

Spending money is not voting. It is not empowering. It is consumption, the exchange of commodities.

Ms. Smiley, I fear you're missing the point. It doesn't matter whether H&M only sells small sizes, it doesn't matter whether you don't object to clothes looking ugly and falling apart in two weeks.
What matters is that the latest prediction is oil hitting $200 a barrel within two years. And that means an end to cheap everything. It certainly means the beginning of the end to Wal-Mart, which survives via foreign imports trucked endlessly all over North America. That era will be over.
In the meantime, tens of thousands of small businesses will have been destroyed by Wal-Mart. And you will pray for them to start up again. But they won't be cheap.
So-called cheap goods were just another way of screwing poor people in Canada. When it ends, they will be the ones to suffer first and most.
I object to this. Please don't trivialize this objection. Yes, esthetics matter to me. But that doesn't make me a snob. It makes me unwilling to be mistreated by big brutal businesses.

Hi Heather.

I love the article. Your reference to the Lubyanka was positively inspired.

Heather, I loved your article as well. Also loved your article about the Austrian incest/slavery case, though that is another matter (must post it on that thread).

I hate the stuff about "poor people don't care about style" (or beauty). It is a lie. Have you ever travelled to, or seen pictures of some very, very poor countries: the slums of Haiti, India or Bangladesh, Brazil? Many very poor people are astonishingly well-dressed and clean, though they don't have washing machines or running water and often must shop second hand or scrimp for a nice dress or sari. It is a matter of pride and self-esteem.

We never had money when I was a kid - my dad was always ill and died when I was 15, and mums didn't have the job opportunities they do nowadays. My mum sewed all her own clothes, even tailoring and redoing the upholstery. She made my clothes when I was little - once she dyed a blanket and made me a beautiful red winter coat.

I hate the kind of aversion to snobbery that is actually an aversion to beauty and aesthetics, something all cultures long for, even those without much material abundance.

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Is this better, because poverty is no longer hidden? Or is it cruel?

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I never go for the idea that "the worse, the better".

That idea is based on faith that when something becomes more obvious, it will be changed.

But, as travel to most third world countries will establish, when poor people sleep in the gutter and are covered with sores, all that does is make them even LESS human to those more fortunate.

Being able to make a dignified showing is important to self esteem, and should not be underestimated.

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eta: Because I'm a university professor, and right now, I'm wearing a t-shirt, sweat pants and $30 running shoes.

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I decided you were poor a long time ago, Stephen. Materially wealthy maybe, but I have always thought that people who equate "stuff", primarily cheap, disposable crap, with wealth and happiness are, generally, the poorest and saddest people around. Sure, maybe you are the exception. Maybe yet another salad shooter does bring you happiness.

This is a great article that addresses the issue very well:

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The government interviewers noted that “little dissatisfaction with lower earnings resulting from the decrease in hours was expressed, although in the majority of cases very real decreases had resulted.” One man spoke of “more time at home with the family.” Another remembered: “I could go home and have time to work in my garden.” A woman noted that the six-hour shift allowed her husband to “be with 4 boys at ages it was important.”

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Meanwhile, by 2000 the average married couple with children was working almost five hundred hours a year more than in 1979. And according to reports by the Federal Reserve Bank in 2004 and 2005, over 40 percent of American families spend more than they earn. The average household carries $18,654 in debt, not including home-mortgage debt, and the ratio of household debt to income is at record levels, having roughly doubled over the last two decades. We are quite literally working ourselves into a frenzy just so we can consume all that our machines can produce.

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[url=http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/2962]The Gospel of Consumption[/url]

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What matters is that the latest prediction is oil hitting $200 a barrel within two years. And that means an end to cheap everything.

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Others are noticing too ...

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Against a backdrop of global food shortages and the spectre of five dollar lettuce at the checkout, there are signs that more Western Canadians are tearing up their lawns this spring to plant vegetable gardens.

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[url=http://thetyee.ca/News/2008/05/05/ZeroMileDiet/?utm_source=mondayheadlin...

[ 06 May 2008: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

FM, that personal attack was out of line. Please refrain next time. You can make your point without attacking people.

I agree with your point, FM, which is that just because you have more "buying power" because you can afford more cheap crap at Walmart, that doesn't mean that you're better off. I think Heather's making that point too, and it's a good one. (Nice to see you here, Heather!)

I think people have bought into the idea that they must have 20 shirts and 10 pairs of pants and 8 pairs of shoes and four handbags, and if you can't afford them, then you're "poor". And if Walmart helps you afford that number of items because everything's so much cheaper there, then you're better off than you would be if you had 5 decent quality shirts, three pairs of pants, a couple of pairs of shoes and a purse.

Just an example, of course. I'm trying to embrace the idea that "less (quantity) is more" and try to only buy an item of clothing if a) I need it, and b) I absolutely love it (in that order). So no "making do" with an item of clothing that I feel so-so about, or bulking up my wardrobe with stuff I don't need just because it's on sale or whatever.

It's an uphill battle to change that way of thinking, however.

Fair enough, but I thought the point was that if you wore stuff from Wal-mart, the people you passed on the street would conclude that you were poor.

I don't know. I mean, I wear plus-sized clothing. There's a huge difference in quality and fit between Walmart/Zellers plus-sized clothing, and the stuff you get at more expensive places like Pennington's or Addition-Elle (god I hate that name). Like, when it comes to pants and dress shirts and "business casual" type stuff.

You can find some half-decent casual-wear stuff there that looks as good as what you'd get in more expensive places, but you have to be careful because often the stuff shrinks or stretches in strange ways and gets out of shape because it's made so poorly.

Anyhow...I'm not much of a fashionista, but there IS a difference in cut when it comes to different places that sells clothing, and Walmart and Zellers is bottom-of-the-barrel in that regard. And since cut is everything when it comes to how clothes look on people, I think that even if you can't consciously say, "I think she got that at Walmart because it bags right there, and sags over there," the overall impression you get at a glance with a lot of the clothes you get there is that the person looks dumpy because the clothes look like they're shapeless.

[ 06 May 2008: Message edited by: Michelle ]

Can't find another open thread on WalMart, so will put this here:

Walmart Canada to open 35 to 40 supercentres in 2010

Recall upthread, in May 2008, where Heather said we're going to see the end of cheap goods because oil will be hitting $200/barrel within 2 years.

As of today, Feb. 24, 2010, it's $ 79.03.

I don't think Heather was off-base.  But it's going to take a lot longer.

What will be the implications for our society when Wal-Mart, Zellars, etc can no longer sell the cheap crap from China?  Do we think these stores will still exist, and sell stuff at higher prices?  There's the convenience factor, of being able to get everything in one place, from cat litter to a shower curtain to a new snowsuit for a toddler all under one roof, especially if you're dragging small children around with you.  But are we going to see these big stores fail when there's no more cheap crap to peddle?

I'd like to see Heather write a reprise of her original article, maybe with more of the cultural critique.  I suspect that now we (as a culture) have abandoned small stores for big multi-service stores, there's no turning back.  But I would like to see what Heather thinks.