Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post

roachboy · 09-26-2006, 08:03 AM

um...ace?
i am not sure how you imagine simply ignoring criticisms of your position actually helps anything.
when i asked you questions above about why you chose to erase all questions pertaining to walmart's internal organization and practices, you responded with a series of questions concerning the structure of demand. i other words, you were asked about, say, a number series (1,2,3...) and responded with a series of pictograms (square, circle, wombat...)

1. your argument about abusive labor practices appears to be "so what?"
your demonstration is effectively "everybody does this so who cares about it?"
this is a bizarre claim.
you could say the same thing about---o i dont know--murder. there are lots of murders, so who cares whether a particular outfit kills more people than others--people die all the time--so who cares?

this hardly seems like a rational response to criticisms of walmart's labor practices.

2. you say that unions are conducting a campaign against poor beleagured walmart because they have the audacity to demand something like fair treatment of workers--but you do not care about fair treatment of workers (derived from the above) and so see in unions nothing but an obstacle to the race to the bottom in terms of working conditions. please do not respond with the usual far right litany of "arguments" about why unions in general are evil--the fact is that conservatives dislike unions primarily because unions oppose them politically--nothing else the right has to say abot unions is of the slightest interest to me.

3. walmart's supply chain is the core of their competitive advantage over other retailers. that supply chain is INCREDIBLY capital intensive. what it effectively does is give walmart an economy of scale advantage over other retail chains. it is what we call an uneven playing field, to use a tedious econ 101 metaphor. you cannot pretend that away, even though doing so makes walmart fit better into your mythological view of captialist markets.

3. walmarts buying strategies, fit into the context of their supply chain organization, is one of the major sources of worker abuse. walmart's practices with employees are right on the edge of unethical as well. walmart operates within a transnational context that is rapdily moving away from the friedmanite position that you appear to think legitimate. this approach has been abandoned because, quite simply, it is catastrophic for business. have a look at the global reporting initiative database of csr audits to get an idea of just how far from the friedmanite shareholder profit uber alles posture most rational tncs have now moved.

i would think that walmart would pose problems for your freemarketeer logic in that they act like a monopoly--and hayek had nothing good to say about monopolies.

that is all for now

09-26-2006, 08:03 AM	#40 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	um...ace? i am not sure how you imagine simply ignoring criticisms of your position actually helps anything. when i asked you questions above about why you chose to erase all questions pertaining to walmart's internal organization and practices, you responded with a series of questions concerning the structure of demand. i other words, you were asked about, say, a number series (1,2,3...) and responded with a series of pictograms (square, circle, wombat...) 1. your argument about abusive labor practices appears to be "so what?" your demonstration is effectively "everybody does this so who cares about it?" this is a bizarre claim. you could say the same thing about---o i dont know--murder. there are lots of murders, so who cares whether a particular outfit kills more people than others--people die all the time--so who cares? this hardly seems like a rational response to criticisms of walmart's labor practices. 2. you say that unions are conducting a campaign against poor beleagured walmart because they have the audacity to demand something like fair treatment of workers--but you do not care about fair treatment of workers (derived from the above) and so see in unions nothing but an obstacle to the race to the bottom in terms of working conditions. please do not respond with the usual far right litany of "arguments" about why unions in general are evil--the fact is that conservatives dislike unions primarily because unions oppose them politically--nothing else the right has to say abot unions is of the slightest interest to me. 3. walmart's supply chain is the core of their competitive advantage over other retailers. that supply chain is INCREDIBLY capital intensive. what it effectively does is give walmart an economy of scale advantage over other retail chains. it is what we call an uneven playing field, to use a tedious econ 101 metaphor. you cannot pretend that away, even though doing so makes walmart fit better into your mythological view of captialist markets. 3. walmarts buying strategies, fit into the context of their supply chain organization, is one of the major sources of worker abuse. walmart's practices with employees are right on the edge of unethical as well. walmart operates within a transnational context that is rapdily moving away from the friedmanite position that you appear to think legitimate. this approach has been abandoned because, quite simply, it is catastrophic for business. have a look at the global reporting initiative database of csr audits to get an idea of just how far from the friedmanite shareholder profit uber alles posture most rational tncs have now moved. i would think that walmart would pose problems for your freemarketeer logic in that they act like a monopoly--and hayek had nothing good to say about monopolies. that is all for now __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 09-26-2006 at 08:28 AM..