The Wal-Marting of America

The term Wal-Marting is making its way into the vernacular of the day. On the surface the term refers unsympathetically to the boring, cookie cutter sameness that national chain stores have brought to our way of life. But that sense of what the likes of Wal-Mart and McDonalds have done to promote what amounts to utter conformity looks at the phenomenon from the outside in.

How about what Wal-Marting might mean from the inside out?

As we approach Labor Day take a look at Harold Meyerson’s examination of the effect Wal-Mart is having on the American labor force. Here's a sample blurb:

“…Controlling as it does so much of the low-end retail market, Wal-Mart has, with great success, pressured suppliers to cut their labor costs. No other American company has done as much to destroy what's left of the U.S. clothing and textile industry or been so loyal a friend to the dankest sweatshops of the developing world.”

Read the article in the Washington Post.