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is walmart evil?

And there is the core of the question. You could also restrict your neighbors access to lemons or water. You could poison his/her well, spread rumors of child molestation and pay the neighborhood hoodlums to trash his stand.

I think we would all be in agreement that these would be "evil" at least to some extent. The question then becomes is Walmart behaving fairly as a corporate entity? If it's simply buying better because of economies of scale and efficient distribution, then that's pretty benign. If it's to harm their competitors or bankrupt vendors who don't play ball, then it's another story.

Do motivations matter? What if I hear rumors about child molestation and spread them because I want to protect the neighborhood, not necessarily ruin the other guys business? If Wal-mart leverages it's size does it matter if they do it in order to bankrupt competitors or if they do it because it's the most efficient way to do business and competitors go bankrupt as a result?
 
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Please use any facts to back up your opinions.

How is any of what you stated any different from any other for profit entity? The reason business exist is FOR profit. Management's only goal is to maximize shareholder wealth (Business 101).

And for the record, want to see greed? Oil, Oil, tech, tech, tech, investment, investment, investment, tech, Wal-Mart.
Rank Company 2012 Profit (millions)
1 Exxon Mobil 41,060.0
2 Chevron 26,895.0
3 Apple 25,922.0
4 Microsoft 23,150.0
5 Ford Motor 20,213.0
6 J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. 18,976.0
7 American International Group 17,798.0
8 Wells Fargo 15,869.0
9 International Business Machines 15,855.0
10 Wal-Mart Stores 15,699.

There are far more "evil" entities out there.
Fortune 500 2012: Top Performers - Most Profitable Companies: Profits

Interestingly enough, several of those companies up there (IBM and Ford notably) never get accused of being "evil". Of course others (looking at you Microsoft and Apple) get that accusation on a daily basis.
 
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Do motivations matter? What if I hear rumors about child molestation and spread them because I want to protect the neighborhood, not necessarily ruin the other guys business? If Wal-mart leverages it's size does it matter if they do it in order to bankrupt competitors or if they do it because it's the most efficient way to do business and competitors go bankrupt as a result?

It absolutely matters in cases of moral and ethical judgement. If you bump into me in a crowded subway and I drop my phone, it's an accident and not "evil". If you grab it from my hands and smash it to the ground, it's not the same thing, even though the results are identical.
 
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It absolutely matters in cases of moral and ethical judgement. If you bump into me in a crowded subway and I drop my phone, it's an accident and not "evil". If you grab it from my hands and smash it to the ground, it's not the same thing, even though the results are identical.


Bottom line is they do not break the law. If you wish to have a successful business you are going to push someone off your way no matter what. It's just a simple principal of the capitalism and darwinism.
 
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Bottom line is they do not break the law. If you wish to have a successful business you are going to push someone off your way no matter what. It's just a simple principal of the capitalism and darwinism.

Except the question isn't whether they break the law, but if they are "evil". It is certainly possible to operate within the confines of the law and still have malevolent practices.
 
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It absolutely matters in cases of moral and ethical judgement. If you bump into me in a crowded subway and I drop my phone, it's an accident and not "evil". If you grab it from my hands and smash it to the ground, it's not the same thing, even though the results are identical.

The action is different there though. Bumping is different from snatching. If I bump into you deliberately and you drop your phone does it matter at the end of the day? The phone got smashed either way. I guess juries do decide things based on motive every day though.
 
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Except the question isn't whether they break the law, but if they are "evil". It is certainly possible to operate within the confines of the law and still have malevolent practices.

True, but I would argue that their practices aren't malevolent. I would further argue that corporations as a whole are amoral. They're just in it for the money. The law stands to check practices. In this case Wal-mart has done nothing illegal to this point. I'm not so sure you can raise a moral question about a corporation. They exist merely to profit their shareholders. You can question the legality of a corporations practices, but not so sure on morality.
 
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True, but I would argue that their practices aren't malevolent. I would further argue that corporations as a whole are amoral. They're just in it for the money. The law stands to check practices. In this case Wal-mart has done nothing illegal to this point. I'm not so sure you can raise a moral question about a corporation. They exist merely to profit their shareholders. You can question the legality of a corporations practices, but not so sure on morality.

I don't know about you, maybe you can't pass moral judgment on a business, but I certainly can.

There's nothing illegal about buying or selling shoes imported from overseas, made without benefit of labor laws, and made by small children under slave-like conditions.

Many people have no moral issues whatsoever with paying extra for those with a designer logo sewn on. Their morals begin and end at their wallets and what the law allows and to hell with everyone else, that's their problem for being born in a third world country. Of course, I often find that these dregs for humans are the first to scream about their God-given constitutional rights, but that's just me.
 
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Except the question isn't whether they break the law, but if they are "evil". It is certainly possible to operate within the confines of the law and still have malevolent practices.


you are certainly right. It works the way you said from moral and ethical point pf view. Everyone has different philosophical view of EVILNESS, but from my point of view, if they allowed to pull everything they do, they are not the evil ones. The one who let them is the one to look after.
 
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I don't know about you, maybe you can't pass moral judgment on a business, but I certainly can.

There's nothing illegal about buying or selling shoes imported from overseas, made without benefit of labor laws, and made by small children under slave-like conditions.

Many people have no moral issues whatsoever with paying extra for those with a designer logo sewn on. Their morals begin and end at their wallets and what the law allows and to hell with everyone else, that's their problem for being born in a third world country. Of course, I often find that these dregs for humans are the first to scream about their God-given constitutional rights, but that's just me.


thats just the way life is, if you are born in USA you are very fortunate.
 
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thats just the way life is, if you are born in USA you are very fortunate.

Ah. I thought that the way life is in the USA is that you can work and try very hard not to support those products or the places selling them.

And who do you think lets businesses get away with evil? Whose job is it to stand up to them? Clearly you don't seem to think that it's yours.
 
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thats just the way life is, if you are born in USA you are very fortunate.

I was born in a developing country and seeing what is happening to the US now (no offense meant to those residing in the U.S.), I actually feel that I am very lucky that I wasn't born there. I feel lucky for being born in a country where we have strong family values and social support and where the people are happy despite being less than well off. My only dissatisfaction is that because many countries look up to the US, they aspire to emulate them without thinking if it fits the society
 
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I was born in a developing country and seeing what is happening to the US now (no offense meant to those residing in the U.S.), I actually feel that I am very lucky that I wasn't born there. I feel lucky for being born in a country where we have strong family values and social support and where the people are happy despite being less than well off

We have some of those same values but the sense of family seems far higher in some Asian countries than ours, yours and Taiwan especially.

Could be an island thing, it's common also in Sicily, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Malaysian Borneo.
 
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We have some of those same values but the sense of family seems far higher in some Asian countries than ours, yours and Taiwan especially.

Could be an island thing, it's common also in Sicily, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Malaysian Borneo.

It can be a good and bad thing. We have lower suicide rates because of it but some kids tend to become over protected
 
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I think it's the infusion of acceptance of mediocrity. If Wally World has a success with an item, Target, Kmart, sometimes Kohl's start featuring the same type item. All in the mid range. The stores that carry anything cheaper are places like the ARC, or Goodwill. Places that have different, more quality made merchandise move to snooty malls or online. They all have a right to sell, so in my case, it's wanting something different and refusing to settle for Wally World just because it's there and close by.

If I want cleaning equipment, I go to a janitorial store. The products are made to be efficient and a lot of times re-used. You can wash the floor mops. Something I can use for 5 or 10 years works out far better price wise that what Wally World sells.

Some are simply not aware that there are better consumer bargains available, different items, since they never see said items. It's "Walmart sells it, so it must be good - including price"
 
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Every one I've seen that would traditionally be called a mom and pop (i.e. they've got at least a small store front somewhere) was an LLC, S Corp or some other sort of corporation.
If this is in fact a universal fact, then I eagerly await the IRS data supporting the same. :)

Until (and unless) that happens, I can't accept magical thinking in the place of actual data.
 
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Ah. I thought that the way life is in the USA is that you can work and try very hard not to support those products or the places selling them.

And who do you think lets businesses get away with evil? Whose job is it to stand up to them? Clearly you don't seem to think that it's yours.

Some jobs disappear. It does not mean opportunities disappear as well.
 
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I was born in a developing country and seeing what is happening to the US now (no offense meant to those residing in the U.S.), I actually feel that I am very lucky that I wasn't born there. I feel lucky for being born in a country where we have strong family values and social support and where the people are happy despite being less than well off. My only dissatisfaction is that because many countries look up to the US, they aspire to emulate them without thinking if it fits the society

We are going way of topic. US is more about money than many other countries, that's true. Also Jerry Springer is not what's happening in US on every corner.

Strong family values is a good thing, but in financial aspect, it really grows into an unfair businesses when you or others do not let anyone else into business besides family members. (probably Walmart is somewhat close to it). It works same way for government (ex. North Korea)

It's a little different in US, we have more opportunities in this sort of sense.
 
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Well, in theory it is.
In theory pigs can fly. Certainly enough people have talked about it over the years. And if we were to justify the notion completely on the number of words spoken on the subject, then we might be inclined to accept as a fact that pigs can fly.

The problem remains that I still haven't seen any flying pigs in the real world.

Getting back to the point, is crushing the small players by sheer force of numbers truly "competition"? I don't see anything that resembles competition in what amounts to a financial massacre.

It wasn't born yesterday either.
 
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Don't get me wrong, small businesses are the backbone of the country, but it's hypocrisy to pretend that everything some small business does is great just because they're small and everything some large corporation does is bad because they're big. It's ridiculous and just not factually based.

Fabulous.

Find one statement here where I ever suggested the ridiculous straw man that you just knocked down.

Hint: I never said anything of the sort.

I deal with senior management of multinational corporations for a living.

I get the whole bit about the point of corporations, and pardon me for saying it, probably far better than you may.

Better firms have strict ethics policies and regular, intensive ethics training.

When you operate to high ethical standards, staying legal is easy.

Other firms only care about the letter of law, and loopholes are fair game.

You can repeat again that corporations are amoral.

Sorry, that's a theory about how it should be. In practice, your idea is not the way the business world really works.

Some business are evil. They're run by evil people with evil thinking that they put into evil practices. Some aren't that way at all.

You won't see that because I say so. You may never see it.

But it is a very real fact.
 
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Fabulous.

Find one statement here where I ever suggested the ridiculous straw man that you just knocked down.

Hint: I never said anything of the sort.

I deal with senior management of multinational corporations for a living.

I get the whole bit about the point of corporations, and pardon me for saying it, probably far better than you may.

Better firms have strict ethics policies and regular, intensive ethics training.

When you operate to high ethical standards, staying legal is easy.

Other firms only care about the letter of law, and loopholes are fair game.

You can repeat again that corporations are amoral.

Sorry, that's a theory about how it should be. In practice, your idea is not the way the business world really works.

Some business are evil. They're run by evil people with evil thinking that they put into evil practices. Some aren't that way at all.

You won't see that because I say so. You may never see it.

But it is a very real fact.

People are evil, but businesses are no more evil than guns kill people. It's people at the end of the day, not the business.
 
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People are evil, but businesses are no more evil than guns kill people. It's people at the end of the day, not the business.

Leave the troll-bait remarks about guns out of this. This is not the Politics and Current Affairs forum.

Consider that a warning.

Your constant tactic of shifting the subject when you fail is noted.

Repeat to yourself, and post as often as you like while this thread is still open that businesses cannot be evil.

Your ability to accept that evil people somehow become not evil when instituting corporate policies is your own affair.

I can't help that you don't get it. This sort of thing is really basic to obtaining an MBA at better schools, you may not know that.

Go ahead, have the last word, you're entitled to your opinion on this, even though it's not true. It's pointless but go ahead.

But note well my warning. Further political baiting or responses will not be ok. By anyone. As has been made clear before!
 
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Blame it on evolution then. Animals still have the pecking order established. The Alpha Male or Female, depending on the species gets the first choice, the most, whatever.

We haven't managed to overcome that. It's just humans won't admit it. Most aspire to other peoples' toys. Some get by working for, some get by whining for, others sail close to the wind.

Part of the blame can go to technology. People with the Alpha syndrome see these kids making a killing immediately on the internet, and it's "when do we want it? NOW"
applying to everyone who has the opportunity. The higher-ups in the business want their goodies NOW, the investors want their high returns NOW, and ethics goes out the door. I have yet to see an animal wait for gratification. This applies to the corporations they run, too. SCOTUS sees it that way. Corporations are NOT people.
Corporations have NO collective morals, ethics except what those who run the corporation give. If those in power are grab all you can, so the corporation will be.

We've always had greed. It's how fast the greed is operating that is the killer.
 
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