Mark over at Right Minded can’t figure out why liberals have a problem with Wal*Mart. He thinks it’s an anomaly:

“So, liberals advocate for the poor, Wal-Mart is good for the poor, liberals despise Wal-Mart.”

For the sake of his argument, let’s say that Wal*Mart benefits the poor by offerng lower prices on neccessities - food, clothing, medication, etc.. Can you think of any reason why we would be troubled by this company? Think hard. Think hard about the reasons why Wal*Mart can offer such low prices. Their low prices, my friend, come with a very high cost.

Liberals believe that corporations, with the permission to exist they get indirectly from us through our government, which grants them the licenses to exist, have a responsibility to be good citizens. We see a serious need for corporate responsiblity. What bothers us is that Wal*Mart, through it’s business practices, assumes little or no responsibility for anything but their bottomline and to anyone but their shareholders.

We maintain that corporations must take responsibility for all the pieces that make them successful - their shareholders, their customers, their communities, and above all, their employees.

Wal*Mart does not see a need to be responsible to the workers who make their products. They do not see a need to be responsible to the environment. They do not see a need to be responsible to the communities in which they build their stores. And most importantly, they do not see a need to be responsible for their employees.

As a corporate citizen, their priorities are severely lopsided. Last year, the CEO of the company made over 26 million dollars. The average Wal*Mart employee made about $13,000, was required to pay for their own healthcare, and encouraged to take advantage of government programs like WIC and foodstamps to take care of their families (”The world’s largest corporation – with over $286 billion in annual sales and 1.2 million employees here in the U.S. – cost American taxpayers over $1.5 billion in 2004.” - WalmartWatch.com)

Wal*Mart needs to balance their responsiblity to their shareholders with their responsiblity to their customers, their employees, and their country. Other corporations are able to do it and maintain good returns for their owners/shareholders and they can too - they simply choose not to.

Wal*Mart can still offer low prices that are attractive to low-income families AND be good corporate citizens. The two are not mutually exclusive. Doing so, however, may cut into their profits a bit. But really, how many billions of dollars does one family need?

This post was written by Mary Mancini