Socialist Wal-Marts

[ck4829]

I was recently thinking about the corporatism that a super store such as a Wal-Mart or a Target brings.

Then I wondered if someone could create a Wal-Mart type store where:

Unions would be allowed

People in the area around the area this store could vote on who would run this store

Workers and the people in the area can attend meetings of this leadership and in a way help run the store

And more

What would happen? Would this type of store prosper? Would it be firebombed by RW'ers?

There's a K-Mart that hasn't been used for a long time just a couple of blocks from where I live, so it is just sitting there. I wish that this Socialist type store could be created.

[knitter4democracy]

1. That's a good idea.

I shop at Meijer's up here because it's unionized and proudly so. The family still runs the corporation, and they're quite good to their employees (or so friends who have worked there tell me). It would be interesting to see it locally run and managed, though . . .

[radwriter0555]

2. Whole Foods market runs on that type of philosophy...

it's a great store.

[julianer]

3. Why not give it a go? n t

[julianer]

4. There are also coops

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative

[liberalmike27]

5. Costco

Actually, Costco treats its employees well, pay is a lot more, they keep them and continue giving them more as they work there longer, rather than Walmart who tends to look to fire long-term employees that have reached the top of the wage earnings list. Costco also provides insurance. I wish we had one here, they aren't so hip on spreading. Perhaps there are only certain areas of the country that they can be profitable in.

[Massacure]

7. You can buy online from Costco.

[Massacure]

6. Or you could just use Costco.

[greekspeak]

8. How do you offset Walmart's destruction of "mom and pops?"

When a big store like WalMart comes to town, the little stores end up closing, because they cannot compete with WalMart. This store you propose...how would you deal with the fallout the community would feel in this department?

[bryant69]

11. It wouldn't be able to undersell on the same level as wal-mart

Frankly it wouldn't be able to compete, at least not right away. Walmart has the power of buying in bulk to get good deals on it's product - one store, no matter how dedicated, wouldn't have that some purchasing power.

Plus he's probably talking about building such stores in communties where Walmart already exists and has already decimated the landscape.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[htuttle]

13. Sure it can

If one follows the cooperative model I described below, you can avoid paying upper management millions of dollars, and pass that savings on to the consumer. You don't have to worry about making a huge profit for shareholders, either. Many cooperatives try to 'break even' as a corporation each year (excess profits, minus what is needed for infrastructure maintenance and replacement, are best taken home in member's paychecks).

You won't get the same purchasing power as Walmart, of course. But you can use other advantages to compete.

The coop I've been working for has successfully competed with at least one multinational corporation, and drove them right out of our industry sector (in our area).

I have to say, though. Competing against Walmart is sort of a worst-case scenario no matter how your business is organized. You'd definitely have to be good at what you are doing to succeed. It would not be easy.

[bryant69]

15. Ok then how would you respond to the origional question

Why won't your Socialist Wal-Mart drive mom and pop shops out of business too?

[htuttle]

19. It might

In fact, since I'm a proponent of worker cooperatives, I'd hope it would. My coop has been working on putting two competing privately owned businesses out of business for several years. It's not our main focus, but one of these days...:)

However, in the process we are paying good wages, providing employee benefits that they do not provide, and are very involved with our local community in a postive way. Can't say I see a drawback there.

If a community's businesses all got gobbled up by coops, they'd be better for it. Unlike family owned businesses, they don't have the same tendency to deteriorate over successive generations (since nobody ever inherits the business 'for free').

Mondragon Corporacion Cooperativa, Spain
...Statistics show the Mondragon cooperatives to be twice as profitable as the average corporation in Spain with employee productivity surpassing any other Spanish organisation. It is focused on social success, involvement of the people and industrial democracy....
http://www.iisd.org/50comm/commdb/desc/d13.htm

[Taxloss]

9. Strictly speaking, a "socialist" Wal-Mart would be owned by its

employees. Which happens - many UK stores are owned by their employees, including the Co-op and John Lewis. But large supermarkets are in themselves damaging to communities and the environment - they massively increase freight transport, encourage car dependency, and kill smaller, locally sourced, independent stores. A genuine grassroots strategies would be to protect small local independent stores, discourage driving, and source locally produced goods. Wal-Mart's politics is not the problem - Wal Mart is the problem.

[htuttle]

10. Just make it a worker cooperative

Get a couple dozen people together to form it, contact a good coop lawyer, put together a set of articles of incorporation and bylaws, go to the bank for a loan, rent the space, buy the inventory and Bob's your Uncle.

If anyone doubts this can be done, I've been working for a coop for 14 years that started exactly that way. Our gross revenues are over $3 million a year.

You could also make it a consumer coop, like most food coops, where people buy memberships to get a discount, and can usually work at the store to get a bigger discount. A board of directors is usually elected democratically by the membership, and it goes on to hire management (and can replace them at any time).

This isn't pie-in-the-sky stuff -- millions of people pay their rent this way, and are much happier for it.

Here's some links:
http://www.usworkercoop.org/
http://www.wisc.edu/uwcc/info/i_pages/int.html
http://www.coop.org/

Regarding your fears, we've had little trouble with right wingers, though few of them work at my coop. We prosper just fine. Just imagine taking a normal business, and shoving the money from the top down to the bottom. We enforce a maximum 3:1 ratio between the highest paid member and the lowest paid one.

Finally, there's a lot of possible variation in how you run a coop. Here are the seven basic 'Rochedale Principles' that coops are wise to follow:

7 Co-operative Principles

• Voluntary and open membership
  
• Democratic member control
  
• Member economic participation
  
• Autonomy and independence
  
• Education, training and information
  
• Co-operation among co-operatives
  
• Concern for community
  

In my own experience, all seven of the principles are very important to follow in practice if you want the coop to work properly over time.

on edit:
PS. The most important bit of advice I could give is: "Never start a business you know nothing about." Don't start a retail cooperative without having a good number of people involved who have worked at all levels of the retail business, etc...

That's good advice to follow for starting any new business, btw.

[Dora]

12. Excellent

Thanks for the info!

[baldguy]

14. Unions aren't socialist.

[ck4829]

16. I know

But Wal-Mart doesn't allow Unions, so I was just saying.

[rman]

21. But unions do threaten corporations bottom line.

That's plenty socialist for the RW.

[newportdadde]

17. Guess it would depend on how profitable it would be.

And if the owners if employee owned were okay with that profit margin. You could I suppose in theory run a 'non for profit' grocery, were employees made good salary etc.. hmm.

The empty K-mart does say something though, was it taken down by Walmart? We have an empty K-mart here that Walmart across the street crushed.. then Walmart opened up a Supercenter on the outskirts of town and left the old store vacant... Two huge anchors gone in this major intersection.

[DaveJ]

18. Wal-mart already leans more socialist than most.

Since mose their employees rely on government provided funds like healthcare, food stamps, tax refunds, etc.

As far as any kind of union goes,it would be a cold day in Hell before Wal-mart would accept unions. You will never find a company more resistant to unions than Wal-mart.

[Hidden Stillness]

20. Agreed--They Love Socialism When They can Work it Like a Scam

(I just read this thread and was going to post this, but you expressed the main part of it here already.)

Corporate capitalists already are "socialist": they manipulate the government for subsidies and tax breaks, they have a lot of contracts with the government (remember that "independant pioneer" Ross Perot, all of whose contracts, as I recall, were with the government). They lobby for law changes favorable to themselves, industries as a whole pool their resources like socialists toward "strike funds" so they will not be hurt by lost profits and will never give in to their beloved employees and their "whining cries" for something more than poverty, and they rely on their underpaid employees to turn to Medicaid and other "socialized medicine" for their health coverage; or not. They love socialism, but only when they and other rich capitalists control it, never when it actually helps people. Then, they "can't afford it."