Eating Liberally asks Marion: Wal-Mart
March 1, 2008
This week’s Eating Liberally’s Ask Marion question: Can Wal-Mart contribute to sustainability? It’s a stretch, but I tried to address the question.
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The “sustainability” movement is inherently unsustainable and elitist. The minute anyone in the real world tries to implement their ideas (e.g., organic) in a way that can practically serve more people, they bitch and try as hard as they can to destroy it.
Comment by Mark — March 1, 2008 @ 10:23 pm
One problem the organic movement has faced is rooted in language. “Organic,” since the term was adopted in the 1930’s, has always implied “sustainable” among its cohort of proponents. It is a word that still has these broad connotations among most consumers. Unfortunately, like the term “natural,” regulatory use of the term often legally reduces words to very narrow shades of their customary meanings, hence the recent adoption of the more expansive term “sustainable.”
While there will always be conservative elites and liberal elites, I don’t think that the organic movement is any more elitist than the Free Trade movement: both want prices to rise for many goods, but in the context of trying to promote their conception of general human welfare. If I might use another analogy, it’s like the argument between Ricardo and those who believe there should be a minimum wage. Which side has human welfare at heart? Probably, they both do.
The NY Times recently published an op-ed about the difficulty a farmer is having trying to get around provisions in this and previous farm bills, which have often rewarded large concerns (Earl Butz, “Get Big, or Get Out”) at the expense of the “little guy”:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/01/opinion/01hedin.html?em&ex=1204606800&en=dd5832c47ea07bc0&ei=5087%0A
As a Big Box retailer holding an iron line on price, trying to go “organic” really puts Wal-Mart in the middle of these two conceptions of human welfare.
Personally, I can’t believe that given a long enough time horizon that human welfare and environmental welfare can really be incongruent sides of a debate.
Comment by Fentry — March 2, 2008 @ 9:45 pm
Fentry - that’s one of the most thoughtful comments I’ve ever seen on the subject.
Comment by Migraineur — March 3, 2008 @ 2:56 pm
Considering all of your thoughtful comments Migraineur, that means a lot to me–
Comment by Fentry — March 3, 2008 @ 8:39 pm
I was wondering if the best way Wal-Mart can contribute to sustainability is to simply shutdown its operations. (The family that owns it can use some of their profits to remove the buildings and replace them with parks.)
After all, is this not a prime example of a corporation who has only contributed negatives to our society? Or am I confused in understanding the word “greed”?
P.S. Am so tired of seeing Wal-Mart getting PR for sustainability. What spinmasters they are!
Comment by Jack at Fork & Bottle — March 4, 2008 @ 1:45 am
sic. (my post) “Fair Trade”
Comment by Fentry — March 4, 2008 @ 11:46 pm