Truth, justice and the Walmart Way: consequences of a retailing behemoth

The retailing revolution was predicated on maximized profits through the control of manufacturing, distribution, and consumption. Walmart was an important force in the transformation of the original retailing revolution. Walmart’s business model emphasized enhanced earnings through cost cutting in all aspects of manufacturing and retailing. Gupta (2013) documents that Walmart is responsible for 13 percent of the US$2.35 trillion United States economic development while 140 million Americans shop at Walmart and the retailing giant employs 1 percent of the American workforce. We take a close look at Walmart, and other such corporate retailing businesses, and spotlight this business process and its ultimate consequences on workers. But our wider goal is to develop a larger and more important analysis of the how Walmart and similar businesses exploit developing countries for enhanced corporate profits. Bypassing environmental standards, creating dangerous manufacturing conditions, and subverting workers’ rights to form protective unions, these industrial behemoths use foreign nations as convenient bases for importing cheaply manufactured goods to the United States.