Sat 15 May 2004
On Thursday, in my excellent sociology class on “Technology and Modern Society,” we had a local farmer who works at Caretaker Farm, a local Community Supported Agriculture farm (definition of CSA farming here), come talk to us about the CSA movement. His basic point was that big agriculture is bad because small, family farms produce better tasting food that is environmentally safer and it is a good thing for members of a community to have a relationship with local farms and farmers. He also spent a good chunk of time criticizing WAL-MART which allegedly is evil because it puts “mom and pop” stores out of business.
Out of protest, yesterday when I needed to buy more Advil, I made a point of taking the extra 20 minutes to go to WAL-MART rather than Hart’s Pharmacy on Spring St. How do I love WAL-MART (and hate Hart’s)? Let me count the ways.
1) WAL-MART provides an amazing selection of products at very low prices. The effect of these low prices has been to allow the average American a standard of living that is substantially higher than it would be if we followed the CSA people’s advice and returned to “mom and pop” stores and farms. Hart’s pharmacy is ridiculously over-priced (I was going to stop by and compare prices, but had too much else to do… trust me on this one though). Those who choose to shop at Hart’s are either wealthy enough to have the luxury of paying a premium for Hart’s charm/convenience or else they are making sacrifices in other aspects of their quality of life. Either way, all the more power to them, but for the rest of us thank you WAL-MART.
2) Those who criticize WAL-MART for destroying sense of community are blaming the company for something that it’s not responsible for. The phenomenon of out of town shopping didn’t develop because of WAL-MART. WAL-MART is just very good at providing that service.
3) WAL-MART is great for its employees who would otherwise have trouble getting jobs (they tend to be overwhelmingly immigrants and older people.
4) WAL-MART’s approach to competition is to beat it by having longer hours, better service, and cheaper prices. Hart’s is to whine about it.
Also, Jay Pasachoff, professor of astronomy, notes that we should be skeptical of organic food. Anyway, go shop at WAL-MART and enjoy some GM foods.
May 15th, 2004 at 10:30 pm
only an idiot would spend a buck or two in gas driving 40 minutes round trip to Walmart to buy something for 2 dollars cheaper than it might have been at Hart’s. I think we can file this under “cutting off nose to spite face.”
secondly, you can like Walmart, or not, but they are definitely cheating. It is easier to cut costs when you are using a slave labor janitorial force. Other companies can’t get away with such outrages.
May 17th, 2004 at 11:47 am
Out of protest for what exactly? Are you protesting Caretaker farm or folks who criticize Wal-Mart? I can’t tell exactly from your post. If you really think the we should all simply go to the store that has the cheapest items we want and spend all our money there then you are sadly overlooking the things that make a community vibrant and livable.
Have you ever been to Caretaker farm? If so (and if you did the math) - you’d also note that Caretaker provides more food for less money - but wait, isn’t that the Wal-Mart way?
May 17th, 2004 at 12:25 pm
I’m all for Caretaker Farms. It provides a fantastic luxury item to Williamstown and the CSA movement as a whole provides a wonderful luxury to society. The vilification of WAL-MART, however, ignores the fact that the corporation allows Americans a substantially higher standard of living then they would get otherwise.
Aidan is correct, going to WAL-MART only makes sense from Williams to buy items in bulk where the savings outweigh the opportunity costs in time and fuel, but I got utility out of supporting a needlessly slandered corporation just as subscribers to Caretaker Farms get utility out of buying inefficiently produced food.
May 17th, 2004 at 2:48 pm
I’m not sure where the “inefficient” argument comes from. The article in Nature that was originally linked to doesn’t make that claim.
In addition, I’m not sure why you’re referring to a CSA as a “luxury” item. Sure, members bear an up front cost that is large but by my calculations a member saves about 30% over supermarket (read, Stop and Shop) prices. That saving comes before additional savings generated by the pick your own policies for vegetables and fresh herbs.
May 17th, 2004 at 10:51 pm
Lauding Wal-Mart’s service?! That’s simply amusing.
Wal-Mart may be raising the standard of living for some Americans…but it could do a hell of a lot more (for its employees, say).
Also, what will it say about our culture when, in twenty years, America is just a vast parking lot punctuated by strip malls?
May 17th, 2004 at 11:07 pm
Aren’t we already “a vast parking lot punctuated by strip malls?” Boston Post Road from New Haven to New York is 100 miles of solid strip malls. If you a few blocks off the road, you find a lot of cul de sacs with similar looking houses.
Seems to me most of the retail success stories from the past 20 years have featured box-like retail centers (e.g., Home Depot, Lowe’s, Walmart, Target, Kohls). The one which deviate it from the strategy are located in strip malls (e.g., the Gap, TJ Maxx) or are high end specialty stores. Walmart bears the brunt of the backlash because it is the biggest, the cheapest, and has those unfortunate stories about its union busting tactics and cheating workers out of overtime.
As for organic farms, makes sense in a place like Williamstown for a farm to cater to the local market. Vegetables bred to be picked by hand taste better than those bred to be picked by machines. Whether such a strategy would make sense in areas where farmland is not abundant, that’s another matter.
May 18th, 2004 at 7:01 am
Note that “all things Eph” includes anything said or thought by any Eph or about anything Williams-related. Commentary on Williamstown retail outlets is perfectly within the mainstream, at least here.