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The Wal-Mart Effect : How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works - and How It's Transforming the American Economy (精装)
by Charles Fishman
| Category:
Corporate history, Corporate success, Entrepreneurship, Business |
| Market price: ¥ 288.00
MSL price:
¥ 258.00
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Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
An excellent study of how Wal-Mart has affected America and the World. |
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AllReviews |
  1 2 Total 2 pages 14 items |
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Robert Steele (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
This is both an extraordinarily accomplished piece of open source information research, and an extraordinarily important contribution to the economic literature - it could even be worthy of a Nobel Prize for documenting the differences in negative impact of a $100 billion dollar company versus a $10 billion or $1 billion company.
Bottom line: Wal-Mart is killing both jobs and the US economy by luring people into the delusion that cheap prices come at no cost to them, their community, or their country.
A few things jump out at the reader that should scare the pants of policymakers, economists, and normal people:
1) Wal-Mart is a bastion of secrecy, more secret than the Soviet Politburo or the Central Intelligence Agency;
2) This secrecy covers up three major crimes against humanity and small businesses across America:
a) Lack of ethics, to include illegal tactics in "sweating" US workers in a number of different ways
b) Elimination of the free market economy, as their near communist (more totalitarian) system drives out competition and then forces its suppliers to stay with them just to survive ("once you get hooked on Wal-Mart volume, it's like being hooked on cocaine and there's no getting out.")
c) Destruction of businesses and jobs across America, while destroying the international environment (e.g. toxic sludge in the ocean from salmon farming in southern Chile) with hidden diseconomics that multiple future generations will pay for. The book very specifically documents the destruction by Wal-Mart of roughly 15-20% of the competing small businesses (and their employment) in the immediate vicinity of any Wal-Mart, and a rather surprising 50% of competing small businesses in surrounding towns, as hard-pressed consumers choose to drive to Wal-Mart and let their local businesses die.
3) The documented percentages of jobs and revenue lost to other businesses in this book, with proper citation of the original state economists, is phenomenal. Of special interest was the virtual destruction of business within 50 miles of the Wal-Mart, not just near it, made possible by the same cheap fuel that makes it possible for Wal- Mart to export US jobs and import Chinese trinkets by ship.
I read this book together with some works on the need to "localize" food and energy production, and to downsize business ranges, in order to prepare for the day when the cost of oil kills most of the production that requires transport over long distances to the market.
I put the book down absolutely persuaded that Wal-Mart needs to be put out of business by a spontaneous total boycott from all consumers. That is highly improbable, but if the kind of word of mouth can get around on Wal-Mart the way it has on immigration reform, it is just possible that the people of America will see that this is a truly evil corporation doing great harm behind closed door.
This book, and a few others like it, but this one especially, is the cracking of the door, the beginning of Collective (Public) Intelligence that will – eventually - sanction this kind of unethical destructive business. |
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Midwest Book Reviews (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works - And How It's Transforming The American Economy is a no-holds-barred book for the everyman about the tremendous economic clout exerted by retailing behemoth Wal-Mart. Award-winning journalist Charles Fishman, himself a Wal-Mart shopper, explores how Wal-Mart's exhortation "Always low prices. Always." is taken to soulless extremes. Wal-Mart has performed miracles, such as single-handedly dealing a staggering blow to inflation and eliminating inefficiencies in packaging and distribution; Wal-Mart has also engaged in such irresponsible practices as turning a blind eye to labor abuses or environmental destruction committed by suppliers overseas, and relentlessly pressuring suppliers to cut costs further every year regardless of inflation until they wind up in bankruptcy. Yet American shoppers, trained from birth to seize bargains, vote with their debit cards to propel Wal-Mart into the status it enjoys today - a gargantuan that actually creates economic forces rather than be subject to them. Academic studies of Wal-Mart's effect are smoothly summarized and translated into layman's terms, revealing that the only net jobs Wal-Mart creates are Wal-Mart jobs; that a startling proportion of Wal-Mart workers accept public assistance just to survive on a Wal-Mart salary; and that Wal-Mart does indeed have a crushing effect on local prices. The Wal-Mart Effect is more than a cautionary tale of the threats such unrestrained economic power poses, particularly to small businesses and communities; it is above all, a call to arms to the American government and people to step forward and be the ethical counterbalance to unrestrained capitalistic forces. And the most crucial linchpin of that counterbalance is information - the American people need to know far more about Wal-Mart, and other mega-corporations like it, than they are willing to divulge. The failings of Enron showed what too much corporate secrecy can bring; it is time for an information revolution to expose and pave the way to better understanding of the true Wal-Mart effect. This flawlessly recorded, complete and unabridged, 8 CD disk edition is expertly narrated by Alan Sklar and has a total running time of 9.5 hours. |
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An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
Fishman has produced a well researched, objective book on an important phenomenon. Unfortunately, it is also kind of dull, partly because Fishman is too wordy. The book begins very well, and I suspect if Fishman had more ex Wal-Mart executives willing to talk freely, the book would have been more interesting (current Wal-Mart execs won't talk and Fishman has no secret sources).
While I think Fishman takes great pains to be unbiased, I also think he is putting too much of the blame for the movement of jobs overseas on Wal-Mart. After all, Dell is the leading PC maker, does not sell through Wal-Mart, and does not produce its product in the US. Also, sales results in the last year or so show that competitors like Target are now taking market share from Wal-Mart.
One stat that particularly bothered me, was that Gap has about 4.5 times the staff for auditing overseas factories, once you adjust for dollar value of sales (excluding groceries). Another disturbing fact: in Georgia, Wal-Mart had one child in the state insurance program for every 4 employees, whereas Publix had one child for every 22 employees. Now, there may be benign explanations for both these stats, and I do wish there was more comparative analyses of Wal-Mart versus, say, Target, but they are disturbing stats.
Interestingly, the day I finished this book there was a story in the Wall Street Journal about a maker of ergonomic pens that just got a Wal-Mart contract; It reads like one of Fishman's case histories. Part of the pen maker's problem is that they were given so little time from the day their product was accepted till the day they had to begin deliveries - there seems no good reason for this. They plan to produce pens which can sell at higher price points, to placate their current retailers, but all their energies are of necessity focused on Wal-Mart. |
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George Morris (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
I read this book after watching the DVD, The High Cost of Low Prices and because Fishman wrote good articles for Business Week. I still will buy from Wal-Mart, unlike a lot of people who hold my same view of the company, but Wal-Mart is the real Evil Empire in America. I believe it is just a matter of time before there is a public backlash against their truly despicable practices. Before Fishman ever compared them to Standard Oil of 100+ years ago or the A&P grocery chain in the first half of the 20th Century, those are the 2 companies I immediately thought of. Those 2 companies were brought to bear as a result of the same type of practices that Wal-Mart engages in. I think the upper management of Wal-Mart, have an inkling of this possibility because Eliot Spitzer was high on their list of political campaign contributions. All in all, a good read for pro- and anti-Wal-Mart customers. |
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