Wal-Mart: Not a Monopoly

Over two years ago, I wrote the two rules of antitrust:

1. You must compete.
2. You must not win.

It never ceases to amaze me that so many people mistakenly equate competitive success with monopoly. Rebekah relates yet another example and smacks it hard:

Buddy went off on a Chomsky-ite tangent and said, "To the extent that Wal-Mart is a monopoly it impedes the free market."



... Precisely how is Wal-Mart a monopoly, when, even in my relatively rural district — in flyover country — we have within just a half-mile of the Wal-Mart, a Target, a K-Mart, a Sears, a J.C. Penney, a farm-and-tractor supply chain, a home and garden center, two book stores, a video store, and at least two dozen small family-operated businesses, all marketing similar items to those at the eeeeevil monopoly, and they have all been doing well for at least the decade the Wal-Mart has been there? That's a funny-looking monopoly, in my eyes. Of course, if you are willing to use Chomsky's methods to redefine words to suit your immediate want, then, perhaps he has a point.



... The communities which have suffered are those which have not allowed for lower-priced merchandise for the working classes. If I earn a paycheck every week and have no place convenient at which to buy affordable clothes, shoes, toys for my kids, and so on, I'm going to look for a job closer to an affordable neighborhood.

Yup. These are precisely the people the elitist snobs of Stratford, Ontario, don't want living and shopping in their snotty, snooty town, which is proud (not sad) not to have a Wal-Mart.