The Bully of Bentonville

The Bully of Bentonville: The High Cost of Wal-Mart’s Everyday Low Prices
By Anthony Bianco

This book is a critical look at the economic impact that Wal-Mart has had on American society. I initially picked up this book because my mother had recommended a documentary film about Wal-Mart to me. I couldn’t find the film anywhere, but still thought it was a subject I wanted to know a bit more about.

The Bully of Bentonville is a fairly dry read. Bianco describes the history of Wal-Mart’s emergence as a corporate super-power in great detail, which is fairly interesting. However, a lot of the book is concerned with the history of the corporation’s leadership over the past decades, which really didn’t interest me much at all.

I started this book with a fairly open mind. I’ve never agreed with those people who seem to hate Wal-Mart on principle because it is emblematic of big box stores in general. I certainly wouldn’t say that I like what big box retailing has done to the urban landscape of Canadian cities, but I don’t think that we can hold a single corporation responsible. Wal-Mart exists because billions of people make the conscious decision to shop there every single day. It may be true that Wal-Mart is responsible for the decay of downtown retail that used to be the heart of many cities – but, that is a responsibility that each of us is complicit in every time we shop there.

I think a lot of what people negatively associate with Wal-Mart (such as importing most of its products from China) is actually a product of the globalization of our economy. In that respect, Wal-Mart is doing what other American corporations (GAP, Nike) have been doing for decades – they’re just doing it better and on a much larger scale.

However, Bianco did open my eyes to Wal-Mart’s legacy of abysmal labour practices, of which I really hadn’t been aware until I read this book. Wal-Mart is one of the largest single employers in the United States, but it has a 50% annual employee turnover. The fact that ½ of the company’s employees quit every year speaks volumes about the wages, benefits and working conditions that Wal-Mart offers. They also have a very bad track record in respect of their discriminatory treatment of female (who are paid less and promoted less often than their less experienced male counterparts) and minority employees. They are also violently anti-union, because they are only able to offer low prices if they keep their employees’ wages as low as possible. In this respect, they benefit from their high employee turnover because they are able to avoid pay increases associated with long-term employees.

Some might argue that Wal-Mart is just a company trying to make a profit for its shareholders, and we can’t expect it to behave any differently than it does. Why should Wal-Mart be held to higher standards? Well, I think that Wal-Mart has become so huge and so successful that it ought to be held to higher standards. But – and here’s the catch – consumers are the only ones with the power to do that because money is the only language that Wal-Mart speaks. Unfortunately, most people seem content to complain about Wal-Mart and what it’s doing to the economy and the landscape of our cities, but when they need a new garbage can it’s the first place they go.

I enjoyed this book and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s interested in becoming a more educated shopper. There was one particular quote in the book that sticks with me, although I forgot to mark the page, so this is from memory: If price and profit are more important than principle, you’re prostituting yourself. I, for one, will not be prostituting myself again in the aisles of Wal-Mart!