The Conservative Case for Walmart

Critics on both the left and the right have found a common enemy in Walmart. Those on the left hate the company because it isn’t unionized while conservatives complain because it undercuts mom-and-pop retailers. But the strangest criticism I’ve ever heard is that is contributes to obesity by making food too cheap .

One cause of increasing obesity is cheap food. Therefore, it should be no coincidence that the largest company in the world — whose motto is “Save money. Live better.” — may contribute to obesity. And, indeed, the geographic expansion of Walmart stores can explain 10.5 percent of the rise in American obesity since the late 1980s, according to a new study. This translates into a 2.3 percentage point increase in the probability of being obese for residents — especially women, low-income married people, and those in rural areas — near a Walmart store.

I suspect if the researchers were to conduct a follow-up study they’d also find that there is about a 99 percent chance that you will not be starving to death if you live near a Walmart store. But we live in a strange period in history when the idea of affordable food is considered a lamentable condition. 

I like food—especially cheap food—which is one of the many reasons I like Walmart. There is admittedly a lot to dislike about the company (and I’ll also confess that I prefer shopping at Target). But as former low-income rural resident I think there are a number of reasons why conservatives should be more supportive of Walmart (and similar corporations).

Let me share a part of my own personal history with the company.

I was in high school in Clarksville, TX the year Walmart opened in our town in the mid-1980s. The impact on our community was immeasurable and only slightly less disruptive than when the Kalahari bushman found a Coke bottle in The Gods Must Be Crazy. Life in our small town would never be the same.

The biggest change was that we now had choices. Before, if we needed consumer products we had to travel thirty miles down the road to Paris. The members of the local retail oligopoly offered a limited range of products at outrageously inflated prices (that seems to be forgotten in the hagiographic idealization of small retailers). Options that were taken for granted by people who lived in urban areas—the ability to buy a Sony Walkman and the latest Duran Duran cassette—were completely closed to our rural community. Sam Walton, though, changed all that.

In fact, it would be hard to underestimate the impact of “everyday low prices” had on us rural Texans. Even low-income families like mine were able to afford items that were once considered luxuries. For example, I was able to purchase a weight-lifting set for less than $20 dollars. It seems like a small thing but it allowed me to transform within a matter of months from an 85 pound weakling to a 98 pound he-man. On the surface, such changes may seem inconsequential. But when viewed on a macro level the broadening of consumer choices had an incredibly transformative and positive impact on rural life.

The role of Walmart in creating economic conservatives should also not be underestimated. Employee profit-sharing was a foreign concept for most citizens of Clarksville. For many people, the first stock that they ever owned (that didn’t come with hooves) was that of Walmart, bought while working for the company. People who had formerly viewed stocks as the province of “Republicans” and other wealthy folk suddenly began to take an interest in investing and saving for retirement. The concept of company ownership suddenly became a reality for people who had previously never considered it a possibility.

Many rural Americans would also argue that the net effect of Walmart has been positive on their communities. While working for the local newspaper in Gun Barrel City, Texas, I interviewed the mayor and asked what she thought of Walmart. The mayor candidly admitted that if it hadn’t been for the store the town would have probably “dried up and blown away.” Walmart, she noted, provided 33 percent of all tax revenues for the city, providing monies that were able to build more roads, better schools, and hire more fire department personnel. It’s easy to overlook how much a single store can have on the tax base of a community. Prior to the arrival of Walmart, most residents bought goods from other towns, spreading sales taxes to other localities.

Sam Walton’s company gave  us rural citizens options and opportunities that we had never known. True, Walmart mirrors much of the rest of American—big, brash, and butt-ugly. But it also straddles the line between local community and global commerce, allowing people who don’t live in cities or suburbs to enjoy such luxuries as cheap food.

As Russell Kirk claimed, “the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society.” For all its flaws, Walmart balances that tension between permanence and change as well as any large corporation in America. And that, in my opinion, is enough to make Sam’s conservative company worthy of admiration.

Joe Carter is Web Editor of First Things and the co-author of How to Argue Like Jesus: Learning Persuasion from History’s Greatest Communicator.

Image by MikeMozartJeepersMedia and licensed under Creative Commons. Cropped from original.