Why? Because in addition to the everyday low low prices everybody loves, Wal-Mart is making a positive difference in the world community.

Article 25-1 of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Leaving aside for a second the question of when a job and unemployment insurance became a human right, this is the expressed will of the World Community. Unfortunately the UN hasn’t done a very good job living up to this mission, with somewhere between 15 and 23% of the world’s population living below the poverty threshold. Someone is however.

Tech Central Station is carrying an article by Michael Strong entitled, ”Forget the World Bank, Try Wal-Mart”, which makes the case that Wal-Mart is one of the cost effective poverty alleviation mechanisms ever:

Between 1990 and 2002 more than 174 million people escaped poverty in China, about 1.2 million per month. With an estimated $23 billion in Chinese exports in 2005 (out of a total of $713 billion in manufacturing exports), Wal-Mart might well be single-handedly responsible for bringing about 38,000 people out of poverty in China each month, about 460,000 per year.

“One way to think of Wal-Mart is as a vast pipeline that gives non-U.S. companies direct access to the American market.” Even without considering the $263 billion in consumer savings that Wal-Mart provides for low-income Americans, or the millions lifted out of poverty by Wal-Mart in other developing nations, it is unlikely that there is any single organization on the planet that alleviates poverty so effectively for so many people. Moreover, insofar as China’s rapid manufacturing growth has been associated with a decline in its status as a global arms dealer, Wal-Mart has also done more than its share in contributing to global peace.

How this is possible given the numerous accusations of low pay, slavery and murder and organ harvesting of union organzers , made against Wal-Mart by labor unions and employees? By providing jobs to millions of Chinese moving from the rural countryside to the cities Wal-Mart raises the general living conditions for those workers on a day in day out basis. This is in contrast to charitable aid which may provide a temporary lift but not the long term improvement a better paying job does.

Mr. Strong also points out that successful social entrepreneurship programs tend to be successful on a much smaller scale, raising the very good question:

Is it heroic to raise one person up out of poverty each month, but merely a statistic to raise a million up?

Even Paul Krugman understands the benefits of a company like Wal-Mart:

“These improvements … [are] the indirect and unintended result of the actions of soulless multinationals and rapacious local entrepreneurs, whose only concern was to take advantage of the profit opportunities offered by cheap labor. It is not an edifying spectacle; but no matter how base the motives of those involved, the result has been to move hundreds of millions of people from abject poverty to something still awful but nonetheless significantly better.”

While Wal-Mart may not be the most socially conscious employer the side effects of it’s quest for profits is better life for many people and thart is the goal of the social justice movement.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006 at 11:42 am by Chad and is filed under Brilliant, but uncategorizable. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.