I vote for Walmart. What a terrible company. They have so much money and influence, they can afford to be our punching bag. In fact, if companies like Walmart didn't exist, we would all have a better chance at earning money, so in a way it's Walmart's fault that we're poor.
...I hereby decree that anyone who agrees with the sentiments expressed in the above paragraphs is wrong. Very, very wrong, and incredibly ignorant of reality.
It's interesting, though, the way that everyone seems to believe that if you have money, you are automatically a bad person, even an immoral person. I see nothing wrong with money. I hope to be extremely rich, and I'm pointedly ignoring the phrase "filthy rich" because I don't think there's anything filthy about it. I think that my being rich will be a sign of the highest ideals I can hold, those of production, work, ingenuity, and integrity. Being rich is moral, not immoral.
"So you think that money is the root of all evil? Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?"
I might add that Paul did not say that money was the root of all evil. What Paul wanted Timothy to understand was that loving money is the root of evil. I do not love money, I love the activity that brings me money: engineering, invention, work, providing a service or product for people who need it. When immorality and the root of all evil creep in is at the moment that one's love for money overrules his ability to live morally, to create by his mind and let others create by theirs. I do not think that Walmart, thus far, has violated this code of conduct. I have seen a company which provides products at a lower cost to people who need them, a company who brings together a variety of products into one marketplace. It is ingenious and deserves to make lots of money.
"Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think."
Well, so lots of people like to say that Walmart is not contributing to the "common good." Whatever that means. Lots of people like to say that Walmart could stand to pay their employees more money, to offer them better benefits. I say, if people keep working there, they are valuing their time at the amount that Walmart has offered them, so it obviously is enough. Many people think that Walmart destroys smaller companies. I don't refute that; I only refute that destroying other companies is an immoral or unethical practice. It simply means that Walmart's ingenuity and helpfulness to the world exceed that of the other companies. "When 'the common good' of a society is regarded as something apart from and superior to the individual good of its members, it means that the good of *some* men takes precedence over the good of others, with those others consigned to the status of sacrificial animals."
All the controversy about Walmart is just a sign that people don't understand that the most important part of capitalism is that the best man (or the best company) wins; the best company takes home the most money. The only unethical thing would be to try to govern in any way how much a company is allowed to earn, how much a company is allowed to produce. Every man has access to the world, and to his own ideas. If one man has a better idea than another, it just means he can use the resources provided by the world in a more efficient way than the man with the lesser ideas. I find it incredibly repulsive that the government would meddle in business affairs. I can't believe that the government would start its own little companies, instead of allowing privatization of industry to proceed naturally!
"Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think."
"Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others."
"Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation's troubles and use as a justification of its own demands for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen."
Well, I'll let this issue rest, for now. I strongly oppose anyone who opposes big business. It is a sign that we are truly capitalistic and that man is truly noble.
"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil."
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