Wal-Mart might be the best example of what's wrong with America. Wal-Mart won its dominance by taken advantage of global free trade policies, stocking its stores with goods made in China et al. and driving prices down just low enough to price out its local competitors. This simultaneously drives two industries out of business: American manufacturing, which cannot compete with foreign manufacturer's low wages and lax human rights laws, and local retailers that cannot sell bulk goods on the same scale and thus can't sell at Wal-Mart's prices.
The truly exploitive part is how Wal-Mart then fosters societies of total dependency on their stores. With manufacturing and retail jobs lost, Wal-Mart has a swollen labor force from which to hire, and can therefore offer low wages, to the point where we now are expected to donate to them in order for them to survive. And of course where can they afford to shop anymore, but Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart is a nation-wide
Pullman, a new sort of principality run with the blessing of the US Government, complete with its own dynasty of
four out of the top ten richest Americans alive. When you talk about makers vs. takers, how can you not count the Waltons as takers?
This is probably the most visible example of how these low, low prices and low, low wages must be subsidized somewhere, and usually its by us.
