The Walmartization of America Redux: How the Relentless Drive for Cheap Stuff Undermines Our Economy, Bankrupts Our Soul, and Pillages the Planet | Common Dreams

The Walmartization of America Redux: How the Relentless Drive for Cheap Stuff Undermines Our Economy, Bankrupts Our Soul, and Pillages the Planet | Common Dreams:

"There was a time when corporations understood that paying their employees a living wage had economic and societal benefits.  Henry Ford famously said he wanted his employees to be able to afford to buy the cars they made and launched six decades of prosperity.

The labor movement helped create a social and economic compact in which workers shared the wealth they generated.  When workers had enough money to consume, they stimulated economic growth.  When production was as important as consumption, the economy flourished, the common worker had dignity, and the means of production were valued.

But that compact has been sacrificed at the Alter of the Cheap, and we no longer produce, we merely consume. "

Homo consumerus, as I've been saying here for some time. And as a recent poem ends:

in the end shopping wins out
and if you let people shop,
hell, they'll put up with
anything.