Walmart Argumentative Essay

Wal-Mart is destroying our, as Americans, culture and environment. Wal-Mart destroys little shops from our towns, shops that were built by natives and hard-working people. Shops that overcame hardships and reasonable competition are being torn apart one by one in order not to cause too many people filing bankruptcy. Wetlands in America are not being taken care of, as they should. Wetlands are homes and safety nets for many animals. Wal-Mart has destroyed many wetlands in order to build a store in some town people do not even want there.

Wal-Mart, the multi-billion company and the second largest employer in the world, is the most controversial corporation in the world. Wal-Mart is a global powerhouse and affects many people around the world. Wal-Mart is constantly getting attacked from unions, human rights groups, small towns and small businesses. Wal-Mart is accused of treating their workers poorly and driving small businesses out of business. But however these accusations are false or over exaggerated. Wal-Mart offers families and low income people quality products. Also, they pay their workers competitive wages and treat them with respect. Wal-Mart opens their stores in rural and under developed areas. Wal-Mart improves the lives of the people who live rural area and

Wal-Mart is an American multinational retail corporation and one of the leading discount department retail stores (Wikipedia). It is the highest- grossing company in the United States (Fortune 2008a), and is by far one of the most successful companies worldwide. Wal-Mart offers a place to buy the majority of our goods under one roof like electronics, furniture, clothing, pharmacy, sports, food, books etc. Wal-Mart sells good at lower price than the others and this is even shown by its slogan “save money, live better”.  It drives out smaller and sometimes even the expensive stores out of business due to its lower prices. Wal-Mart provides jobs for thousands of

A corporation as wealthy and powerful as Wal-Mart should invest in the communities and environments that it inhabits, but because it isn’t profitable for them Wal-Mart, the company that claims to be in the interest of the American people, neglects them.

Today I will be trying to convince you to invest in the Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. What makes this stock great you may ask is that it has more than 5,000 stores and clubs nationwide. The stock cost $71.67 per share and the stock has gone up $1.59. Walmart first opened common stock to the public in 1970 and began trading on NYSE on August 25,1972. Walmart has emphasized the importance of keeping its merchandise in stock for shoppers. The company’s stock have risen about 15% this year. Wal-Mart is the world's largest retailer. The employees are more evident as Wal-Mart becomes a more pleasant place to shop. Walmart has said it will invest billions in lowering

Wal-Mart’s variety of over 120,000 items, size and convenience makes it a severe competitor to any business. It’s unbeatable low prices are so unbearable even the social status of many cities or towns don’t matter and can’t even compete with Wal-Mart therefore they are forced to be terminated. This may be an example of “survival of the fittest” but this process is hurting the economy majorly and there needs to be something done about this.

Wal-Mart represents the sickness of capitalism at its almost fully evolved state. As Jim Hightower said, "Why single out Wal-Mart? Because it's a hog. Despite the homespun image it cultivates in its ads, it operates with an arrogance and avarice that would make Enron blush and John D. Rockefeller envious. It's the world's biggest retail corporation and America's largest private employer; Sam Robson Walton, a member of the ruling family, is one of the richest people on earth. Wal-Mart and the Waltons got to the top the old-fashioned way: by roughing people up. Their low, low prices are the product of two ruthless commandments: Extract the last penny possible from human toil and squeeze the last

Being such a large company with many stores and employees Wal-Mart faces many issues. Some of the issues the retail giant faces are; wages, gender discrimination, and health benefits. It seems too many that Wal-Marts has lost its way. When the recession hit Wal-Mart laid off many of its employees and because of that consumers feel the shelves are not being restock and they can’t find what they are looking for. According to Bloomberg Business Week Wal-Mart went from having 343 employees in a store in 2008 to 301 employees in a store in 2013. Even though the employee cut seems logical it is costing the retail giant business. There is no man power to keep the shelves stock and give customers the great customer service that Sam Walton envisioned. (Bloomberbusinessweek)

They like the convenience and the cheap prices. They don’t bother to ask where the products come from or what’s going on behind the scenes to get the items in the stores. An analysis of this situation shows that Walmart is controlling the consumers habits and patterns because the ability to buy so much at such little costs is too much to resist. Small “Mom and Pop” business suffer and people lose their jobs. Buchanan said, “people don’t care about the folks down the street, the folks in the towns they come from.” Consumers don’t know who to ask when they have a problem and every time they need to fix something or address an issue no one can find the answer because no one seems willing to take responsibility. Part of this is placelessness, because there is no one who claims responsibility. This robs areas of their differing culture and what makes cultures unique. Instead, big box companies like Walmart keep expanding and growing. Globalization tends to wipe out local culture and create placelessness so every street and every store and every restaurant will become a chain. When they finally do find someone from Walmart to answer questions, they realize that Walmart reflects the consumer and what they want. The downside is that even when consumers realize what the problem is, they keep repeating it. They stamp out one Walmart and another big box chain pops up because they support

Not only does Walmart directly affect the economical situation of your community, it also puts significant strain upon the environment we live and depend on. In October of 2004, North America sued Walmart for violating the Clean Water Act CWA in nine states, causing a huge uproar both from the defensive Walmart corporation and more so from the targeted communities. Relying upon a communities oblivion, Walmart takes advantage of the situation in which it's presented, posing a threat to all nearby water supplies because of all the toxins and pesticides literally oozing from Walmart facilities worldwide. Much more costly towards the environment than the tinkling of spare change resounding in our pockets. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that a single Walmart location expends countless amounts of energy to maintain,

make their workers to think that they are their business partners, and not excessive work users. Even if they proclaim, about associate’s rights as employees, and the freedom of expressing themselves, Walmart dismisses every individual who speak out for her or his wage increase, or improvement of working conditions. Not only that Walmart financially exploits its workers, but it also took away their rights, and chances for any improvements at the work place. People have the right to get a minimum or the living wage which is still not enough to support a family for a full-time worker, and imagine receiving even less than that, like it happens in those large chain markets like in Walmart.

In contrast, many people and organizations have argued that Walmart is not holding true to their original sustainable commitments. According to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Walmart's greenhouse gas emissions have continued to grow over the last 10 years, and it’s percentage of renewable energy is inadequate compared to other major corporations. Stacy Mitchell, the author of the report and a senior researcher at the Institute believes that the core issue behind Walmart’s lack of action is that they will not change their unsustainable business model to make sustainable advancements. She says that, "Walmart has a highly unsustainable business model, built on shipping goods long distances, selling mountains of very short-lived products,

Despite the fact that Walmart is good for America, they are not making the world a better place.

In the long term Wal-Mart will have to do several things. First it will have to find other ways to reduce costs. This may

Wal-Mart is certainly credited with changing the retail world as we know it with its low prices and big stores with huge selections but it has come at a price. They have struggled with issues that question the ethics as a company and legal issues that question how they manage people. These issues will continue to hurt their organization unless a complete change in management thinking and actions are changed. As a socially responsible organization, their management planning in this area is second to none. Lets hope they take the same effort in improving their image when it comes to ethics and legal issues.