This retelling of a radio show Jonah Goldberg heard hints at a fairly illuminating point:
They had an anti-Wal-Mart guy on who was bemoaning Wal-Mart's real and "stealth" subsidies. The complaints about the real subsidies deserve at most one and a half cheers, since most of the subsidies as I understand it are from localities who are desperate to attract Wal-Mart in order to launch inner-city revitalization projects. I don't like most "public-private partnerships" and I'm sure there are some real stinkers out there in terms of Wal-Mart friendly pork. But it's not the corporate welfare this guy was describing.
But his schtick about "hidden" subsidies was just outrageous. Basically he and his group add-up all of the benefits they think Wal-Mart should provide, from health-care to daycare, and then they claim Wal-Mart's getting a free ride on these costs because "the government" is covering them. In other words, because Wal-Mart isn't sending its employees' kids to private school, they're getting a subsidy because the government is paying for their education.
Well, it's not that liberals think Wal-Mart should provide those thing, but that someone should. Technically, Goldberg's right: Wal-Mart, generally speaking, does not pay below the minimum wage, and so is doing their employees no legal harm. They don't, for that matter, have any legal obligation to offer health care. But liberals, myself included, tend to believe such things as a living wage, health coverage, adequate food, and so forth to be rights, and so when an institution that could be expected to provide such things does not, it's a grievous wrong.
Here we get into the whole corporate responsibility thing. The problem is, corporations are seldom responsible, but there was a time when unions forced them to be persuadable. GM, hallowed be their name, was a good example. But those corporations, and those unions, died (though not, as some of the trolls would have you believe, because of each other), and nothing has arisen to restore the employee's clout in the workplace relationship. Wal-Mart, while doing nothing legally wrong, is doing nothing morally right. That's predictable. The question is, can we want force amoral institutions to act as if they were actually concerned with worker, rather than shareholder, welfare, or would it be easier and more effective to place the onus for worker well-being on the government?
Wal-Mart could do better. Making them do better will be very hard. Probably as hard or harder than extracting certain far-reaching concessions from the government. And making Wal-Mart do better will not change target, or whoever dominate the next major industry. So the question really is one of strategy. If you believe, as I do, that a weakened Wal-Mart could be turned into a political ally, and that winning the political fight will prove a more sustainable and attainable way to achieve our ends, how do you fight the first battle against Wal-Mart and then smoothly transition into winning the different, albeit connected, war for an expansive welfare state?
