Business Prior Order is Ethics

Question 3: Assessing if the Wal-Mart’s rapid rise to retail dominance is a positive or a negative development for our society

The growth of Wal-Mart in the retail sector is assessed from different perspectives that have divided the views of professionals from various fields. For example, the economists are concerned with the issue of inflation, the historians study the impact of poor pay, the researchers are focused on how the firm’s business strategy has supported its growth, and geographers are studying how the company is expanding in different places. From these fields, there are experts that criticize the growth of the firm and others are praising it. The experts in the nonacademic fields are those that are mostly criticizing Wal-Mart’s growth for each reason it is praised. That is, the company is praised for selling products at lower prices but it is found doing this at the expense of the workers by exploiting them. Wal-Mart is praised for creating jobs but in the real sense, it increases the rates of unemployment because of high employee turnover rates. The firm’s continued growth to become a retail leader has eroded business competition that makes the market healthier (Shaw, 2013; Gereffi & Christian, 2009).

What the rise of Wal-Mart to retail dominance tells about capitalism, globalization, and the plight of workers

According Shaw (2013), the rise of Wal-Mart to become a leader in the retail industry has been favored by the capitalism system that the United States has adopted where the private sector controls its operations without any interference from the government. That system is one, which favors the private owners and works against the workers and the society. In regards to globalization, Wal-Mart is growing because; the global economy is being driven by low-cost business strategies. Therefore, Wal-Mart is expanding in areas where labor costs are also low. Therefore, locally, and internationally, the growth of Wal-Mart is not in favor of the workers as the firm intends to exploit them more to grow.

Question 4: Determining if a retailer ever become too large and too powerful

Under the capitalism system, it is possible for a retailer to become too big and powerful. As Collins (2016) argues, there are those that win and those that lose under a capitalism system. In that system, the winners are understood to be those that work hard prudently, honestly, responsibly, efficiently, and thoughtfully, while the losers are the lazy ones that are extravagant, inefficient, imprudent, and negligent. That is to say, that the capitalism system praises the winners by making them powerful and disregards the losers and consequently, those disregarded become defenseless and more vulnerable to the abuse of the winners.

References

Collins, M. (2016). The winners and losers of free market capitalism. Retrieved< https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikecollins/2015/08/04/the-winners-and-losers-of-free-market-capitalism/#42b544247f75>.

Gereffi, G. & Christian, M. (2009). The impacts of Wal-Mart: The rise and consequences of the world’s dominant retailer. Annual Review of Sociology, 35, 573-591.

Shaw, W. H. (2013). Business ethics: A textbook with cases 8^th ed.: The nature of capitalism. Mason: Cengage Learning.