If there are two roughly equivalent items Wal-Mart will put on their shelves the cheaper of the two.
I don’t think that’s how supply and demand works…
Assume this is the future. Assume there was a long term widespread need for the people to be frugal, say a 40 year long depression. Assume every single store in the United States, including gas stations and corner marts are now Wal-Mart. Assume that just as with the honey brand cream soda the people of earlier generations “selected” only oatmeal as their good.
Other industries around the United States close their doors all together but the oatmeal industry alone (somehow) provides full employment for the whole country.
Have we benefited?
Interestingly enough, this was addressed in one of the threads JJ has already linked:
If all stores become Walmart, then it is not through some magical process whereby Walmart waves its wand and its will is done. It’s by a market process where literally all stores are better off closing down than competing with Walmart. This is probably impossible as then Walmart would be facing diseconomies of scale due to coordination problems. Plus, if Walmart owns all, then all people work for Walmart, too. This boils down to Walmart essentially being a government, which makes it run into the calculation problem. Since we know any entity with the calculation problem is inefficient, then by default you’d have other firms competing with Walmart.
To conclude, your scenario is impossible. No point discussing.
Not only this, but for the whole world to suddenly and simultaneously bow down to Walmart assumes that people are no longer rational actors and that all lefties of the world have disappeared. You can’t just wish this into existence.
Yes, libertarianism allows doomsday scenarios in its ethics. The question is: would it happen? The answer is no.
If we examine all possibilities of all systems, literally no system can fix all of its problems.
Rather quick tempered statement. I’m here to learn folks and have been fairly receptive in the past, not quite sure this was necessary.
Because you’re being the opposite of clear-headed, my friend.
You have not answered the question: if some aggregate of customers have led to Walmart beating out the mom and pop stores, is this not “better for society?”
And no, predatory pricing is not a proper response.