Exposing Faux Capitalism

On the first weekend edition of 2011, LewRockwell.com featured the article by Gary North with the headline:

I’m Thankful for Shopping Malls
Gary North also appreciates strip malls, chain restaurants, Wal-Mart, and other glories of capitalist civilization.

In the article, Gary North writes:

“Inside a Wal-Mart or a Target or a Sam’s Club, I have a range of choices so spectacular that nothing in my youth compares with it. There were no such local emporiums in my youth. The famous multi-story department stores did offer a wide range of choices, but not at low prices like today.“

For a different perspective on Wal-Mart than the one presented by North, check out this interview with former Wal-Mart employee, Lamon Griggs, on Erskine Overnight, on December 19, 2010.

Griggs talks about his 2009 book, After the Verdict: You Be the Judge, wherein he describes the strong-arm tactics and arrogance exhibited by Wal-Mart and their legal team in silencing him for speaking up about business practices he witnessed.

The site walmartsubsidywatch.org tracks government subsidies received by Wal-Mart all across the U.S.

As a publicly-traded profit-seeking corporation, Wal-Mart is expected to generate the maximum return for its shareholders, as best determined by its Board of Directors, so it should be expected that they will take advantage of “free” handouts, from whatever source.

However, it is a very different matter for Gary North, writing for a site with the headline, “anti-state” and “pro-market,” to not utter a single word about the complicity of federal and state government representatives in providing these handouts at taxpayer’s expense, thereby disguising one way that Wal-Mart is able to offer the “low prices” that North refers to.