Thoughts on Wal-Mart, corporations and corruption
Applause and congratulations to The New York Times and its investigative reporter, David Barstow for exposing Wal-Mart’s bribery campaign of local government officials throughout Mexico.
The article describes how Wal-Mart de Mexico paid bribes to obtain permits easily and quickly in their rush to build stores and gain market dominance in Mexico. In the Sunday exposé (April 22, 2012), not only bribes, but “donations” were made directly to local government officials all over Mexico; and furthermore, top-level Wal-Mart executives tried to hush up these actions by shutting down their own internal investigation. The article also stated that there were “signs of rising corruption in Wal-Mart’s global operations.”
The article raises a number of broader issues.
First, such behavior by Wal-Mart shows how unregulated free enterprise and competition can lead to widespread corruption.
Second, is the Department of Justice going to investigate Wal-Mart?
Next, if Wal-Mart engaged in this illegal activity, what might other U.S. corporations have done in their foreign operations?
Even more, Wal-Mart, with its well-known zealous, antiunion bias, has provided a devastating model contributing to the relative, downward, economic slide of middle-class wages.
Today, the rate of private-sector unionization is now down to less than 7.0 percent. Thus, working people have had their bargaining power weakened and their wages diminished, even as productivity, profits and dividends are now up for U.S. corporations.
Although not explicitly stated in the Times article, I think that the specter of classism has raised its head. The article describes that the lead Wal-Mart investigator, who was assigned by top management to conduct an internal investigation, was accused by some Wal-Mart executives of being, “naïve about the moral ambiguities of doing business abroad.” This attitude is not only arrogant, but as the article points out, bribery is a violation of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and “is a criminal offense in Mexico.” These ethically-challenged executives give the impression that they are well-above the law.
More broadly, my concern is that U.S. corporations may destroy what little democracy we have left through the legal “bribery” provided by the Citizens United, Supreme Court decision, whereby corporations can easily outspend unions with massive amounts of money for political contributions in order to carry out their own agendas.
Our nation has been Wal-Martized, corporatized and FOX-inated. The “success” of these corporations has cost the middle class its economic position and is costing the nation its democracy.
PHILIP A. DEUTCHMAN
Sandpoint