Customer Reviews

How Wal-Mart is Destroying America and The World and What You Can Do About It

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The last time I spent any time in a Wal-Mart, I think, was roughly ten years ago. Even then, something about the place felt fundamentally wrong. Maybe it had something to do with the overfriendly greeter at the front door, a guy who spent way too much time trying to get my attention. Perhaps the downright filthy appearance of the store set off my internal warning bells. After all, it's difficult to gain a decent impression of a place when merchandise spills onto the floor, products teeter precariously on top of shelving units, and the employees look like they just got out of jail. I left without buying a single item, vowing never to return. And I haven't gone back after all these years. Neither has Bill Quinn, the eighty eight year old author of this slim indictment of America's biggest retailer. The writer, a former journalist and magazine editor, presents a startling array of facts against the House that Sam Walton built in "How Wal-Mart is Destroying America." After reading this book, you will think twice about returning to shop at "The Box," one of the terms Quinn and his sympathizers use in referring to Wal-Mart.

The list of egregious behaviors occurring under the aegis of Wal-Mart, based out of Bentonville, Arkansas, simply boggles the mind. Quinn's key complaint centers on the retailer's anti-competitive outlook, known as "Stomp the Comp," when the company moves into a small town and proceeds to demolish every mom and pop business in the area. Through cutthroat pricing and luring away employees from smaller stores, Wal-Mart takes business right out from under the noses of modest retail outlets. As all other stores in the area shut down, the Box from Bentonville becomes the only significant force in the region. This allows them to lower wages, raise prices, reduce advertising in local papers, and lets them get away with claiming twenty eight hours a week counts as a full-time job. Even worse, Wal-Mart oftentimes closes smaller stores in order to open a regional "superstore," which forces residents of small towns to drive thirty or forty miles to do their shopping. How does this behemoth get away with such activities? Because politicians in many areas fall for the old "jobs, opportunity, tax revenue" mantra chanted by Wal-Mart's bevy of attorneys, engineers, and other assorted boosters. Once the company gains a foothold in your town, the game is over. The retailer takes advantage of tax loopholes, destroys the environment, and eliminates more jobs than it creates.

Quinn outlines many more atrocities. The number of lawsuits lodged against the Bentonville Beast has reached stunning numbers in recent years. According to the book, customers have sued Wal-Mart for injuries sustained from falling merchandise, slipping on objects on the floor, and heinous crimes committed in the stores' parking lots. Employees too have expressed their dismay with the irresponsible employer. One woman filed a claim when the managers at her store dismissed her for dating a black man. Other workers sued over the company's unofficial policy of intimidating employees into working off the clock. Quinn unearthed many vendors whose experiences with the retailer have since led to court actions. Wal-Mart always pushes its wholesalers for deep discounts, and then often returns damaged merchandise in bulk for refunds at full cost. A few smaller companies went out of business after the retailer made a big order and then reneged on the deal a month or so later. It's gotten so bad that many big vendors refuse to sell to Wal-Mart anymore. Quinn goes on and on, listing outrageous behavior after outrageous behavior. Frighteningly, the company is now expanding into other markets overseas using the same shady business models that turned our rural areas into places tumbleweeds wouldn't be caught dead rolling through.

"How Wal-Mart is Destroying America" does have a few problems. Quinn's sense of humor, a fiery rhetoric fused with crotchety old guy attitude, gets old rather fast. I started noticing a troubling tendency to describe Wal-Mart in biblical terms of good and evil. Nothing is more indicative of this fact than a couple of drawings depicting a Bentonville goon sporting horns. Yeah, it's funny, but is this how you really want to make a serious argument? Moreover, the writer's obvious disdain for the retailer clouds his judgment. Is Wal-Mart at fault when a customer slipped on a cough drop? Should we take an ambulance chaser seriously when he claims Wal-Mart stonewalls every lawsuit? C'mon! Of course a lawyer is going to say something like that. I'm not defending the retailer's oily policy of spending mountains of money defending itself against legitimate court claims, but I understand why they do it. Big companies become targets for sue happy citizens very quickly. Should we expect Wal-Mart to roll out the red carpet for every lawyer with dollar signs in his or her eyes? I don't think so.

Still, Quinn's book is a revelation about a company obviously out of control. I suspect the primary reason Wal-Mart gets away with all this stuff is because it goes on in rural areas. If this sort of behavior occurred in New York City, Chicago, Miami, or a few other huge metropolitan areas you can bet we would all get an earful about it. Well, if this book is accurate city slickers may well discover exactly what Wal-Mart is all about before too long. By racking up billions in sales in Rural America and overseas, the Bentonville retailer will soon possess the ability to strong-arm even the biggest cities into submission. Quinn concludes his book with several tips to either cut down Wal-Mart's power or to keep them out of your area. Personally, not shopping at this store seems to be the most prudent course of action. I know I won't ever return.

Some of this book is a little over the top in the sense that it has been used by Bill Quinn as a tool in his epic quest to stop the Wal-Mart machine.

While it may be a little on the obsessive side, it points out a lot of elements of the Wal-Mart empire that they would probably like to keep under wraps. Many of the practices exercised by Wal-Mart surprised me in their audacity. There are many accounts by customers, former employees, and others who have dealt with the beast firsthand. The book also lays out ideas to help communities fight off an attempt by Wal-Mart to move into new territory.

After reading the first half of this book, I was compelled to avoid shopping at Wal-Mart. Not that I shopped there often to begin with, but now I make it a point to look elsewhere for my goods.

I have already talked about the book to some friends of mine, who expressed interest in reading it when I was finished. If you are interested in the underhanded tactics that the largest U.S. retailer uses to insure success, pick up a copy of "How Wal-Mart is destroying America..." and pass it along when your done.

a friend lent me this book about a year after a walmart supercenter came to our town of a little over 15,000. I personally found the majority of the information in the book outrageous! I cant understand how we let such a horrible place even exist in america. some things were obvious, like the sweatshops and about them not buy american made products. Other things like how they treat their vendors, cheat on their taxes, and claim to do charity work when all they do is ship the stuff their vendors donate in big walmart trucks so it just appears like they are helping, that shocks me.

i always read other people's reviews of books ive already read in order to comment on what they have said and after reading the bad reviews of this book it doesnt even seem like those people have read the book. They shouldnt be allowd an opinion on a book they have not even picked up and given a chance. They give examples of how walmart has given to charity for their town, but i ask you this, IS THE MONEY COMING DIRECTLY FROM WALMART OR ARE THEY JUST THE MESSENGER? One reviewer was ignorant enough to say walmart was the best thing to happen to the world, a perfect example of someone who has not read the book writing a review.

The most common argument is if you dont like walmart dont shop there. Well i dont shop there, i still have a supercenter destroying my town. bottom line NOT SHOPPING AT WALMART DOESNT SOLVE THE PROBLEM. The purpose of this book is to inform everyone of just how walmart "helps" america. the format is very simplistic, yes, but that is so it can be understood and reach a larger audience.

Walmart is a multi billion dollar corporation that is truely destroying the world. Arm yourself with information and help stop this beast.

I don't often review non-fiction books, so I am rolling the flavor of this review around on my tongue trying to figure out how to interpret my taste of the book.

The good points of the book are how Mr. Quinn outlines areas of defense for your community to patrol, like watching all of the zoning requests, even from companies that seem to have nothing to do with WalMart, for often they will purchase and then lease out to the hungry beast.

He gives website information at the end of the book, so that if your interest (and ire) have been adequately sparked, there are outlets for your fiery resistance to flow into.

And, he gives factual information on the tactics that WalMart uses to infiltrate small-town America and ruthlessly destroy small business owners.

Most shocking to everybody should be the fact that WalMart is now the number one large-business employer in America...paying minimum wage and considering 28 hours a week to be "full time". No wonder America is slowly becoming a third-world country. In the past, when I actually shopped at WalMart, I felt like I was entering a third world country when I passed through those wheezing doors. Now I know why.

Teetering on the edge of good-point/bad-point is the simplistic writing style of Quinn's book. On the one hand, it is easy to read and gets the point across rapidly. On the other hand, it tends to sound a bit like Grandpa "going off" as he sat around the old stove at night. (Sigh...those good old days long before WalMart...)

The single most blatant bad point about this book was the fact that *not once* did Quinn mention that the simplest way to stop a carnivorous corporate giant like this is to STOP SHOPPING THERE. He made it sound so much like these places were plowed over with a bulldozer of incomprehensible size, when the simple statement of PROTEST NOW could go a lot further than the whining of people left in the destructive wake of this beast.

Quinn also fails to mention that Small Business (as a singular entity) is still the number one employment means in America, and that it is worthy of supporting NOW before the claws of the giant draw arterial blood.

The facts are that the general American wage is dropping because of minimum wage corporate giants like WalMart; that more people employed at poverty wage mean a greater burden on the country as a whole, and if left to the "Savage Capitolism" of Walmart, rather than the competitive forces of individuals and small business owners, America will eventually become a third world country itself...with a few very wealthy folks and an overall population of slave labor forces.

This book is very good in that it is based on real information and will stir you into some sort of anger. The bad point is that Quinn should have spent more time in pro-active response rather than re-active response.

Bottom line: If you don't like their presence, don't shop there. If people didn't patronize these places, they would go out of business. *steps off soapbox...bows to Quinn*

Bill Quinn is a feisty 88-year-old newspaperman who admits to being on a crusade to bring down the world's largest retailer: Wal-Mart. This new edition of his anti-Wal-Mart manifesto is a lively and frightening read. It tends to be short on documentation at times, too often building its case on anecdote, and hearsay. But there are other sources (for example, Barbara Erhenreich's recent *Nickle and Dimed*) that complement and corroborate many of Quinn's claims.

According to Quinn, the basic business philosophy of Wal-Mart is "Stomp the Comp!" (this seems to actually be a Wal-Mart managerial cheer). Sam Walton's attitude was to obliterate the competition. Sharing the market with competitors is for chumps who don't want to be #1. But in order to stomp the comp, Wal-Mart doesn't sell at rock bottom prices, despite its advertising claims. (If you doubt this, do a little comparison shopping and you'll discover that in fact Wal-Mart isn't the cheapest game going. But be careful: Quinn says that comparison shoppers have been escorted out of Wal-Marts because they were seen jotting down prices in notebooks.) Rather, it ruthlessly cuts overhead, and that means paying workers minimum wage, hiring most of its employees on a part time basis so that it doesn't have to worry about benefits, making its fulltime employees pay half of their benefits cost if they opt for insurance, insisting on discounts from vendors as conditions for doing business with them, buying cheap merchandise stitched together in third world sweat shops (remember Kathy Lee Gifford?), busting unionization efforts, and occasionally repackaging and reselling returned, defective merchandise.

Most of us probably aren't aware of these internal shenanigans. But all of us know what Wal-Mart does to local communities when it moves in. The national strategy has always been to target rural areas, overwhelm with an advertizing blitz, stomp the comp, and control the market. In the process, local businesses go bankrupt and folks lose their jobs, only to be offered part time, minimum wage work at the local Wal-Mart that's now the only game in town. Quinn shows how this pattern of seize and conquer is characteristic of the Wal-Mart approach. He also reveals the next, frightening stage of Wal-Mart evolution: consolidated Wal-Marts, even bigger and "better". The national plan is this: the old Wal-Marts that have drained downtowns in rural areas are now going to close shop and consolidate in huge Wal-Marts, leaving more empty buildings, putting people out of work once again, leaving dead downtowns in their wake, and forcing consumers to use more gasoline to drive to them. Thanks, Sam!

Take a chance on this book. Read it, think about it, talk to your family and neighbors about it. And take back your community by saying "no!' to Wal-Mart.

I always felt there was something wrong and soulless every time I stepped into a Wal-mart, I just couldn't put my finger on it. After reading this book, the truth about Wal-mart is here -- every bit as scary as I imagined. Inside the book, Quinn supports his anti-Walmart message with FACTS and ACTUAL EVENTS and LAWSUITS, showing us why the last thing you should want in your community is the [is the local] store, because that will basically mean the end of your community. From horrible treatment of workers, low wages, lack of community involvement, destruction of the environment, lack of respect for ecology, willful destruction of competitors and misuse of its OWN CUSTOMERS, Wal-mart has done it all. Its high time we stop supporting them. Read this book, do something about Wal-mart, we can make a difference.

You know what, I haven't read this book. I just know plenty about walmart practices from other books I've read. First of all, walmart employs more Americans than any other corporation. As much as Americans give back to places like Walmart, and as much money as WALMART is making, they still pay their workers next to nothing, and almost all of the workers only get to work part-time (a cost-cutting measure so that they would not be entitled to benefits - like health care). And don't you dare try to unionize in America, you'll get fired before that happens (and there are many cases of this), although in Canada and China (two countries with lower GDP's than ours, they are actively trying to get unionized).

When Walmart comes to your town, your town takes a hit. First of all, Walmart has EVERYTHING, which is a convenient thing for us, but not for the small businesses from the local downtown. You see, Walmart buys a lot, and I mean a lot of merchandise. So they get the best prices, and so they can offer the huge discounts. And which vendor would not wanna have deals with walmart? It's a gold mine. The mom and pop stores only buy a few of each item, therefore their discount is not as steep, and they can't provide you with the same discounts as walmart.

It's been proven that in almost every town walmart lands, small businesses die. It's proven that when walmart arrives, downtowns become ghost towns and the major hotspot becomes walmart, good for walmart, but bad for those wanting to start their own business.. You need food, dvd, toys, camera, hangers... it's all at walmart. They are in many ways a monopoly.

I'm not even going to get into what they do internationally, just read "the best democracy money can buy" by Greg Palast.

Anyway, walmart is doing so well, the least they can do is give back to the people who made it by providing wages one can survive on and health care.

This book was an eye-opener. Every Wal-Mart shopper must read this book. It's not a difficult read and all the business and political mumbo jumbo is broken down. After reading it, you'll never want to shop there again, it's that moving. American society is in real danger of a business monoply that most of us never saw coming.

The author has a bias against wal-mart and he never bothers to conceal it. He even refers to Wal-Mart as "Bentonvillians" and "blankety-blanks". This gives you an idea what to expect throughout. At least you know what you're in for.

Unfortunately it appears most of the information comes from disgruntled former employees and other people who have an axe to grind. While the anecdotes are amusing and informative most of them appear to be isolated incidents. He never gives specific insider information that this was all part of some grand plan. It just looks like a bumbling bureacracy with some medium level tyrants.

The most insightful information given is the information about the moving around of management level employees so they don't get settled in and the fact that Wal-Mart fights (and appeals) every lawsuit.

I hate Wal-Mart as much as the next fella but I'd prefer to have a few less amusing anecdotes and a few more smoking guns of intentional wrongdoing.

American is based on freedom,in this case the freedom of choice.When a Wal-Mart enters a town it WILL DO ANYTHING to wipe out all competition. At first that doesn't seem bad, because the prices are so low. However that only lasts until they are the only game in town. Mr. Quinn was not overstating the facts when he said the company will let nothing stand in the way of making money.As for stacking things too high; right again! They fill every inch of space possible ; out front and in back. I should know I used to be told to do it.There is a lot more to say, but, read the book, and believe it!