We're all just a bunch of regular people with opinions about the comparative value of people relative to ourselves. The problem with our judgments is that we begin with an incomplete set of facts. Also, it is presumed by each of us that we know what ought to be and that our opinions are superior. This allows us to pass judgments on others and either uplift them or condemn them. This really isn't something in which we have any business. Most of us are just folks.
It is assumed that politicians care about you and that corporations are evil. Nobody ever forces them to prove it or measures them against their actual accomplishments. You can be attacked for attempting to do right and inadvertently harming people as an entrepreneur while you gather praise for good intentions as a politician. The fact of the matter is that politicians don't care any more about you on average than any entrepreneur on average. To care about someone, you have to like them, and to like them, you really do have to actually know them. On Facebook today I came across a list of 19 'facts' about Wal-mart for which the poster didn't cite their source, and so I refuse to reproduce the list here. If you want to learn the 'facts' about Wal-mart, you should do your own homework. That's always good advice.
It might come as a shock to some people to learn that I was a Wal-mart associate for a year. It had its ups and downs, some of which I will discuss in a book I am writing on the corporation, but like most of our experiences, it really matters more how we look at it than anything else. Unlike my other employer at the time, I don't cringe when I see Wal-mart symbols or flinch against entering their stores. Also in the interest of disclosure, I sold all of my stock in October 2011 to buy a house, divesting myself of all further direct financial interest in the company.
However, it annoys me when people attack Wal-mart. I think mostly because they do so without much if any first-hand knowledge. Sure, there were some low points, but I have some really cool stories too. I learned a lot working there, about life, about other people, and about myself. I grew as a consequence, and I consider it a great privilege and blessing to have that insight into another type of employ. Not everyone, particularly college professors and scientists like me, have the perspective I have on how a major company works or a first-hand knowledge of the things that prevent it from being even better. Most of what we know is theoretical, but I actually have that as well as other private enterprise experience, which I think gives me an advantage.
Truth is, it's every bit as much your Wal-mart as it is that of the employees who work there. You have neighbors, friends, or family who either shop there or work in an industry that does a great deal of business with Wal-mart if they do not work for the company itself. If you have a pension fund, IRA, 401K, or mutual fund, it's VERY likely that you have a partial ownership in Wal-mart. So, when you attack Wal-mart, you attack people you know and love, including yourself.
Consider some of the other facts about Wal-mart. Wal-mart makes available large quantities of items at low prices to people who would under other circumstances not likely be able to either afford or locate them. Wal-mart employs more people than any other corporation, and most, although not all, Wal-mart leaders were once hourly associates. Wal-mart pays taxes on all that 'evil profit' every year, making possible much of that which we take for granted from our localities and national funding. There are other 'facts' about Wal-mart than those this poster desired that I should know.
These 'evil corporations' are made of people who consider themselves to be good. How is that possible? Although Wal-mart is a far cry from the organization founded by Sam, it is not evil in itself. Any organization, whether a grocer, a government, or an independent autopart dealer, is only as good as the people of whom it is comprised. Just as any person who does not decry evil and shun it is coconspirator with it, any good person there who is trying to change it for the better is an agent for goodness. A diamond is not made less brilliant if surrounded by anthracite coal; after all, diamonds are just coal made brilliant under pressure. The employees at Wal-mart that you see are not looking to rob you; in fact, they are doing the best they can under what might be stressful circumstances to keep you happy because they would like to keep their jobs. For most of them, they work at Wal-mart because they can more than because they choose to. It's tough out there for everyone, and some of those people at whom you yell and whom you villify in such posts are ordinary people like you just being responsible adults.
I could go through this in more detail. I see, having read this list of 'facts' provided on Facebook, that it is about an agenda. They have ignored anything and everything Wal-mart does that is positive in an effort to evoke an emotional response hoping to convince you to agree with their personal feelings that Wal-mart is evil. There are worse evils out there than Wal-mart; the US Government employs more people (even in America if you exclude soldiers) than Wal-mart. Most people, after all, don't really consider you important enough to think up ways to screw you over; they are really just looking out for themselves, and there isn't necessarily anything nefarious about it.
I know some people intimately who have lost their jobs because Wal-mart came in. I also happen to know that they didn't work nearly as hard at their jobs as the cashiers, stock people, etc. at Wal-mart. It's a VERY difficult job. I worked in a warehouse on 12 hour shifts driving forklifts, assembling pallets, and loading trailers. It was a high-paced, high-energy, and highly demanding environment that burnt a lot of people out. Working at Wal-mart showed us all the stuff of which we were actually made.
Always consider the source, which is something not provided in the original post. Nothing comprised of humans is either all evil or all good. It is imperfect by definition. The best way to make something better is not to boycott it; that hurts the normal people who work there. The best way to make something better is to gather good people together, go in, and make it better. You never make anything better by dragging it down, but destroying something is easier than building something better, and most people are too lazy. It's easier to complain than to fix it, because fixing it takes work.
The bottom line is that any organization made up of humans is only as good as the people of whom it is comprised. Change the nature of the employees, and the organization will change.
Like I told my students last night, most people are not really interested in truth. They all secretly hope that what they already believe will be proven to be true. What they present may seem perfectly logical to some, but the problem with logical arguments is that everyone's idea of a logical approach is different. For this reason, logical arguments can be countered by other logical arguments. What really colors you is how you see people. Thomas Jefferson said, “We both consider the people as our children and love them with paternal affection, but you love them as infants whom you are afraid to trust without nurses and I as adults whom I freely leave to self government” (Letter to P.S. Dupont de Nemours, April 24, 1816).
As agents, we are free to choose for ourselves what we will choose. We are free to list to wards damnation and death by following the devil or immortality and eternal life through Christ. Most people are trying to save themselves, and that's why they attack corporations. Our weaknesses, our failures, and our shortcomings, like I told my class last night, show us first of all where we can stand to improve. It also helps us realize just how much we depend on a Savior. A partnership with Him is the only perfect incorporation, not because of anything we do or are or add, but because He is perfect, all-knowing, and all-possessing, and He makes it a success. Only as we surrender our pride and admit that, as humans, everything we do has flaws and turn to Truth will anything we do ever truly be Good.
As the only person who ever lived a perfect life on earth, only Christ is qualified to pass judgments. The rest of us are just men hoping one day to be made perfect.
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