Saturday, May 31, 2014

Shame on Walmart

By Robert Ringer

Forget that Walmart employs 1.4 million people in the U.S. alone.  Forget that it saves consumers billions of dollars each year on retail purchases.  Forget that its employees, on average, earn about double the minimum wage.  The raw-meat crowd is salivating.  Bring out the class-warfare script.

The word from some disgruntled employees is that Walmart doesn’t treat its employees “fairly” — whatever that’s supposed to mean.  But, definitions aside, this is your lucky day.  Because if you think Walmart is “unfair,” guess what?  You
don’t have to shop there!

What a novel idea — shopping with your feet!

If you don’t like the fact that Walmart carries too many products made in third-world countries, shop with your feet.  If you believe Walmart puts smaller retailers out of business and you’re unhappy with that, shop with your feet.  Heck, you might even believe Walmart was the real cause of 9/11, which is okay.  Just shop with your feet.

But let’s get back to Walmart’s employees.  Just to make it easy on the witch hunters, let’s assume that there is such a thing as absolute fairness.  (There isn’t, of course.)  And let’s further assume that Walmart does, indeed, treat its employees unfairly.  That, of course, raises the question:  What in the world can be done to protect Walmart’s 1.4 million paid slaves?
More good news:  In a truly free society, unfair treatment of employees would never be an issue, because workers would be free to sell their services for the highest possible wages on the open market.  If someone chooses to work at Walmart, he does so because he believes, for any of an infinite number of reasons, that it affords him the best opportunity to be adequately compensated for his skills, experience, and efforts.

An employer doesn’t ask a job applicant to present a list of his job requirements when he submits his application.  On the contrary, the employer lets the applicant know (or should let him know), in advance, what the company’s conditions of employment are.

If those conditions include fifteen-hour workdays, minimum-wage pay, no air-conditioning in the summer, and no paid sick leave, so be it.  How can I say such a dastardly thing?  Because an employee not only does not have to take such a job, he also has the right to quit that job at any time.  He simply cannot escape the fact that he is free to choose!

Yep, it really is that simple.  And since the unhappy employee is free, he can apply for another job anywhere he chooses.  No permission needed.  On the other hand, if he chooses to stay in his present job, he is making a clear statement that he believes it’s the best job he can hope to get at that particular time.  If this were not true, he would have to be insane, or perhaps masochistic, to stay put.

Gee, it doesn’t take a Ludwig von Mises to explain it after all.  In a truly free market, everything works smoothly because both employers and employees are free to make their own choices.  It’s only when government bureaucrats or labor thugs — a.k.a. “labor unions” — enter the picture that freedoms are violated.

All government intervention between employers and employees results in infringements on the rights of one or the other — or both.  The same goes with labor unions.  The so-called “union shop” is a violation of the natural rights of every employee who is forced to join a union against his will.  And, worse, it is a violation of the rights of an employer to hire whom he wants, when he wants, under whatever conditions he lays down.

But, unfortunately, that’s not reality in today’s America.  After decades of artificially high wages and benefits, job-protection schemes, and government-mandated safety standards, spoiled American workers demand still more.
An excellent investment for Walmart would be to spend mega-millions to educate its employees about the morality and efficacy of liberty and laissez-faire economics.  And a good place to start would be to put the following quote from communist-turned-libertarian Rose Wilder Lane in their pay envelopes:
Anyone who says that economic security is a human right has been too much babied.  While he babbles, other men are risking and losing their lives to protect him.  They are fighting the sea, fighting the land, fighting diseases and insects and weather and space and time, for him, while he chatters that all men have a right to security and that some pagan god — Society, The State, The Government, The Commune — must give it to them.  Let the fighting men stop fighting this inhuman earth for one hour, and he will learn how much security there is.
Educating muddled minds, however, does not begin with the worker; it begins with big business.  If corporate America does not truly believe in laissez-faire capitalism, all is lost.  And if it does believe but is unwilling to suffer “mortification of the flesh” in presenting the truth to the public, the case for free enterprise is still all but hopeless.

Corporate leaders must be bold and unwavering when it comes to educating their own employees, as well as the public at large, about the mechanics of the marketplace.  History has clearly taught us what to expect if good men do nothing.

In the meantime, don’t wait for the government to come to your rescue.  Negotiate for yourself to land the best position possible, at the highest pay possible, in the marketplace.  Then, once you land the job, your focus should be on demonstrating to your employer that you’re worth a whole lot more than he’s paying you.

And while you’re at it, take every opportunity to extol the virtues of freedom — including free enterprise.  It’s true that you are but one person in a sea of millions, but it is completely within your power to be part of the solution to the world’s ills rather than part of the problem.

ROBERT RINGER is a New York Times #1 bestselling author who has appeared on numerous national radio and television shows, including The Tonight Show, Today, The Dennis Miller Show, Good Morning America, ABC Nightline, The Charlie Rose Show, as well as Fox News and Fox Business. His books include Million Dollar Habits: 10 Simple Steps to Getting Everything You Want in Life and To Be or Not to Be Intimidated?: That is the Question 

 To sign up for a free subscription to his mind-expanding daily insights, visit www.robertringer.com.

Copyright © 2014 Robert Ringer

10 comments:

  1. "After decades of artificially high wages"

    Wow, is Ringer a real life William Tell? Working class wages have been stagnated since about 1973

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Amazing, Just after going on a full fledged funny mony regime, wages begin to stagnate.

      Delete
    2. Artificially high wages would mean relative to the rest of the world. Why should Westerners command a "living wage" when the rest of the world works for whatever pay there is?

      Delete
    3. That is one heckuva coincidence.

      Delete
    4. Sorry for any confusion re: coincidence. My comment was in response to Bob Roddis'.

      Delete
    5. He's right, though. Unions slow and decrease production, making us all poorer in the long run (including their own members). Look at GM.

      Delete
  2. Though I'm an Agnostic, I've always felt the most compelling demonstration of economics for a Christian is the obvious state of the Garden of Eden, which is the complete lack of economic scarcity.

    Not only should it say much implicitly to the Christian, it should be a guide as to how to conduct one's self and understand economics in a world dominated by scarcity.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The reason most of these 30-40 year olds are making the minimum wage is because they are (almost entirely) losers. They work for 6 months, can't deal with being told what to do and quit. Then they move to another establishment. When you can't hold a job, you constantly are recycled to the bottom rung.

    I worked fast food from 2003 to 2005. I started at $6.50 and was given a .50c raise once I passed a simple test. From there, a mandatory .25c raise is given per year. If I never moved up the ladder, but kept my job, I'd be making $9.75/hr.

    This entire rage against the minimum wage debate exists because these losers have no skills, no work ethic and refuse to gain any.

    They also REFUSE to acknowledge that Walmart gives us all a rise in our real wages when they give us low prices.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cosmo, don't confuse people with the facts. Economic law does not exist. All we have to do is have The Great God Government issue an order and everyone will be rich (yeah, right). So many people actually believe that. LOL!

      Delete
  4. What is eating at the leftists' craw is the knowledge - even unconscious - that most of these people can't quit and go elsewhere because - due to our abysmal public school system - these people have no marketable skills to bring to the table. But that's not Walmart's fault. The other reason can also be dropped firmly in the laps of leftists: flooding the country with uneducated, low-skill illegal immigrants which has forced down the wages for these unskilled jobs.

    ReplyDelete