The Wal-Mart Doctrine

Wal-Mart is a global institution. With a quick change in it's policies it can create major global impact whether that be good or bad. Wal-Mart has enormous impact by having 1.9 million associates, over 200 million customers, and a astounding 10 percent of all retail spending that takes place in its stores worldwide. All of this is well documented, giving the Wal-Mart world a major stake in its responsibility to all of the global ills. Wal-Mart drastically changed the global business landscape through it ruthless focus on price. This has become their doctrine.

Doctrine (Latin: doctrina) is a codification of beliefs or "a body of teachings" or "instructions", taught principles or positions, as the body of teachings in a branch of knowledge or belief system.

For Wal-Mart, price-availability-choice, this is the belief structure of its patrons. They expect a great value and a low price. Quality is not necessarily the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of Wal-Mart. But, people or industry can become brain washed as to what value is based on the mass appeal.

Often doctrine specifically refers to a religious dogma as it is promulgated by a church, but not necessarily: doctrine is also used to refer to a principle of law, in the common law traditions, established through a history of past decisions, such as the doctrine of self-defense, or the principle of fair use, or the more narrowly applicable first-sale doctrine. In some organizations, doctrine is simply defined as 'that which is taught', in other words the basis for institutional teaching of its personnel about its internal ways of doing business.

Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization, thought to be authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from.

It is the 'not to be doubted, or disputed' that can sometimes get us all in trouble. Look at the Catholic Church for example. If it weren't for Martin Luther and his thesis nailed to the doors of the church or Galileo and his discoveries as precidents for doubt and dispute, and the list goes on, we could still be living in the dark ages. And they do still try. But, I digress.

Charles Fishman, author of the bestselling book The Wal-Mart Effect says, "If Wal-Mart is serious about sustainability, it can have an incredible impact on how the economy operates,". How could one store have such an impact? Well here are a few amazing stats that makes this one company a global retail institution:

94 percent: the number of Americans who live within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart.
62 percent: the number of Americans who live within 5 miles of a Wal-Mart store.
57 percent: Percent of American adults who shop at Wal-Mart every week.
127 million: Number of Americans who shop at Wal-Mart each week.
$6,778: Profit per employee at Wal-Mart. (1.9M +/- employees)
$180,000: Profit per employee at Microsoft. (63,564+/- employees)
$480,000: profit per employee at Exxon/Mobil. (106,100+/- employees)

Wal-Mart has been touting their major moves to be a more green and conscious company. While this is a great thing due to their enormous power on such a mass scale, is it real? We have dicussed at length the mob mentality of our society. The following of trends and such. We have also discussed the republican ways of by saying something enough times, whether it is truth or not, people will begin to believe it. With Wal-Mart, if they master this technique it can have major repercussions throughout the world.

Wal-Mart created what is called, the Personal Sustainability Project, or PSP. It began in 2007 to which its employees, primarily in the U.S., were asked to become more green. They were asked to become examples to their community and take steps that will benefit themselves, their community and the earth. Easy tasks include driving the speed limit to save on gas, cleaning up trash, quit smoking, switch to a reusable bottle, or turn off the tap when brushing one's teeth.

Wal-Mart sells a lot of cigarettes and bottled water, again I digress.

It's part of a company wide sustainability effort Wal-Mart launched in 2005. This campaign has seen the company do everything from pledging to double the efficiency of its truck fleet to pushing General Mills to shrink Hamburger Helper boxes by replacing crinkly noodles with straight.

"The program", says Fishman, "is an example of corporate America filling a role akin to churches and community organizations—and that's not a bad thing as long as it doesn't drift in the direction of being some kind of compulsion, it's wonderful."

Critics say that if Wal-Mart cared for making the world a better place, and the quality and sustainability of their employees lives they might think about starting with the paychecks, benefits, and their labor practices. Wait, that would directly cost the company money. Wal-Mart has been involved in numerous lawsuits over sex discrimination, anti-union tactics, mandatory overtime, and more. But some would say with an organization as large as this that goes without saying. What community with over 1.9 million people would NOT have these kinds of claims.

Being the largest retailer in the world, could they not also use their platform to change how their suppliers and manufacturers use slave labor sweatshops, and their dumping of pollutants and toxins in rivers, their massive production of inexpensive non-recyclable plastic products which are barged and shipped halfway around the world? What about the perfectly good products that get thrown out because they are now outdated and past regulatory time lines? What about the hundreds of thousands of employees who earn 7 dollars an hour at Wal-Mart with no health insurance, a car payment, a school loan payment and must support a family of five?

There is a large societal complaint of social justice before environmental justice. This is a company with many ills that must be addressed. Are they beginning their campaign through the fashioned phrases of our society vs the necessary needs of it employees survival? There are many small towns in America today that, due to Wal-Mart the character and small business communities have been closed and disappeared due to the locale of the superstore. Despite these complaints, this is the most shopped store in the country.

Although, Wal-Mart is known to do audits of all of their suppliers factories at least 4 times a year. They are testing both solar power and wind power potential and implementing hundreds of stores to be 0 energy, as well as initiating mandatory subtle changes with their suppliers relating to sustainability. Some would say, that it is changes like this that are putting some these companies out of business or pushing them to manufacture overseas.

Despite all of the good and the bad that this company can create we all must realize that there are three sides to every story. Their side, our perception, and the truth.


Thanks to:
Mother Jones
The Wal-Mart Effect



This, the 209th entry in bloggoland! Thanks for reading and coming back. I always enjoy the comments, emails and the banter!!



(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs

Where did I leave Life's Manual?

Have you ever wondered where you left Life's manual?

I know mine is around here somewhere...

That would be an interesting concept. A forever changing personal manual on how to live in today's complex world. It would be accessible for light reading when a small issue needs some attention and you are wondering the appropriate means as to approach the topic without causing more problems for yourself and to others. It would also be accessible for heavy reading during the most difficult times in order to explain what would be best and how to handle things without going crazy.

A manual for life that would be personal for each individuals needs and desires without compromising on anyone else and their own needs, desires and lifestyle. Yet, with that, the rules to maneuver through this complex world of various religions, love, relationships, politics, greed, and corruption you could follow and be able to get what you want out of your life without hurting or inhibiting anyone else and their own needs and desires.

The manual would be continually updated and current and in relation to every other living entity in order to comply with the inherent, self evident, universal truths that exist underneath the ego based confusion. Those universal truths that get so misconstrued and misguided through the mishmash of conflicting ideas and ideals that exist in our world today. Something that we each could access at any given moment in order to guide us all through the maze of life.

If you have ever purchased anything from IKEA you might know that it is fairly easy to assemble their items by following their pictorial directions. Those directions that work despite any language necessary to be read. Although, if there are parts left over due to the assembly or packaging oversight, by the inclusion of extra screws or plastic hole plugs, the confusion begins and self doubt of what may have been overlooked takes hold.

But Life's manual would have no missing or extra parts. You have all you need in order to do for yourself and what it is you desire for your individual life. Sometimes it may be necessary to turn the page of the manual and move on to the next section, even though you may feel that there are things missing or incomplete. You might be thinking there are missing parts, but there are not. The parts are there. It all continues on. Sometimes there are moments when you might think that a problem is overwhelming and is out of control and you can't seem to find the page in the manual on what to do, but it might be on the next page and you just need to turn the page.

There are times when others try to tell you how to live your life, but their own directions and instructions are coming from a different manual, with a different set of desires and outcomes which make it irrelevant to your own manual and your own life. Our own manual is an individual set of rules and directions for each of us in order for us all to have what we all want and need and cannot be run using someone else's manual.

This manual would never be lost or stolen It could never be left under the sofa, or accidentally sold at a garage sale. It would be easy to pack or carry for a vacation or business trip. It could be seen clearly either in the daylight or the darkest of night. The manual would be visible even through the heaviest of tears to help you through some of life's hardest moments.

The manual would have all of the answers you would ever need, even if you quickly changed your mind. It would be instantly updated and transfer the appropriate information necessary so as you would always have the relevant instructions as you "do" your life.

The manual would give each of us those necessary instructions for our lives without creating discord for others. It would allow us all to live a harmonious existence regardless of each others paths we choose. It would matter not in a belief or dogmatic structure for any sort of solution.

I know it is around here somewhere. I had it once, I know I'll find it again.



(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs

Is Religion Ridiculous?

You must note that I did not title this "Is God Ridiculous". That is where your mind may have gone to first. That would be the ego getting in the way of this discussion. I thought that I would use the following trailer, for Bill Maher's new movie "Religulous", to augment my discussion a few days back entitled "I'm conCERNed about Religious Dogma". I simply wish to elaborate the idea a bit through humor as the topic can be very touchy for so many people throughout the world.

Again, as we discussed in yesterdays entry "Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets, on my..., of the great book and recent winner of the GetAbstract Book Award, by Bill Bonner and Lila Rajiva, I used the famed F. Scott Fitzgerald's quote, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”

This is what we need in order to have a reasonable discussion on religion. As religion still holds such a powerful force in how politicians throughout the world act and react with one another, either together in conversation or through each owns policy decisions, it is time that we all must take a closer look at ourselves and our part in how we react to religion. Even though many may not know much about, not only other religions of the world, but even the finer details of our own structured dogmatic beliefs we follow, we must separate our ego from those discussions to lead us to a more enlightened and educated place.

Since it is such a personal issue for billions of people throughout the world, who can have very radical differences in the dynamics of their individual beliefs on the same topic, it must go without saying that we need to be able to transcend a singular mindset in order to create the necessary discourse over such a delicate topic to reach educated decisions based on doctrines of faith, to which there is no defined validated truth to substantiate any dogmatic belief structure, of any religious sect throughout the world.

For those that may not be familiar with Bill Maher, he is an American stand-up comedian, television host, political commentator, actor, and author. He hosted the late-night television talk show "Politically Incorrect" on Comedy Central and ABC, and is currently the host of "Real Time with Bill Maher" on HBO. He is one of the current leading political and social observational satirists. As for as his religious beliefs, he is not an atheist. Bill was raised in his Irish American father's Catholic religion, and did not find out that his mother was Jewish until his teenage years; his family stopped attending church when he was thirteen, because of his father's disagreement with the Pope's position on birth control.


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(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs