Shopping For Theoretical Perspectives at Wal-Mart Essay

Shopping For Theoretical Perspectives at Wal-Mart - Essay Example However, delving on Wal-Mart’s vision reveals its latent function of improving the well-being of consumers. A few centavo savings while seem so small and unnoticeable, may substantially accumulate in time and contribute to â€Å"the prosperity pool† (Kennon). Controlling the market, however, implies power over the consumers. Wal-Mart’s ability to decide what goods they sell appears to be a social dysfunction because of its discretion to discard locally produced services and goods (Preet). However, this dysfunction becomes itself a trigger for social change as it challenges the smaller stores and local producers to compete, thereby improving the quality of goods and services. Wal-Mart has likewise been viewed as implicating a class struggle. The lower, middle and higher classes maintain their status not because of the price factor but because of Wal-Mart’s control over their workers. If you try to examine the employees inside Wal-Mart, you cannot help but n otice the workers as the force that runs the entire establishment, yet outside you will hear how the company keeps them non-unionized. Low prices equate low wages for its employees, thus creating a continuous cycle of exploitation of the workforce, which in turn reinforces social inequalities. While Wal-Mart tapped into a fertile market for high profit—the poor (Heyer 2), it has simultaneously contributed to class conflict as the â€Å"poor gets poorer and the rich richer†Ã¢â‚¬â€the lower class being its source of low-wage manpower. It is, therefore, Wal-Mart’s social responsibility to improve conditions of employment and raise the level of social aid to the poor: starting with its workers. Ameliorating inequities begins with modifying its ways: welcoming unionization as a key to social change.