A Friendly Overlord
If one of the chief problems with Wal-Mart is its tremendous concentration of wealth and power and its practise of wielding its enormous power over its suppliers to their and our disadvantage as a “monopsony,” it seems fairly clear to me that its ability to put large pharmaceutical companies over a barrel and dictate damaging price reductions that “benefit consumers” should worry a great many people. It should at least bother the people who find Wal-Mart’s practises towards its suppliers troubling. If all we’re concerned about is the end result (oh, look, cheap drugs!), Wal-Mart is again saviour of the poor and the great benevolent hegemon. As long as people don’t mind taking their bread (or medicine) from an overlord, because he is a benevolent overlord, who can be bothered to complain? As usual, I will, and for just these reasons.
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