Kirk observed that “Detroit, during my own lifetime, has produced tremendous wealth in goods and services. But it has been a social failure. And so have nearly all of America’s other major cities.” I put it to you that Wal-Mart contributed to moving those failures into small town America by shuttering local business and creating huge barriers to entrepreneurial entry into fields traditionally the province of local small business men and women.

Being a conservative is supposed to be about things like tradition, community, and, yes, aesthetics. If I’m right about that, it’s hard to see why a conservative should regard Wal-Mart as a societal force for good even if Hugh’s right about the job story.

So what do we do? Well, we must strike a balance between respect for private property rights (see my Kelo post) and our other values. How? On the one hand, government should not legislate against Wal-Mart and its ilk. On the other hand, government should not subsidize Wal-Mart either through zoning or tax breaks. Wal-Mart’s a big boy, so to speak, who can take care of itself. We ought to let it compete in a free market. And those of us with a bully pulpit out to use it to encourage Wal-Mart to become a better neighbor and citizen. ~Prof. Bainbridge

Via Rod Dreher

Hugh Hewitt responded, as most friends of Wal-Mart do when confronted with the unfortunate effects of their shining idol, that Bainbridge has become a “statist,” even though he explicitly argues for reducing the collaboration between government and Wal-Mart.  In its original meaning, statism, etatisme, was precisely a system of close government involvement in the operations of industry and business, which could make supporters of Wal-Mart like Hewitt more likely to be a “statist” in this sense than those whom he cluelessly attacks. 

For Hewitt, in other words, anything that might preserve small business and small-town communities at the cost of giving up Hugh Hewitt’s “low prices” is invariably “statist,” even if there is no public authority involved.  Hewitt has often been a walking, talking parody of a hysterical Republican, but he outdoes himself here.