Libertarian atheists: part of the problem

[TaraJo]

You don't get to vote for the heads of companies, but the point of the free market is that companies are supported by their customers. If enough of their customer base care about their conduct, it hurts their business.

Everyone hates Walmart. How's their bottom line going?

[Tiberius]

Everyone hates Walmart. How's their bottom line going?

Seriously? Everyone does not hate Walmart. Are you interested in a proper discussion on the subject or are you just going to exaggerate statistics, because if it's the latter I'd rather know now.

[TaraJo]

Everyone hates Walmart. How's their bottom line going?

Seriously? Everyone does not hate Walmart. Are you interested in a proper discussion on the subject or are you just going to exaggerate statistics, because if it's the latter I'd rather know now.

Yeah, nobody hates walmart.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_qu...lmart&sm=3

Nobody at all.

https://www.google.com/search?q=I+hate+w...2&ie=UTF-8

Except, maybe, the 47,000 people who joine an "I hate walmart" facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-HATE-WA...6254020025

Even their own employees hate walmart. Have you seen the attempts of Walmart employees to unionize and/or strike? I have and they're pissed.

But it isn't just Walmart. The banking industry made a lot of enemies with their repeated bad loans and, yet, they're still making money, hand over fist.

Look at Chik-fil-a. Over half the nation consistantly supports same sex marriage now, but their business has been closely associated with homophobia. Yet, their business is doing well since then.

On the flip side of that coin, look at the Baptists and their Disney boycott from the late 90's. Disney sure suffered from that, didn't they?

Nike is famous for hiring sweatshop employees to make a $200 pair of sneakers and there are a lot of people pissed about it. Guess what? Nike is still going strong.

When was the last time a company did something objectionable enough for people to stand up and actually do something about them? I sure haven't seen it.

[Mister Agenda]

Kinda hard to do both since powerful people tend to manipulate free markets to control social justice in their favor.

The degree to which markets are manipulated is the degree to which they are not free.

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Seriously? Everyone does not hate Walmart. Are you interested in a proper discussion on the subject or are you just going to exaggerate statistics, because if it's the latter I'd rather know now.

Yeah, nobody hates walmart.

It does not follow from the statement 'everyone does not hate Walmart' that no one hates Walmart. Strawman.

[TaraJo]

It does not follow from the statement 'everyone does not hate Walmart' that no one hates Walmart. Strawman.

"Everybody" may have been an exadgeration, but there are a lot of people who have very strong feelings against Walmart.

[Tiberius]

Ok, enough of this.

Firstly, disagreeing with you saying "everyone hates Walmart" does not mean I'm saying "nobody hates Walmart". I'm well aware that there are people out there who hate Walmart. However, saying that "everyone hates Walmart" is a massive exaggeration and has no place in a serious discussion.

The fact is, some people love Walmart, and a large amount of people aren't bothered by Walmart's negative aspects enough to give up shopping there. Some people certainly are, and Walmart have lost them as customers. It's not like there aren't any competitors around for people to go to; all the times I've gone to America there have been Walmarts, but also Targets, Kroger, etc. that provide the same sorts of services.

Note that my original argument was: "If enough of their customer base care about their conduct, it hurts their business." None of your attempts at refutation succeed purely because they do not represent a large enough percentage of their customer base. If 50% of Walmart customers suddenly decided to stop buying things at Walmart, Walmart would see a 50% reduction in income. That's a significant amount. That's an amount that they may decide to do something about.

Look what happened to Blockbuster if you want a good example of consumer action. With the advent of the internet and streaming services, people rejected the high prices of renting DVDs in favour of services like Netflix, which could offer the same services for a fraction of the price. As more and more people moved away from Blockbuster, they lost revenue, and in this instance did not act fast enough to change their business model. In another reality, if Blockbuster had seized on the digital streaming market earlier, they may have retained at least some of their customer base to make a decent profit. Granted, this consumer action had nothing to do with ethics, but the point is, it demonstrates how much power consumers do have, if they choose to use it.

[Optimistic Mysanthrope]

Moral outrage < saving money

[Tiberius]

Yup, and it's a sad state for humanity to be in, but I'd rather see people in charge of their own moral decisions than have governments tell us how we should behave.

I see a lot of people get riled up over Walmart's treatment of their employees, but a lot (not all) of the same people seem to draw the line when it comes to the treatment of workers in China. There is almost an international screen of ignorance when it comes to Chinese sweatshops, because despite the fact that Walmart employees have it much, much better than sweatshop workers, you can bet that the people who refuse to shop at Walmart will still use products that were made in China by people who are practically slaves.

It's great if you don't, and you check that all your purchases were made ethically, but for most of us, it just isn't the case.

[Mister Agenda]

It does not follow from the statement 'everyone does not hate Walmart' that no one hates Walmart. Strawman.

"Everybody" may have been an exadgeration, but there are a lot of people who have very strong feelings against Walmart.

No doubt. I have pedantic compulsions sometimes.

[Ryantology]

You don't get to vote for the heads of companies, but the point of the free market is that companies are supported by their customers. If enough of their customer base care about their conduct, it hurts their business.

One of the reasons Wal-Mart acts with near-impunity is because the company has no competition on its level. How does the free market regulate itself against monopolies? What resources do people have in the 'free market' when you support a company because you have few or no other options? One of the reasons Wal-Mart is as successful as it is is because they open stores in smaller, rural places where there are a: no competitors of any appreciable size which will long survive their presence and b: people who are mostly on the poor side and would have to travel a too far a distance to patronize a serious competitor such as Target or Kroger.

And, if you have a scenario where you pay for the services of law enforcement, how do you make it so that the law being enforced isn't the law of the highest bidder? What would realistically stop Wal-Mart from using the law they own to crush competition?