This document provides a summary and analysis of Walmart's history and growth into the largest company in the world. It discusses how Walmart has shaped global supply chains and production standards. The author argues that Walmart's recent sustainability initiatives signal a shift from industrial capitalism to "natural capitalism" and a greening of culture. By requiring suppliers to report on social and environmental standards, Walmart may lead the transition to more sustainable business practices and economies.

1. Walmart:
What the Template Business of
Industrial Capitalism Reveals about
Culture and the Future Direction of the
Global Economy
Or
Walmart: Satan to Savior?
How a “Green” Walmart Could Change the
Way the World Does Business
Shavon Prophet
December 20, 2009
Global Economic Geography
Professor Waquar Ahmed

2. Abstract
Wal-Mart is today the largest profit-making enterprise in the world. To provide a case
study and context for analysis, I will provide a brief history of Walmart’s progress, as well as
details about its standings today to illustrate the company’s remarkable growth both in size
and influence over the global economy. During its ascent to the top, especially in the 1990‘s
with international expansion ventures, Walmart has turned the tables of market control, as the
company’s huge buying power/market share has enabled it to wrest the power of
manufacturers to determine the prices of goods, and the standards of producing, packaging,
and shipping them. In this way, Walmart has evolved to function more as a global commodity
chain and logistics operation than a traditional discount retailer. Because of its massive size,
Walmart has acquired the power to shape markets, economies, labor standards, and
government policy in ways that no one company has before. In this paper I will analyze
Walmart’s role as a global trendsetter and market-maker, and consider what the progress of
Walmart, especially in light of its recent announcement in July 2009 for plans to create and
implement a “Sustainability Index” and “Product Lifecycle Database” for some 100,000 of
its suppliers might reveal about the future direction of the global economy. With these things
in mind, I argue that Walmart’s new eco-centered direction and initiatives are steps that
indicate the global economy is in transition from Industrial Capitalism to Natural Capitalism.
I will also explore these trends through the lens of cultural economic theories by geographers
Richard Peet and Jon Goss to see what changes the Sustainability Index promises to bring
about could indicate about shifts in culture and human consciousness.

3. Journey to the Top
Walmart was founded in 1962 first as “Walton’s Five and Dime” in Bentonville, AK
by Sam Walton under the single idea that by selling every day goods even just a little cheaper
than competitors, Walmart could draw customers. As we all know, Sam’s idea worked and
Walmart has experienced incredible growth since its founding. (See Appendix A)1 Discount
retailing depends on continual, (some would say obsessive) attention to wages and labor
costs. Discounters must have two or three times the turnover of traditional department stores
in order to make the same profit. (Fisher, 2006) Walmart aims to keep labor costs below 15%
of total sales, about half of the labor costs of traditional department stores. Walmart bases
price estimates on suppliers’ cost structures and operational efficiency, emphasizing low
profit margins, rapid turnover, and high sales volumes. During the 1960’s imports in the US
of foreign goods increased, especially those from East Asian countries. Walmart had modest
buying power at this stage, and bought mostly national branded merchandise at the lowest
prices possible, also utilizing close-out deals whenever possible. At this time manufacturers
had the power to define terms of trade, and Walmart defined its own business model in terms
of the efficient distribution of nationally advertised goods. (Fishman, 2006) By the 1970’s the
power of large retailers increased due to the continuing growth in the accessibility to cheap
imports. Walmart is attributed with leading the Business Logistics Revolution in the 70’s and
80’s by pioneering the use of innovations in information technology.
For example, Walmart’s “Retail Link” is an elaborate computerized infrastructure that
collects and organizes data from point of sale systems around the world (20 million customer
transactions each day), and makes this information directly available to Wal-Mart’s 60,000
vendors that can use it to reduce their own inventory-management costs, enhance efficiency,
and test products in a precise and cheap way. This also greatly increases understanding and
sensitivity of corporations to consumer preferences.. Walmart also spearheaded the Voluntary
Interindustry Commerce Standards Initiative in the 80’s which most notably standardized the
1 As I could not find a still image depicting Walmart’s growth in the US, please copy this
web address into your internet browser to see a short 30 second video depicting Walmart’s
growth from 1962-2004: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGzHBtoVvpc

4. use of IT business innovations the UPC barcode label system. During this time the balance of
market-making power began to shift in favor of big discounter and Walmart became a major
driver of technology based productivity gains in the American economy. By the mid 1980’s,
East Asian imports composed more than 70% of non automotive consumer goods. Utilized IT
products and services as well as automated distribution centers. Suppliers benefited from
retailers’ reorganization of supply chain. International expansion at this time forcasted even
more integrated global sourcing. The number of private label suppliers increasingly reduced.
Manufacturers experienced strong pressure to adapt to Walmart’s business model and
increase operational efficiency.
Walmart Today
“…perhaps the most important part of the Walmart effect is that the rules are antiquated;
they are from a different era that didn’t anticipate anything like Walmart.”
(Charles Fisher, The Wal-Mart Effect, 2006)
Walmart experienced incredible growth in the 1990’s by their rapid expansion into
grocery retailing (the creation of super centers) and their global expansion efforts. Walmart
was also one of the first large retailers to join the 90’s ecommerce trend in expanding their
internet retailing unit. After 1994, supercenters made up a majority of newly opened stores.
As mentioned before, Walmart has grown into the largest private enterprise on earth. In
addition, it is also the largest non-oil company in the history of the world. Sam Walton‘s
heirs, who own 39 percent of the company, are twice as wealthy as the family of Bill Gates.
With sales of $300 billion a year, Walmart does more business than Target, Home Depot,
Sears, Kmart, Safeway, and Kroger combined. Some predict that sales will probably top $1
trillion per year within a decade. (Pankaj et al. 2004) Walmart has grown to be the world’s
largest employer, with more than 1.5 million workers around the globe; it is the largest
private employer in Mexico, Canada, and the United States, where it is also the largest
grocery retailer. Walmart singlehandedly accounts for 30% of China’s exports, a significant
portion of the country‘s GDP. Walmart imports more goods from China than both the United

5. kingdom and Russia.
Walmart is also the biggest marketing channel for consumer products in the world., as
an estimated 140 million people shop at Walmart around the globe every day; this is a bigger
audience than can be reached through mass media sources. Being a Walmart manufacturer is
highly coveted, because of its size generates an opportunity to reach a huge number of global
customers almost instantaneously. Consequently, Walmart gained the ability to pit
manufacturers against each other to achieve lowest purchase prices; hence, manufacturers
lose control over the ability to determine the prices for their goods if they choose to be a
Walmart supplier.
Walmart has been criticized by some community groups, women's rights groups,
grassroots organizations, and labor unions, for its extensive foreign product sourcing , low
rates of employee health insurance enrollment, resistance to union representation, sexism,
and management efforts to pressure employees to vote for specific parties during national
elections and environmental safety violations. Perhaps in effort to improve its image in the
public eye (see Appendix D), Walmart has of late been dancing to a “greener” tune, by
renovating stores to be more energy efficient and making any changes possible in the
logistics processes to save energy (not to mention money.) Most strikingly, Walmart
announced in July of 2009 that it would require all 100,000 of its suppliers to submit to
surveys that would go into creating a “Sustainability Index”. The questions and rating
systems involved in these indicators are: energy and climate, natural resources, material
efficiency, and “people and community” (impacts? Its not quite clear to me what they might
mean by this vague term)
(See Appendix C: Walmart’s Corporate Fact Sheet on the Sustainability Index)
In Walmart‘s own words:
“The index will bring about a more transparent supply chain, drive product innovation and,
ultimately, provide consumers the information they need to assess the sustainability of
products. If we work together, we can create a new retail standard for the 21st century.”
Mike Duke, President and Chief Executive Officer, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

6. Literature Review & Analysis
Walmart’s takeoff point in the 70’s coincided with the innovations in technology,
which fits nicely into Allen Scott’s theory about the creation of a new “regime of production/
accumulation” during this same time period called Flexible Production/accumulation. Allen
Scott summarizes the flexible production/accumulation regime as encompassing several
characteristics: 1) the ability to change process and product configurations quickly (enhanced
by computer technology), 2) networks are made of “malleable external linkages and labor
market relations”, 3) the externalization of production processes, 4) the revival of
entrepreneurial behavior, 4) renewed competition, and 5) active technological innovation.
“Lean Retailing” philosophy that displays some characteristics of flexible production at
work. Characteristics of lean retailing include: the use of UPC tags and scanning devices,
computerized inventory management, automated distribution centers, and the adoption of
communication standards throughout the supply chain.
In a collection of works about Walmart’s contributions to capitalism, Misha Petrovic
and Gary G. Hamilton (2006) contend that Walmart’s role as a market-maker is part of a
larger historical narrative that reflects three trends 1) A shift in the balance of market power
from manufacturers to retailers, 2) The rise of new global manufacturers (especially in East
Asia) and resulting decline of international competitiveness of many American manufacturers
and 3) the growing power of consumers in shaping marketing and production (can also be
interpreted as increased sensitivity of corporations to consumer preferences). This is a good
place to start when delving into Walmart’s history.
“Walmart is now the template business for world capitalism because it takes the most
potent technological and logistic innovations of the twenty first century and puts them at the
service of an organization whose competitive success depends upon the destruction of all
that remains of New Deal-style social regulation and replaces it, in the US and abroad, with
a global system that relentlessly squeezes labor costs...” (Lichtenstein, 2006)
Walmart has become the business model for global industrial capitalism.

7. Unfortunately, this model depends upon the exploitation of cheap labor both inside its stores
and in suppliers’ factories abroad, and putting incessant pressure upon suppliers to cut costs
and outsource production, facilitating yet more exploitation. Some even blame Walmart for
single-handedly creating the global “race to the bottom” in industrializing countries, who
compete to lower production, labor, and environmental standards and “liberalize”
government economic policies to create an attractive business climate for big foreign
investors like Walmart. Changes like these are rooted out of Neoliberal economic ideas,
which explained simply is about promoting the freer movement of goods, resources and
enterprises in a bid to always find cheaper resources, ultimately to maximize profits and
efficiency. To help accomplish this, neoliberalism requires the removal of various controls
deemed as barriers to free trade, such as: tariffs, regulations, certain standards, laws,
legislation and regulatory measures, and restrictions on capital flows and investment.
Neoliberalism is a major influence in the economic policies of the United States
government, the International Monetary Fund, and World Bank. The goal is to be able to to
allow the free market to naturally balance itself via the pressures of market demands; a key to
successful market-based economies.
However, contrary to claims that the growth generated by neoliberal reforms translates to
proportionate increases in the incomes of the poor (and hence a reduction of poverty), those
that herald neoliberal policies as the solution to Third World development ills neglect to
explain how this holds truth in light of the fact that these policies have increased wealth
disparity (concentration of wealth) to the extent that any positive spillover effects for the
poor are cancelled out (Ahmed, 2009)
“Neoliberalism in the Third World, as a system based on free market, has produced a
race to the bottom, essentially to the benefit of corporations. The race to the bottom is
manifested in the transformation of economic policies, and in turn economic space, to the
extent that local interests are being compromised.” ( Ahmed, 2009 p. 33-34)
I also examine Walmart’s history and recent activities in light of Harvey and
Schumpeter’s ideas of “creative destruction”. Joseph Schumpeter popularized the term to
describe a “process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic

8. structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one.”
(Schumpeter, 1942) I argue that Walmart has reached a critical point in which the global
climate of business and public opinion it has created is no longer sustainable for its own
continued existence. Walmart must adapt or risk being trampled by other businesses that are
setting the groundwork for the creation of the next production regime; I believe Walmart’s
recent support for more environmentally friendly and socially responsible business standards
indicates that this process is at work today- Walmart is adjusting to changes in the direction
of the global economy, lest it be left behind in history with other businesses that will fail for
lack of foresight or capacity to change.
Richard Peet (2000) defines culture as the symbolic order a society constructed to
represent its existence, which: organizes the natural world, institutes a social order,
establishes ways in which socialized individuals are “fabricated”, and saturates
consciousness with the motives, values, and hierarchies of social life. Peet postulates that
regional ideologies, values, forms of social consciousness and social imaginaries are forces
of production that go beyond the scope of their regional origins, and also constitute the most
basic core of the global economy.
Jon Goss (1993) applies Peet’s “Cultural Economics” to analyze the contemporary
retail environment and US consumer culture. Goss supports Peet’s ideas of how culture
influences the structure of economies, and observes that in the context of modern capitalism,
for the first time material and symbolic production occupy the same space in contemporary
retail environments; consequently, retailers now have an enormous amount of influence in
shaping social imaginaries for their benefit. (Goss, 1993) Through the increased influence of
advertisement in mass media, modern consumers are subjected to the distortion of their
human needs via the manipulation of their desires through the promotion technique of
connecting products with desirable personal/cultural values. This attachment of “coolness” to
goods, or “signification“, leads to the creation of what Goss calls “hyperreality” and the
corresponding “pseudo-places/spaces” that are designed and constructed to sustain its
consumerist objectives- our malls and shopping centers. Goss says that this is what
distinguishes the current consumer climate from all others, in that it is “no longer clear
whether the value of the commodity originates in the sphere of material or symbolic

9. production” (p. 21) and also that “productive activity is organized to produce simultaneously
the objects of consumption and the social subjects to consume them.” (p. 20)
So, if global economic structures are a direct expression of culture, (says Peet) and
now more than ever, producers of goods now participate in making culture, then we can
interpret changes in those structures as a reflection of concomitant changes in the cultures
that produce them. In light of Walmart’s position as a global trendsetter and market-maker,
we must consider what Walmart’s plans to create and implement a “Sustainability Index”
and “Product Lifecycle Database” implies about culture- is it also shifting, like the
production processes and priorities of our businesses? Does the influx of green businesses
and renovations/enviro-friendly changes in the production cycle in turn reflect a “greening”
of culture? Could Walmart, a company that some accuse of single-handedly created the
global “race to the bottom” in production and labor standards, potentially lead the world in
implementing environmentally and socially responsible business practices? Using the lenses
of cultural economic theories of Peet and Goss, the answer is yes.
I argue that Walmart’s new eco-centered direction and initiatives are steps that indicate the
global economy is in transition from Industrial Capitalism to Natural Capitalism. Natural
capitalism recognizes the critical interdependency between the production and use of human-
made capital and the maintenance and supply of natural capital. This definition contrasts the
priorities expressed by traditional Industrial Capitalism, which defines capital more narrowly
as accumulated wealth in the form of investments, factories and equipment.
Natural Capitalism advocates that the natural environment is not a minor factor of
production but rather is “an envelopecontaining, provisioning, and sustaining the entire
economy” , and hence worth saving, lest we bring about the destruction of the natural world
on which all of our economic prosperity depends. (Lovins, 2000, p. 10) (See Appendix B)
“Capitalism, as practiced, is a financially profitable, nonsustainable aberration in human
development. Industrial capitalism does not fully conform to its own accounting principles- it
neglects to assign any value to the largest stock of capital it employs- the natural resources
and living systems, as well as the social and cultural systems that are the basis of human

10. capital…As more people and businesses place greater strain on living systems, limits to
[economic] prosperity are coming to be determined by natural capital rather than industrial
prowess.”
-Natural Capitalism: The Next Industrial Revolution (Lovins, Lovins, and Hawken, 2000)
The Fundamental Assumptions of Natural Capitalism are as follows:
- The limiting factor to future economic development is the availability and
functionality of natural capital, in particular, life-supporting services that have
no substitutes and currently have no market value.
- Misconceived or badly designed business systems, population growth, and
wasteful patterns of consumption are the primary causes of the loss of natural
capital, and all three must be addressed to achieve a sustainable economy.
- Future economic progress can best take place in democratic, market-based
systems of production and distribution in which all forms of capital are fully
valued, including human, manufactured, financial, and natural capital.
- One of the keys to the most beneficial employment of people, money, and the
environment is radical increases in resource productivity.
- Human welfare is best served by improving the quality and flow of desired
services delivered, rather than by merely increasing the total dollar flow.
- Economic and environmental sustainability depends on redressing global
inequities of income and material well-being.
After Natural Capitalism?
Though it is impossible to truly predict the direction of future global economy, as the
kind of foresight required for this might be beyond fact gathering and more conjecture,
conjecture is still imperative to good discourse. Let’s say the global economy does shift its
processes and priorities to emulate Natural Capitalism- what is the next stage after that?
What innovations will threaten Natural Capitalism’s hegemonic ideological position if we

11. believe in the process of Creative Destruction? Was walmart just postponing the inevitable by
eco-conscious production standards? Or, is tailoring our production processes to emulate and
exist in harmony with the closed-cycle systems in nature the ultimate stage of economic
development? With the huge changes in production processes and infrastructure this would
imply, can we assume there will also be a corresponding change in human consciousness and
cultures?.
This project is a work in progress, and has actually inspired the subject of my
Bachelor’s thesis, while also expanding my worldview and giving me a more targeted
direction for future studies and career paths. That is invaluable.

12. Works Cited
1) Ahmed, Waquar, Forthcoming 2010, “Enron In India”
2)Fishman, Charles, 2006. The Wal-Mart Effect: How the Worlds Most Powerful Company
Really Works- And How It’s Transforming the American Economy. Penguin press, New
York.
3) Hamilton and Petrovic, “Walmart and Its Suppliers” from Walmart, the Face of 21st
Century Capitalism, 2006
4) Karjanen, David. “The Wal-Mart Effect and the New Face of Capitalism: labor Market and
Community Impacts of the Megaretailer”, in Wal-Mart, The Face of twenty First Century
Capitalism, The New Press 2006
5) Lichtenstein, Nelson, 2006. “Walmart: A Template for Twenty First Century Capitalism”
in Wal-Mart, The Face of Twenty First Century Capitalism. New Press, 2006.
6) Pankaj Ghemawat, Ken Mark, Stephen Bradley, “Wal-Mart Stores in 2003” Harvard
Business School Case Study, revised January 30, 2004
7) Lovins, Amory and Hunter, Hawken, Paul. Natural Capitalism: The Next Industrial
Revolution, 2000
8) Serwer, Andy. “The Waltons: Inside America’s Richest Family,” Fortune, November 15,
2004, 86
9) Schumpeter, Joseph. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 1942
10)Forbes Digital Dictionary at http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/creativedestruction.asp
11) Garcia, Arnoldo, Martinez, Elizabeth of CorporateWatch.org, What is Neoliberalism?” A
definition for activists, by at http://www.globalissues.org/article/39/a-primer-on-
neoliberalism#Neoliberalismis
12) Critical Fact Sheets at www.WalmartWatch.com
12) Walmart corporate website fact sheets at www.WalmartStores.com

13. Further Research
David Harvey, Justice, Nature, and the Geography of Difference, 1996
______________
Natural Capitalism: The Next Industrial Revolution, Hunter and Amory Lovins, and
________
The Small-Mart Revolution, Michael Shuman, 2007
______
Going Local, Michal Shuman, 1993
_____
Market research about the growth trends in green tech/building industries.
The list grows continually….
Appendix A: Video depicting Walmart’s growth in the US from its founding in 1962 to
2004, titled: Walmart and Economies of density at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGzHBtoVvpc
(copy web address into your internet browser)
Appendix B: Interview with Natural Capitalism founder Hunter Lovins at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzNTRwxlRKg&NR=1
Appendix C: Walmart Corporate Sustainability Index Fact Sheet

14. Walmart Sustainability Index Corporate Fact Sheet Cont’d…:

15. Index Step 2: Lifecycle Analysis Database
As a second step, Walmart is helping create a consortium of universities that will collaborate with
suppliers, retailers, NGOs and government to develop a global database of information on the
lifecycle of products – from raw materials to disposal. Walmart will provide the initial funding for the
consortium, but it is not our intention to create or own this index.
The company will also partner with one or more leading technology companies to create an open
platform that will power the index.
Arizona State University and the University of Arkansas will jointly administer the consortium. Talks
are underway with additional universities to join the newly formed consortium.
Index Step 3: A Simple Tool for Consumers
The final step of the index is to provide customers with product information in a simple, convenient,
easy to understand rating, so they can make choices and consume in a more sustainable way. How
that information is delivered to consumers is still undetermined, but could take the form of a numeric
score, color code or some other type of label. The sustainability consortium will help determine the
scoring process in the coming months and years.

16. Appendix D: 2008 Walmart customer survey, conducted by WalmartWatch.com