The Wal-Mart Decade and the Retail Revolution Comparison

In The Retail Revolution, Nelson Lichtenstein explains how Wal-Mart could shape, if not dictate, the agendas of so many third parties. And he suggests that the California grocery strike was just one particularly visible example of the profound impact of the Bentonville, Arkansas, and chain on the broader economy. A labour historian best known for his biography of autoworkers leader Walter Reuther, Lichtenstein has become something of an authority on the discount Goliath. In 2006 he edited a collection of essays, published by the New Press, on the economics and historical circumstances of the Wal-Mart phenomenon (Lichtenstein 54-17). With The Retail Revolution, he provides a comprehensive story of the corporation's awesome growth and expansion. Drawing on sociological scholarship and reporting about the experiences of Wal-Mart workers in the United States and around the world, as well as information made public by lawsuits involving the company, Lichtenstein describes Wal-Mart's origins, expansion and current business practices, from its relationship with subcontracting manufacturers to its protocol for scheduling night shifts. He respects the company's argument for its own social utility -- that it brings an abundance of goods to consumers at the lowest possible price -- and admires its ability to solve complex logistical problems that have long bedevilled discount retailers. But he is horrified by the dispiriting low-wage, part-time economy that Wal-Mart has helped create.

Walton, Lichtenstein explains, was an early adopter who "demanded that all Wal-Mart vendors slap a bar code on every product they shipped to his stores (Lewison 52)." Then he invested in a satellite network that fed the computerized sales information of individual stores to a "digital warehouse" in Bentonville. This continuous stream of data allowed the company to track purchases in real time and largely automate the stocking and restocking process -- an essential element of the company's just-in-time approach to reordering. The satellite hook-up also allowed Walton to broadcast live televised pep talks to the sales teams in his stores until his death in 1992.

Lichtenstein has a lucid, plain-speaking prose style, and his book manages to be comprehensive without being repetitive or overlong. The narrative is sometimes hampered by his irritating tendency to pause and note historical parallels that do not enrich the analysis of Wal-Mart. It is unclear why a fatal fire in a Chinese factory needs a side note about the Triangle Shirtwaist tragedy, or how Wal-Mart's system of moving goods around the world is supposed to have "evoked the iron shackles subordinating slave to master," unless it is simply because Lichtenstein calls this a "supply chain." Nonetheless, he does an excellent job of covering a wide range of information from several different fields. The Retail Revolution is simultaneously about industrial organization, corporate strategy, labour history, political science and the sociology of mass consumption and it weaves these subjects together seamlessly. And though on most matters Lichtenstein would side with Wal-Mart's critics, he gives the management its due. In light of what it set out to accomplish, the company ...