Slate has an interesting article about where one shops reflects one's party preferences. Slate writer Daniel Gross talks about how big box retailer Costco is the Blue State store. Here is his defintion of how Costco is like the Dems:
"On the left: Costco Wholesale Corp. Last week, Jeffrey Brotman and James Sinegal, chairman and chief executive office of Costco, respectively, joined the list of executives who endorsed John Kerry for president. The company is based in Washington (a blue state in the past four elections, and one that Kerry leads, by a 53-45 margin according to the Aug. 2 Zogby poll), and a list of its locations bears some resemblance to the Kerry-Edwards campaign: strong on the affluent coasts and virtually nonexistent in the comparatively poor Great Plains and in the Old Confederacy....
Like today's Democratic Party, Costco favors highly trafficked urban and edge-city locations—it has three stores in New York City. And it caters to a decidedly upscale crowd. As John Helyar reported in this excellent Fortune profile, the average salary of a Costco member is $95,333. The company's merchandise mix reflects the fact that its customers shop at discounters by choice, not by necessity. They're New Luxury suckers who like to save on staples, more Jean Chardonnay than Joe Six-Pack. As Helyar notes: "Costco is the U.S.'s biggest seller of fine wines ($600 million a year)...
Costco also has the sort of labor policy that would bring a smile to Barbara Ehrenreich's face. Pay starts at $10 an hour. About one in six employees is represented by a union, and workers receive nice health benefits. Sinegal has a non-zero-sum view of employee relations. Give people good jobs at good wages, and they'll be more likely to work harder, less likely to leave, and less likely to steal. As Helyar reported, Costco's turnover "is a third of the retail industry average of 64%," and "shrinkage"—the amount of inventory lost to theft—"is about 13% of the industry norm."
The there is his description of Wal-Mart and how it seems similar to the current GOP:
"On the right: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Founded in Arkansas (a blue-turned-red state), it grew by spreading into the adjacent South and Great Plains. Like today's Republican Party, it focuses intensely on rural areas and generally avoids cities. (Republican conventioneers won't be able to shop at a Wal-Mart when they visit New York City.) As this Bloomberg story notes, "Sixty-seven percent of Wal-Mart's stores are in the 30 states that voted for Bush and Cheney in 2000."
The company's labor policies are state-of-the-art, for the 1890s. It has been investigated for hiring contractors who allegedly hired illegal aliens to clean Wal-Mart stores and for locking them inside overnight. (One wonders if the Wal-Mart employees who in April were bused in to hear Vice President Dick Cheney sing the company's praises at Wal-Mart's headquarters were similarly confined.) In June, a federal judge certified a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of female Wal-Mart employees who claimed discrimination. The average wage at Wal-Mart, which has no unions and bitterly opposes raising the minimum wage, is lower than Costco's lowest wage. Turnover at Wal-Mart, according to the Economist, is 44 percent, meaning it "has to hire an astonishing 600,000 people every year simply to stay at its current size."
Gross says if Bush=Wal Mart and Kerry=Costco, Costco/Kerry is winning. Costco's sales are rising faster than Wal-Mart and investors have a better future outlook for Costco than WalMart.
A while back, someone commented on the similarities of WalMart and the current Republican party. The writer tends to think that not all Republicans reflect this and I believe that. I'm definitley not a WalMart Republican. I believe there are Republicans who are more "blue", but also have some Republican principles like limited government and fiscal responsibility. I tend to believe there are "Costco Republicans" out there or as I like to put it, "Ikea Republicans" named after another low-cost retailer.
What does everyone in blogland think?
Posted by Dennis at August 11, 2004 10:32 AMDave said: Many Republicans, such as those on this board, feel Bush is too conservative.
Bush is puppet in my opinion to the economic libertarian and the evangelical Christian right interests
that are invading the GOP like the Northern Snakehead is invading Florida, Illinois and Virginia.
He is certainly not conservative.
He is Bush - unique unto himself.
He is what Reagan ultimately rejected, what Eisenhower feared, what Teddy R. fought fearlessly to purge from the party of Lincoln and what his own father would never have contemplated being.
That's what Bush is.
What Kerry is - I'll leave that to Democrats to enlighten us.
Posted by: dorsano at August 12, 2004 03:55 AMI think characterizing the two parties as Walmart and Costco is both interesting and somewhat accurate, but I'm not sure that one can extrapolate that analogy to fit the two presidential candidates this year. Many Republicans, such as those on this board, feel Bush is too conservative. Many Democrats, or at least Democratic-leaners who liked Clinton-Gore centrism, feel Kerry is too liberal. To say that Kerry's world-view is winning just because Costco's view of the business world is winning is comparing apples and oranges. I for one don't think Kerry is representative of the 49% that voted for Bill Clinton in 1996 and is probably closer to the old liberal New England Dems of the past.
The gulf btwn Walmart and Costco is more than economic, it's regional and cultural. You go to a midsized city in red America and even lawyers shop at Walmart. Come to DC where I live and you'll see plenty of poor folks at Costco. Walmart America is fiscally conservative, domestically populist, culturally traditionalist. Like Walmart, they want their services at low prices (in politics, that's all the domestic prgms w/o tax increases), shy away from anything that smells like socialism (min. wage, etc), and are socially conservative to the point of ignoring many social ills (no assault weapons ban, against all abortion, etc).
Costco Americans are fiscally conservative, domestically responsible, and socially progressive. Like Costco, they still want their goods at low prices (low taxes w/o getting rid of gov't prgms) but instead of just running up the deficit like the Walmart types, they package the services more efficiently so as to save the taxpayer/shopper money without creating more debt. Domestically pragmatic, they want to enact reforms that work instead of ideological solutions. Socially, they're quite liberal.
So in this sense, Costco is winning, and there are many suburban and urban GOPers who are Costco Republicans, including myself. I think the Costco ideology is the future of the country, but I do not see any evidence that the Democratic Party is moving in this direction. Yes, they were under Clinton, but ever since then they've been moving back to the left, with leaders like Pelosi and Kerry. The GOP could capitalize on this and try and claim the center in future elections, but it's anyone's guess what will happen after the chips fall in November.
Posted by: Dave at August 12, 2004 02:19 AMThe best employer I ever worked for was a family that owned a phenolics plant in the Midwest. It was a non-Union shop but we never needed to organize because we were significantly better compensated than any of the other unionized factories in the area.
They are a long-time Republican family, both generous and active in the community; and they helped put many of my generation through college by providing summer work at great wages even though some of those summers we really weren't needed all that much.
The owner's daughter was the first girl I ever kissed, and while the experience was wonderful, it doesn't figure into my appreciation of the company's management.
The molding branch of the company just shut the doors and turned out the lights for good. They left their retired employees with fully funded, fixed-benefit pensions.
They closed, not because they weren't competitive, but because the companies they supplied product to, have gone out of business because cheaper, unorganized, and exploitable labor is available in other parts of the world.
Capitalism is like a three-legged stool. When either business, capital or labor become too strong, the stool wobbles and can tip over into economic depression or when pushed to an extreme, into socialism or fascism.
The growth of multinational corporations and global capital firms has outpaced the growth of international organized labor.
And until all three legs of the world ecconomy are brought into balance, there will continue to be widespread disruptions in people's lives - mostly ours, since we currently have the most to lose.
And it would be a mistake in my opinion to underestimate the force of the anti-globalization movement worldwide and to assume that the last decades gains in free trade have been consolidated and are unassailable.
Posted by: dorsano at August 11, 2004 11:22 PMThat's odd. In the debate here in NY about raising the minimum wage (which the GOP Senate finally passed but the GOP governor vetoed), we were told that even at a modest $7.15 an hour, businesses would flee the state. Yet Costco can start employees at something vaguely resembling a living wage and still be profitable?
Posted by: Brian at August 11, 2004 05:41 PMMight there not be "Wal-Mart Democrats" then?
Posted by: Mark Kittel at August 11, 2004 11:28 AM