Wal-mart, the Randian Hero

I love Wal-mart. Although I don't consider myself an Objectivist there is something about Rand's heroes, particularly those in Atlas Shrugged, that warms my heart. As a corporate entity, Wal-mart also embodies that special something.

Now, it seems Wal-mart had a store in Canada that wasn't doing so well and the employees voted to unionize. Wal-mart responded by closing the store. Wal-mart's CEO explained the company's actions:

"You can't take a store that is a struggling store anyway and add a bunch of people and a bunch of work rules that cause you to even be in worse shape," H. Lee Scott Jr. explains in an interview set for Friday editions of the WASHINGTON POST.

Scott says WAL-MART saw no upside to the higher labor costs and refused to cede ground to the union for the sake of being "altruistic."

"It doesn't work that way," he said.

Very John Galt, no?

2005-02-11 16:25 C&T