Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart has been in the news lately for both business and political reasons. Business wise it had its first drop in profits in ten years. In Germany Wal-Mart decided to cease the operation of it 84 stores because it could not compete. One senior official at Wal-Mart was recently charged with embezzling funds from the company. Politically, it has been criticizing it for its low wages, poor health benefits, employing illegals and forcing American manufactures to go to other countries to remain competitive. The man it hired to head its Public Relations department to improve its image, Andrew Young, recently resigned because of racial slurs he made. Chicago city council said that Wal-mart will have to pay employees more and improve health coverage if it wants to operate in the Chicago area. And in China, a union is trying to organize employees, something Wal-Mart is very much against because that increases costs.

I remember a drive to unionize was successful in a store in Quebec, Canada. But that store was closed down because of Wal-Mart detests unions. It would rather lose a store than unionize. Wal-Mart has a lot of clout because of its size. A lot of communities are afraid to challenge it because its big stores can bring much needed employment and tax revenues. However, a backlash has been growing to keep stores out of some communities because of the destabilizing effect they have. Now Wal-Mart is thinking of creating more intimate stores which can be located in downtown areas.

During Hurricane Katrina Wal-Mart was a savior for many. When the government wasn't there to help and assist those who had been devastated by the Hurricane, Wal-Mart was there distributing essentials and supplying power generators. Many of its stores in the area were badly damaged by the storm but Wal-Mart, with its vast network and expertise, recovered quickly so it could assist the community. It gained many brownie points for that effort.

Wal-Mart is the largest corporation in America (in the world) with sales of more than $220 billion dollars. I remember when GM was number one (now #3). I guess the new mantra in business now is , What is good for Wal-Mart is good for America. That saying was coined in the fifties and used to belonged to GM. The only thing is, that new mantra includes a sad turn, the dumbing-down of American business practices. They include no unions, the downsizing or elimination of employees' pension plans, smaller or no health coverage and low, low wages. Wal-Mart has also destroyed many small-town business areas and many state side manufacturing jobs in its ruthless quest for cutting prices. Many mom and pop store have vanished because of Wal-Mart's competition.

Wal-Mart has helped feed and cloth the poorer people of America by keeping prices down, and has kept inflation down by reducing prices. This is very commendable and democratic. But it has also contributed to the widening gap between rich and poor by creating a ripple effect throughout the nation of cost cutting and the elimination of pensions and health plans. All this has created a greater burden for the middle class, which seems to be losing ground.

Wal-Mart has probably done more for the developing world than it has done for America, by creating manufacturing jobs and raising salaries elsewhere. However, I think there is a positive aspect to this. By creating jobs abroad, Wal-Mart has prevented a possible greater hoard of illegal aliens clambering to get into America due to them not having employment at home. Wal-Mart, thus, has made the world saver for America, by helping to level the playing field, increasing living standards and creating manufacturing jobs abroad, making the world more in America's image.

Perhaps a dose of Wal-Martism has been good for America. It has shaken-up the business community. And business communities need shaking up now and then in order to remain viable, so they don't grow stale and atrophy. Wal-Mart has introduced new management techniques and more efficient ways to produce goods and distribute them. By shaking up things it has kept American business competitive. In being so frugal with medical and pension plans it has force competitors and other corporation to reexamine and restructure their bloated medical and pension schemes. One of GM's biggest business problems, one of the main reason for it constantly losing money and market share, is that over the years it has became saddled with very expensive medical and pension programs. Its cars cost more to manufacture because of those expenses. One reasons for Wal-Mart extraordinary success is that it is leaner and meaner than most. Nevertheless, maybe some day in the future Wal-Mart will also loose its vaulted position and be challenged to do better for similar reasons, because it too became top heavy and out of touch.

Fiasco II

I disagree that all aspects of war amount to fiascos. However, there are those who believe the opposite. I guess it depends on what you mean by fiasco. One thing is clear, war is horrible.

The dictionary describes fiasco as a "complete failure". But what is complete failure in war? A war wouldn't be a complete failure if one side defeats an enemy. For instance, Vietnam was a complete failure for the United States but not for the North Vietnamese who were successful in defeating the United States in South Vietnam, reuniting the country. However, in the long run, was the war in Vietnam really a complete failure for the United States? Today America and Vietnam are at peace with each other. Today Vietnam is one of America's trading partners. Where once North Vietnam remained isolated from the rest of the world, the war made it an engaging and active member of the world community. American corporations are now investing heavily in Vietnam, especially in the high-tech industry. American's are traveling to Vietnam. Though Vietnam won the war, it now resembles America more than America resembles it. Vietnam is developing a capitalist economy. Of course, there is a real fiasco involved, that this war took so many American and Vietnamese lives to end and finally bring peace between them, and make them partners in globalization.

War is diplomacy by other means. Could diplomacy have prevented North Vietnam from invading South Vietnam? Probably not. The North was determined to take the South by force and the South was determined to remain free. Antiwar people think America should have stayed out of the conflict and let the warring parties settle their own dispute. However, America was fearful of the South's defeat because of the 'domino effect' that would cause, the theory being that the invasion of South, a non communist country, by the North, a communist country, would lead to other Asian countries falling to communism. America felt democracy was threatened by such a situation, hence it getting involved, to stop the spread of communism. America's involvement in Vietnam was really a fiasco because America kept compounding its failures there, through incompetence, lack of transparency, corruption and its deceit about the war's siccess. If it acted as a peace keeper between the two instead, America's role may not have been such a fiasco.

Somebody said that WW2 was a fiasco because of the Versailles Treaty. The Versailles Treaty was suppose to have ended WW1. Instead, the Treaty really didn't resolve much but made things worse, which in turn led to WW2. The perceived wisdom is that WW2 was an extension of WW1 because WW1 never really ended. However, it is hard for me to understand how or why that made WW2 a fiasco. Agreed, WW2 was a byproduct of the unfinished fiasco of WW1. However, the real fiasco lies in a fact, that the warring parties of WW1 didn't sign an unconditional surrender treaty, only an armistice. One was signed after WW2, clearly ending hostilities. Also, the victors of WW1 did not attempt to rehabilitate the losers like they did after WW2. Since unconditional surrender treaties were signed ending WW2 and rehabilitation was implemented, I believe that WW2 was chiefly a success, not a fiasco as some believe. The world has not had a world war since.

However, just to puncture my argument a bit, WW2 led to another war, the Cold War. Because of that some think that makes WW2 a fiasco because it also left many conflicts unresolved, such as Korea, Vietnam and the growing conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, it was a cold war that followed, not a hot one, like the other two wars. It was a cold war because during its duration the majority of the world lived in relative peace, in comparison to the experiences of WW1 and WW2. The Cold War managed to contained the outbreak of a third world war, which was real possibly due to the looming conflict between East and West. The lessons learned in WW2 made the Cold War 'cold', not 'hot'. The devastation and destruction caused in WW2 with conventional weapons and the dropping of the atomic bombs in Japan brought a realization to the world, that such wars should never happen again. Hence the Cold War. A 'hot' third world war would probably have meant total annihilation. I consider that a partial success, not a fiasco, because lessons were learned from the past, that engaging in total war was no longer an option.

The main reason why one would consider war a fiasco is because of the lives lost and the destruction caused. I understand that. It is such a waste. However, humankind has always been determined to fight. We have had to learn otherwise. Past wars have shown us the futility of war in resolving our differences. We've had to learn the hard way, that wars are futile. I think slowly we have gottten the point; the majority have. We created the United Nations after WW2 in order to prevent future wars, an institution that was tried after WW1 as the League of Nations but failed. Some consider the U.N. a fiasco and a complete failure. I disagree. Yes, the U.N. is dysfunctional. But it reflects the dysfunctionality of its members. At least it has managed to contain this dysfunctionality so that it hasn't manifested itself into a real fiasco, like a WW3, which would truly be a fiasco and a total failure.

Fiasco

From the blog "Crooked Timber" Alex Tabarrok writes that he is dismayed that people would think that the Iraqi war would be anything other than a fiasco. He has been reading Thomas Ricks' book "Fiasco" where Ricks says "the war on Iraq and subsequent occupation was ill-conceived, incompetently planned and poorly executed". No wonder it has been a fiasco, Tabarrok writes, because "all wars are full of incompetence, mendacity, fear, and lies. War is big government, authoritarianism, central planning, command and control, and bureaucracy in its most naked form and on the largest scale".

I agree that the war in Iraq is a fiasco. However, it didn’t have to be that way. Wars aren’t inherently or necessarily fiascos as Tabarrok writes. This Iraq war has been run especially badly. In comparison, though, the first Iraqi war, in 1991, was much better organized and executed and ended in success. In the present war Bush the younger (his father organized the first war) has ignored advice, ignored history and ignored the world. Had Bush&Co not been so arrogant, ignorant and naive this war could have been a success. This war has been waged by children in comparison. This war was based on the lethal combination of ideology, simple mindedness, inherent incompetence, hubris and shear stubbornness. No wonder it has been a fiasco.

Tabarrok puts the incompetence of this war directly at the feet of the Pentagon. The Bush administration naively gave the Pentagon full command of what was to happen in Iraq, from the execution of the war to the rebuilding and democratizing of it. This completely shut out the State Department which generally is responsible for helping the democratic process in other lands. It is more experienced in such matters. For instance, the State Department played a major role in democratizing Germany and Japan after WW2. The Pentagon doesn't understand diplomacy, an essential factor for ending wars. The Pentagon has monopolized the whole process in Iraq and when monopolizing happens big problems inevitably develop. That is why democracies like the U.S. have developed competing levels of power, to discourage monopolistic practices. Had the Pentagon shared more responsibility with The State Department and others in securing Iraq it most likely would not be the fiasco it is today.

Had the administration not gone it alone this war would not have been a fiasco. Sure, it assembled a “coalition of the willing” but most of that has fallen apart, except for the British, as the situation deteriorated. Had the administration listened more to the military, which had learned valuable lessons from the first Iraqi war and Vietnam, this war would not be a fiasco. Bush&Co seemed to throw past experience out the window when it came to this war, thinking it could do it on the cheap and with minimum effort. Up to this point America had learned to be more cautious and pragmatic about war, especially after Vietnam. Political and economic engagement were now supposed to be the alternatives to war. But the Bush administration refused to do either with Iraq. The “age of reason” did not enter into the equation in this White House. They saw the alternative to war as appeasement and rewarding “evil doers”. The naiveté of this Company and its lack of understanding and nuance is what made this war a fiasco, not the inherent nature of war. Enough has been learned about war to make it reasonable successful, like the one launched against Yugoslavia under the Clinton administration.

Another blogger, Peter Levine, sees the Iraq war as systematic failure, meaning that the whole system of America, the collective zeitgeist of its people, the media, Congress and so on, is responsible. Somebody described what transpired as a group delusion. I agree. However, being the head of the system that failed, Bush&Co. deserve most of the blame. The “buck” stops with Bush. As America’s leader he is ultimately responsible. It is said that people deserve the administration they pick. So, by association the people are also part of the failure, as Levine implies.

After 9/11 America was itching for revenge but Afghanistan, where the attackers were trained, was not a target enough. The public and the media, and perhaps the military, wanted and needed a larger, more visible and rewarding cathartic experience. Afghanistan was not enough, Iraq was. What followed was like sheep following each other over a cliff. Perhaps this blind eagerness helped cause the fiasco.

As for the blog I quoted from at the beginning, “Crooked Timber”, I assume its name comes from something the philosopher Emmanuel Kant said : “From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned”. It is sort of appropriate for this subject because nothing about the Iraqi war has been straight. It was presented crookedly and it was executed crookedly. From such crookedness fiascos are bound to develop.