The “tyranny of big box stores” or mega-stores is a subject increasingly in the news.
Indeed, a progressive columnist for this esteemed publication recently waxed eloquently about corporations that demand concessions in the form of roads, intersections, traffic lights and tax breaks from townships, cities and counties. In doing so the mega-stores are bullying local governments and an inference can be made about extorting money from the poor citizens to enrich the corporate coffers. Dammed Capitalists.
If a communications corporation comes to you and states they wish to erect a cell tower on your property and will pay you rent of $600 per month for 10 years, assuming it is legal per your zoning laws, and adds you must install a roadway to the tower, are they bullying you? Extorting you? Stealing from you?
The corporation will pay you $72,000 over the life of the contract, but the gravel road will cost $900 to install? If you do not want the cell tower or do not want to rent the land or build the road, don’t; no corporation has the right by law to force you to do anything.
Governments, the champions of the left, can waltz in and take your property by eminent domain, but per the constitution (that dammed constitution), only after you are fairly reimbursed, to the disdain of some Socialists, who believe government is a deity and there should be no private property.
If a mega-store comes to your community and demands concessions from the elected governing body before they will build a store, the governing body can tell them to take a long walk off a short pier. Again, no corporation can make a community do anything; the law can (state, federal or local), but no corporation independent of the law has that power. Socialists, who despise corp
orations and feel capitalism is evil, will tell us differently, but do not believe it.
So just why is having a mega or big box store in your community a bad thing? A Wal-Mart or a Home Depot will employ hundreds; they will pay tens of thousands in property tax, funding schools and communities while taking very little from the community in services. Last I checked, Wal-Mart has no children in school so it is a very large total contributor to our schools while costing the schools nothing.
No one is forced to work in a big box store, but a socialist will tell you it’s better to be on public assistance than to work for a low wage. Truth be known, I can think of few places a staunch Socialist will approve of working outside of government. But not all of the government: they call the military and police quaint names like Fascist pigs, Nazis, and dogs. I can never understand why a Socialist refers to Capitalists as Nazis and Fascists when Nazis were National Socialists and Fascism is also Socialism? Ignorance reigns on the left.
We are told evil big box, mega-stores run mom and pop stores out of business and are destroying the Norman Rockwell America. If you and I decide to shop at a mega-store because they are cheaper and much more convenient, is that the fault of the mega-store? If a mom and pop store cannot compete in an open market for our hard earned dollars, is that something the government should regulate? Should the government regulate our shopping to ensure that businesses that charge you more for products you must have to live can remain in business? Assuming we want to live in a free market democracy the answer is no, if you wish to live in a Democratic Socialist nation in which the government sets wages and prices the answer is yes.
Capitalism has corporations, Capitalism has free markets and Capitalism has open competition keeping prices low. The big box store is Capitalism in its truest form and our friends in the Socialist movement hate that with a passion. The fact a mega-store exists at all is an affront to the left, the success of a big box corporation is an obscene scar on the fabric of our nation in the eye of a progressive.
As the Presidential election draws near, we will be bombarded with tales of satanic corporations and evil capitalism allegorically feeding on the corpses of the poor and downtrodden. This election just may be a referendum on our Constitution, our republic and our way of life.
Trump vs. Sanders, Capitalist vs. Socialist. It will not happen, but if it did it would answer the question of what path we as a nation wish to travel.
