Wal-Mart Wars: Moral Populism in the Twenty-First Century

by Rebekah Peeples Massengill

Overview

Wal-Mart is America’s largest retailer. The national chain of stores is a powerful stand-in of both the promise and perils of free market capitalism. Yet it is also often the target of public outcry for its labor practices, to say nothing of class-action lawsuits, and a central symbol in America’s increasingly polarized political discourse over consumption, capitalism and government regulations. In many ways the battle over Wal-Mart is the battle between “Main Street” and “Wall Street” as the fate of workers under globalization and the ability of the private market to effectively distribute precious goods like health care take center stage.

In Wal-Mart Wars, Rebekah Massengill shows that the economic debates are not about dollars and cents, but instead represent a conflict over the deployment of deeper symbolic ideas about freedom, community, family, and citizenship. Wal-Mart Wars argues that the family is not just a culture wars issue to be debated with regard to same-sex marriage or the limits of abortion rights; rather, the family is also an idea that shapes the ways in which both conservative and progressive activists talk about economic issues, and in the process, construct different moral frameworks for evaluating capitalism and its most troubling inequalities. With particular attention to political activism and the role of big business to the overall economy, Massengill shows that the fight over the practices of this multi-billion dollar corporation can provide us with important insight into the dreams and realities of American capitalism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814763346
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	03/25/2013
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

Rebekah Peeples Massengill is Lecturer in the Writing Program at Princeton University.

Table of Contents

C o n t e n t s
Acknowledgments ix
Preface xiii
Part 1 Why Should We Care about the WalMart Debate?
1 Constructing Moral Markets 3
2 Contextualizing the Wal-Mart Wars 19
Part 2 Competing Frameworks for Market Moral ity
3 Individuals and Communities 45
4 Thrift and Benevolence 77
5 Freedom and Fairness 115
Part 3 Market Moral ity in Med ia and P o l itics
6 How Wal-Mart Wins the War of Words 153
7 Moral Populism in the Twenty-First Century 175
Appendix: Methodology 189
Notes 195
Bibliography 205
Index 215
About the Author 225

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

For years Wal-Mart and its critics have been locked in a high-profile contest to define the meaning and calculate the morality of America's largest private-sector employer. Rebekah Massengill brings a sophisticated understanding of language, culture, and ideology to her deconstruction of the rhetoric and symbolism deployed by the contestants, in the process demonstrating that concepts like family, community, fairness, and citizenship are both highly malleable and explosively political."-Nelson Lichtenstein ,author of The Retail Revolution

"Wal-Mart Wars is a beautifully-written, clear-minded inquiry into one of the most important questions of our time: Do powerful corporate entities operate simply according to value-free conceptions of the marketplace, or can consumers and advocacy groups bring standards of moral worth into the picture? Rebekah Peeples Massengill provides a careful analysis of the grassroots arguments actually being used. This is a brilliant example of cultural sociology at its best." -Robert Wuthnow,author of Remaking the Heartland: Middle America Since the 1950s

"This excellent book will convert those who still think that economy is devoid of meanings, judgments and emotions. Wal-Mart Wars is an important contribution to the growing scholarship on markets and morals, and a must-read for anyone who cares about how and why Americans argue about economic issues." -Nina Bandelj,author of Economy and State: A Sociological Perspective

Editorial Reviews

Massengill, a lecturer in the department of sociology at Princeton, uses the debate over Wal-Mart’s policies and economic standing as a way of exploring the moral language used in larger political and economic discussions, such as health care. She focuses on two main voices: Wal-Mart, with its in-house “advocacy group,” Working Families for Wal-Mart, and Wal-Mart Watch, which aims to expose the company’s shortcomings. Massengill looks at each group’s press releases, Internet postings, and media coverage, and she argues that Wal-Mart frequently links the ideas of freedom, individualism, and thrift to its policies, whereas Wal-Mart Watch invokes community, benevolence, and fairness in its criticisms of the company. For Wal-Mart, providing its customers—usually described as hardworking families—with low prices and a large selection of items trumps concerns over driving out local businesses and preventing its employees from joining unions. Wal-Mart Watch, on the other hand, views these concerns as part of a larger economic problem, contending that Wal-Mart has a moral obligation to act fairly toward its competitors and employees. Wal-Mart’s arguments present the company as a victim of big government and unions. Despite its academic tone, the book effectively demonstrates the deep intellectual divisions between progressives and conservatives. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"Wal-Mart Wars is a beautifully-written, clear-minded inquiry into one of the most important questions of our time: Do powerful corporate entities operate simply according to value-free conceptions of the marketplace, or can consumers and advocacy groups bring standards of moral worth into the picture? Rebekah Peeples Massengill provides a careful analysis of the grassroots arguments actually being used. This is a brilliant example of cultural sociology at its best"

Robert Wuthnow

"Well researched, tightly argued, and accessibly written, Wal-Mart Wars offers insight for everyone."

CHOICE

"In her insightful and finely wrought study, Rebekah Peeples Massengil uses public debate over the virtues and failings of Walmart to examine the moral tensions inherent in modern capitalism. Her analysis offers insights concerning the moral underpinnings of economic discourse, the diffusion of group claims in the public sphere, the rhetorical centrality of the American family in conservative populism, and the shortcomings of progressive advocacy."

Social Forces

"[Rhetoric] always registers the moral foundations of the culture that sponsors it, reflecting, reinforcing, and even reimagining them. This is the terrain of Rebekah Peeples Massengill's perceptive new study of the political contests in the United States over the role and behavior of the giant retailing corporation, Wal-Mart. She wishes to understand the uses made of moral language and categories by disputants on both sides of the Wal-Mart controversies, and, in particular, how these uses differentially relate to moral conceptions of the market. She also argues that the case study illustrates general moralizing processes in public debates about markets in the United States, as in such cases as health care reform, tax reform, and government bailouts of major corporations. Generally, then, it is an examination of how Americans make sense of the 'moral dilemmas of modern capitalism.'"

Political Science Quarterly - Peter Cleary Yeager

"This excellent book will convert those who still think that economy is devoid of meanings, judgments and emotions. Wal-Mart Wars is an important contribution to the growing scholarship on markets and morals, and a must-read for anyone who cares about how and why Americans argue about economic issues."
-Nina Bandelj,author of Economy and State: A Sociological Perspective

"For years Wal-Mart and its critics have been locked in a high-profile contest to define the meaning and calculate the morality of America's largest private-sector employer. Rebekah Massengill brings a sophisticated understanding of language, culture, and ideology to her deconstruction of the rhetoric and symbolism deployed by the contestants, in the process demonstrating that concepts like family, community, fairness, and citizenship are both highly malleable and explosively political."-Nelson Lichtenstein ,author of The Retail Revolution

"[Rhetoric] always registers the moral foundations of the culture that sponsors it, reflecting, reinforcing, and even reimagining them. This is the terrain of Rebekah Peeples Massengill's perceptive new study of the political contests in the United States over the role and behavior of the giant retailing corporation, Wal-Mart. She wishes to understand the uses made of moral language and categories by disputants on both sides of the Wal-Mart controversies, and, in particular, how these uses differentially relate to moral conceptions of the market. She also argues that the case study illustrates general moralizing processes in public debates about markets in the United States, as in such cases as health care reform, tax reform, and government bailouts of major corporations. Generally, then, it is an examination of how Americans make sense of the 'moral dilemmas of modern capitalism.'"-Peter Cleary Yeager,Political Science Quarterly

"This is first-rate sociology, deftly packaged to offer insight for both academic and popular audiences. Social advocacy groups would do well to look to Massengill's findings for advice on crafting their messages on economic issues."-Library Journal

"Massengill, a lecturer in the department of sociology at Princeton, uses the debate over Wal-Mart’s policies and economic standing as a way of exploring the moral language used in larger political and economic discussions, such as health care..the book effectively demonstrates the deep intellectual divisions between progressives and conservatives."-Publishers Weekly

"Wal-Mart Wars is a beautifully-written, clear-minded inquiry into one of the most important questions of our time: Do powerful corporate entities operate simply according to value-free conceptions of the marketplace, or can consumers and advocacy groups bring standards of moral worth into the picture? Rebekah Peeples Massengill provides a careful analysis of the grassroots arguments actually being used. This is a brilliant example of cultural sociology at its best."
-Robert Wuthnow,author of Remaking the Heartland: Middle America Since the 1950s

From the Publisher

Massengill (writing program, Princeton Univ.) uses Wal-Mart as a case study in political discourse. She aims to help readers understand how the words social commentators and activists choose when framing public debates profoundly influence the sort of response their positions receive from the public. Is Wal-Mart a lifesaver offering low prices that enable working families to survive, or a greedy corporation taking advantage of its employees and citizens of the communities in which it exists? The author looks at three paired considerations—individuals and communities, thrift and benevolence, and freedom and fairness—to illustrate the importance of such moral vocabularies in understanding social debates such as the ones surrounding Wal-Mart's economic impact. Analyzing organizational documents from advocacy groups on both sides of the highly political Wal-Mart debate, Massengill allows the data to emerge from these documents to show how phraseology highlights the very moral frameworks undergirding complex social issues. VERDICT This is first-rate sociology, deftly packaged to offer insight for both academic and popular audiences. Social advocacy groups would do well to look to Massengill's findings for advice on crafting their messages on economic issues.—Elizabeth Winter, Georgia Inst. of Technology Lib., Atlanta

Library Journal

"This excellent book will convert those who still think that economy is devoid of meanings, judgments and emotions. Wal-Mart Wars is an important contribution to the growing scholarship on markets and morals, and a must-read for anyone who cares about how and why Americans argue about economic issues"

Nina Bandelj

"For years Wal-Mart and its critics have been locked in a high-profile contest to define the meaning and calculate the morality of America's largest private-sector employer. Rebekah Massengill brings a sophisticated understanding of language, culture, and ideology to her deconstruction of the rhetoric and symbolism deployed by the contestants, in the process demonstrating that concepts like family, community, fairness, and citizenship are both highly malleable and explosively political."

Nelson Lichtenstein

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