Oh, the hypocrisies of the socialist left, which argues that the free market is not self-sustaining even while it blasts any big business that has accepted help from government. The latest attack on Wal-Mart is an example.
In an item sure to get lots of play in the press, a group called Good Jobs First (predictably “progressive”) says that Wal-Mart has enjoyed $1 billion in government subsidies, as if this alone would discredit the company—which it would in the mind only of libertarian purists like us. But since when has the left been so moralizing about the need for all institutions in society to be self-supporting?
In any case, a close look at the study shows that the supposed subsidies are mostly about many forms of tax breaks, which are not subsidies at all but refraining-from-stealing policies. Also involved here are reduced land prices (why not consider this a form of privatization?) and infrastructure development (all for privatizing that but surely GJF disagrees). It turns out too that GJF is actually against such subsidies but only wants them used in conjunction with living-wage policies. In any case, the report is interesting to read for a look into local development schemes. The real cost is all the political capital Wal-Mart must expend in exchange for being tolerated.
