Zach Frey…

indulges in a little economic gallows humor.

Forgive me if I do not waste many tears of pity on these pigs–on either side of the tables in DC.

Speaking of porkiness, I was driving somewhere the other day and the radio had Limbaugh singing the praises of Walmart. Limbaugh’s ideology is committed to the idea that limitless, unfettered capitalism is the summum bonum of existence and that the human person must take a back seat to the needs of the corporation. So he was naturally explaining why Walmart is the New Jerusalem. It was all standard stuff. But what cracked me up was when he touched on the Chestertonian sympathy with the small and local business run by Mom and Pop.

Now, in the past, guys like Limbaugh, who are basically bought and paid for shills for GinormoCorp, have feigned an interest in The Small Business Owner. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard guys like Limbaugh whip the audience into a frenzy about how the Gubmint means to hurt The Small Business Owner. And the small business owner, like the prolifer, rises to the bait and votes GOP in order to, you know, save us from the gubmint.

Result: the GOP does a lot of favors for GinormoCorp, because the goal is not exactly to save *us* from the gubmint, but to save GinormoCorp. But when GinormoCorp moves in and strangles all the local businesses, here are Rush’s words of sympathy for Mom and Pop:

One of the main ways that a Wal-Mart is opposed in any community is it will destroy “Main Street,” the mom-and-pops. So let me ask you people a question. How many in your lifetimes you’ve gone into a mom-and-pop electronics store, a mom-and-pop anything store, and they’ve got items there, and you say, “I want that TV.” “Okay, we’ll have to order that for you. It’ll be ten days or so. You’ll have to come back. We’ll give you a call when it comes in.” You go to the Wal-Mart and say, “I want this item.” “Okay, fine. We’ll box it up and you can take it out today.”

Mr. Platt says, basically, “Why should I bank roll, why should I go to a mom-and-pop business that’s not even going to put enough of their financial backing into an inventory and is going to cause me to have to wait for ten years?” He writes it this way: “As a customer, I don’t see why I should protect a business from the harsh realities of commerce if it can’t maintain a good inventory at a competitive price. And as an employee, I see no advantage in working at a small place where I am subject to the quixotic moods of a sole proprietor, and can never appeal to his superior, because there isn’t one.” This is just efficiency in the marketplace.

All hail the Great God Efficiency and Convenience!

Next week, when GinormoCorp breaks down along with the rest of the rapidly imploding American system, we will receive new instructions on how efficiency and convenience aren’t everything, and consumers will need to make sacrifices if the corporations who make this country great are to survive.

Chesterton looks better (and more human) all the time.