I personally am not a fan of Wal-Mart. I'm aware that it is the cheapest products in some areas, but I just don't feel that the company is a good one. The customer service is devastatingly bad, and the lines are always long. It just has a dirty feel to it. I am, needless to say, not a fan.
On the note of buying American products, I feel that American companies have lost any motivation to produce in the US. Americans need to consciously choose American-made products over imported goods to make that go away, and I fear that any desire to buy American because it is American has faded. Instead, brands from certain nations are put on a pedestal because they
are not domestic. For example, many overlook domestic chocolates, like Ghiradelli, for fine imports even though Ghiradelli is easily among the best chocolate I've eaten. Wal-Mart is a mix of both products, but the company selling it is American, so I don't feel that it is a mistake to go there. In actuality, Wal-Mart keeps America ahead of producing countries, according to a major developing country theory called dependency theory. The main idea of this theory is that other countries produce basic goods for major capitalistic powers. They produce the basic goods at a low cost, then more developed countries produce complex goods from the basic goods, and then the earlier country will buy back the complex good with extra compensation for the labor in the middle. The cycle is permanent because the first country does not have the capacity to produce complex products. To come out ahead, the first country has to produce more than the second country can sell at very high rate. Since more production means lower demand and lower price, this particular set of circumstances is highly unlikely, so Americans buying cheap goods from China through Wal-Mart actually keeps China in a submissive position relative to the US.
Was that too much political science theory, moderators?