Walmart Unmasked

From the perceptive Megan McArdle at The Atlantic:

I find it hard to believe that none of the liberal commentators breathlessly celebrating Wal-Mart's "capitulation" on national health care have even entertained the most parsimonious explanation: that Wal-Mart is in favor of this because it raises the barriers to entry in the retail market, and hammers Wal-Mart's competition. Yet somehow, this appears nowhere in any of the analysis.

She wraps up: "All of which is to say, Bootleggers and Baptists should be required reading in all schools. When you find strange bedfellows in politics, don't look for a surprising outbreak of spontaneous virtue: looking [sic] for the hidden conspiracy."

More here.

Walmart: Yea or Nay?

Good discussion about Walmart going on over at Austro-Athenian Empire, one of my favorite places to hang out on the Net. Have a look. We don't know exactly how things would be in a laissez-faire economy, but I tend to think big companies like Walmart have a corporate-state advantage over smaller and yet-to-be-founded companies. I don't care that Walmart might look the same in a free(d) market. What matters is why it is in its current state. If a billionaire made his money through state advantage, no libertarian would say, "It doesn't matter because a guy that smart would be a billionaire in the free market anyway."