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I once bought a bike at Walmart.  To my chagrin, the bike had very little coasting ability. After riding down into a valley, I looked forward to some momentum on the up side. However, there was very little upside. Shortly after passing the lowest point, I would have to begin pedaling again.  In fact, if the down-hill was not steep, I had to pedal so as not to de-accelerate while going down hill.  In regard to Walmart, it could be concluded that not every product fits into a low-cost strategy (to say “cost-leadership” would gild the lily, besides engage in fad-jargon). While pedaling from the bottom of a hill just after having come down another, I constructed a young theory of business ethics.  Namely, that it was unethical for Walmart to sell the bicycle-brand (which I do not recall) because I deserved some coasting credit. You might say that if I didn’t have to pedal going down hill, I don’t deserve any “credit” in going up hill; the ease going down is paid for by the effort going up. However, even if I had not had to pedal while going downhill, I still would have believed that I deserved some “credit” on the up side. Why should I be exempted from benefiting from the laws of nature?  It is not fair if I am excluded from the phenomenon of mometentum through no fault of my own. Walmart had unwittingly put a wrench between me and momentum by essentially “spending” it by releasing it. So I was left with the impression of an asymetry that was unnatural. Of course, gravity and friction take their toll, so one can not expect to go without any effort on the up side.  But where a product eviscerates the benefits ensuing from a natural law, the product can be reckoned as inferior from the standpoint not only of quality, but as undeserved by any buyer.  There is thus a bicycle principle of ethics, which is a sort of naturalistic ethical theory based on the principles of fairness and desert–namely, that it is unfair to deprive certain people of public goods such as momentum while others indulge. An inferior product can be reckoned in such terms.

I exchanged the bike for another of the same type.  Not only was the “new” bike also without coasting ability, its back tire was warped.  Incredibly, the “bikemaker” at the store knew this and told me, “oh, that’s from the manufacturer.”  A few days later, I returned that bike; I had in the meantime bought a used Diamondback for less than half the price. I don’t think I have ever been so glad to unload a product. Besides concluding that selling bikes is too much for Walmart managers and employees, I had a general sense of low-class retail from the experience. That is to say, I had the sense of having “just said no” to a certain culture, or market-segmentation, in business. After the incidents with the bikes, I first sought to limit my shopping at Walmart to cheaper common goods, or staples. A low-cost strategy seems to work fine with such goods. Walmart’s major fault, it seems to me, lies in presuming that its strategy can apply to any product.  However, I soon bought a pair of sunglasses, only to have them fall apart on the second day of usage. I exchanged them for another pair, which began to come apart after a week. When I returned the second pair for a refund, the customer “service” clerk demanded that I retrieve a pair with a barcode. Once she had finished with the transaction, she handed the new pair to me, saying “there you go.” Not only had the fact that a second pair (i.e., exchanged) had gone bad skipped her mind, she hadn’t bothered to remember that I was returning the product.  I thought to myself: it’s down to food and the pharmacy.

Yet a few weeks after that, I ran by Walmart to pick up seven or eight food items. After waiting in a line for five minutes, I found myself waiting still longer as the cashier kept trying to weigh the three bananas even though the weighing device at his station didn’t work.  Then he wandered around to other stations to try theirs. All the while, I was wondering why it was so important to him that he not throw in the bananas as he was inconveniencing me and it shouldn’t be such a big deal to the store.  However, he couldn’t permit himself to let go of the dogma that someone must pay, and that someone must be someone else.  The pettiness involved annoyed me as much as having to wait.  It was not so much a case of greed, for there wasn’t much money involved in the transaction.  Rather, it was a small-mindedness that refuses to admit common sense.  Unfortunately, it is a mentality all too common in low-end American business. The employees are too weak to say to themselves: what are three bananas to me and to my store. Let the other person get something for nothing (actually something for waiting, as time is money).  What is it to me if someone profits a bit from me!  Such a surfeit of strength is extrinsic to Walmart, where the mentality is: better to lose a sale of seven or eight food items than let three bananas go.  In the face of such a mentality, I walked away, leaving the employee to deal with the items.  As I passed the customer service area, I briefly told the employee there that the cashier had made me wait too long as he was trying to weigh three bananas.  “I have already spent too much time on this,” I finally said.  She replied, “Here, why don’t you tell the store-front manager; there she is.”  Had I been speaking French?  I resumed walking, shaking my head in utter disbelief. As I was walking to the parking lot, I actually felt relief that I had not bought anything at Walmart.  I wondered how such a small large retail chain could survive based on low price alone.  Unlike the cashier, I would say that there is more to life than price (especially where the differences are not extraordinary).  Perspective, once found, makes those still on the ground look like ants–the red kind, that bite. Why is it that so many people are still leaving table scraps for those sordid creatures?