[[Phill]]

Im from the UK, so cant comment first hand, but heres my take.

Firstly, no company magically creates a monopoly, especially not in the general goods stores where the barriers to entry are as low as anything.

The reason that Wal Mart is successful is that it provides cheap goods which people want. They have managed to find a forumla with works and their growth is testiment to how they are obviously doing something right.

Now, with regard to their workers, there is either two schools of thought - they are providing jobs (crappy or otherwise) in areas which need jobs OR they are providing jobs that are better than what is surrounding the store.

The thing is whilst you could argue that the store uses its massive economy of scale to undercut the small local stores, it is the community that is responsible for these stores losing custom and going out of business.

With a store like Wal Mart you will always get what you pay for, and that means they wont have the nicest stores, the friendliest staff and i would imagine to one degree or another the best products - but they will squeeze every last penny of savings and their low overhead low profitabilty anhd high volume is what is popular - this means someway along the line some people will get steamrolled by the system but people are voting with their feet and their dollar.