It’s trendy to hate Wal-Mart. Critics note: Wal-Mart is a monopoly and hence, is intrinsically bad. Further, Wal-Mart destroys small businesses, ruining towns’ culture. It sells poor-quality, homogenous products in unattractive superstores. And finally, Wal-Mart is an unfair employer, paying low wages and failing to provide benefits.

Each disparagement contains a grain of truth; Wal-Mart affects the retail market, generating winners and losers. However, the vast majority of people, especially the poor, benefit. Consider the following social and economic realities.

First, Wal-Mart is not a monopoly. It has competitors; consider K-Mart, Target, and Costco. Wal-Mart succeeds because it provides consumers with desired products at low prices. In antitrust cases, the government breaks up monopolies that hurt the consumer. Higher prices, lower quantities, and/or predatory pricing characterize such monopolies. There is no evidence to suggest that Wal-Mart engages in any of these activities. Wal-Mart stores do not enter communities, sell products below their cost to defeat the competition, and then raise prices above market value. University of Tennessee economist Thomas J. DiLorenzo notes, “[R]esearch has shown ... that claims of predatory pricing are typically made by competitors who are either unwilling or unable to cut their own prices.”

Second, Wal-Mart drives local businesses to respond to consumers. Often, small businesses occupy monopoly positions in rural towns. When forced to compete on quality and price, they may lose profits or shut down. Wal-Mart appeals to those who value low prices and convenience. But people shop for other reasons too. Small businesses can adapt by capitalizing on peoples’ varying tastes and preferences. For instance, successful businesses will learn to specialize in products Wal-Mart doesn’t sell, offer wider quality/quantity product combinations, provide better customer service, or create a more pleasant shopping environment.

In 1942, Joseph Schumpeter coined the term “creative destruction” to explain the churning process in markets. When technology and product quality improve, dated products, and businesses that sell them, will die out. Consider music. As CDs gained popularity in the 1990s, cassette tape manufacturers had to adjust or face extinction. And before cassettes, 8-tracks, records, and phonograph cylinders met similar fates. Some folks want to keep box stores out, but artificially propping up lagging businesses gives consumers undesirable products at high prices. Does this hurt societal welfare more than a Wal-Mart SuperCenter?

Third, cultures change. The culture that Wal-Mart allegedly ruins is the type its customers, who earn $35,000/yr on average, can’t afford. Since Wal-Mart customers are on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum, the culture argument borders on elitism.

Furthermore, if enough townspeople freely decide to buy homogenous products and keep the ugly SuperCenter in business, whose culture are we protecting? No law prohibits town councils from zoning land away from commercial use. Similarly, people are free to boycott Wal-Mart. Because it didn’t appeal to local tastes and struggled to compete with aggressive discounters, Wal-Mart pulled out of Germany and South Korea. Wal-Mart’s success in America speaks to its cultural acceptance.

Fourth, Wal-Mart employees accept employment with full knowledge of their payment and benefits package. What is the next best alternative for these people? Wal-Mart employs more full-time teenagers, senior citizens, and minorities than any other retailer. Wal-Mart provides them with low-skill transition jobs. This explains why high job turnover rates commonly occur in retail; people work to gain basic skills, and then move on. When I worked at The Gap, I saw managers, cashiers, and sales associates come and go with regularity. As for healthcare, 90 percent of Wal-Mart employees receive health insurance from some source, whether from Wal-Mart, a spouse, a parent, or the government. And only 5 percent of Wal-Mart employees receive Medicare, near the 4 percent retail industry average. Without Wal-Mart, many more people would be unemployed and uninsured.

Wal-Mart benefits society by selling low-priced items at a one-stop shop. Studies indicate that Wal-Mart’s food prices alone save consumers $50 billion/yr. Moreover, Wal-Mart forces local grocers to compete and lower their prices 5 percent on average. Thus, even people who don’t shop at Wal-Mart benefit from the increased competition.

Although I’m mindful of trends, I don’t hate Wal-Mart. In fact, I applaud Wal-Mart for raising poorer peoples’ standard of living.