Walmart’s Contested Expansion in the Retail Business: Differential Accumulation, Institutional Restructuring and Social Resistance

Walmart’s Contested Expansion in the Retail Business: Differential Accumulation, Institutional Restructuring and Social Resistance
Baines, Joseph. (2012). Political Science. York University. October. pp. 1-33. (Article - Monograph; English).

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Alternative Locations

http://associationforinstitutionalthought.org/downloads/Student_Scholar_Paper/AFIT2013-Baines.pdf

Abstract or Brief Description

*** Winner of the Eighth ANNUAL STUDENT SCHOLARS AWARD of The Association for Institutional Thought ***

This paper offers an analysis of Walmart's contested expansion in the retail business. It draws on, and develops, some aspects of the capital as power framework so as to provide the first quantitative explication of the company's power trajectory to date. After rapid growth in the first four decades of its existence, the power of Walmart appears to be flat-lining relative to dominant capital as a whole. The major problems for Walmart lie in the fact that its green-field growth is running into barriers, while its cost cutting measures seem to be approaching a floor. The paper contends that these problems are in part born out of resistance that Walmart is experiencing at multiple social scales. This resistance helps to explain why Walmart is nearing what appears to be an 'asymptote' – a distributional limit that the company might not be able to pass. Walmart’s power trajectory may give us clues about the future limits on the power of dominant capital as a whole.

Language

English

Publication Type

Article - Monograph

Keywords

capital accumulation corporate power resistance Walmart capitalization asymptotes

Subject

BN Conflict & Violence
BN Distribution
BN Industrial Organization
BN Agency
BN Resistance
BN Power
BN Region - North America
BN Capital & Accumulation
BN Business Enterprise
BN Value & Price

Depositing User

Jonathan Nitzan

Date Deposited

24 Apr 2013

Last Modified

07 Apr 2016 19:18

URL:

http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/id/eprint/358

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