Environmentalists, unions, anti-globalists may on their own no longer be the strongest force to fight corporate expansion, together they can form a potent coalition to take on engines of economic growth, notably that symbol of American capitalist expansion: Wal-Mart. In addition various towns and cities have joined the fight in a quest to preserve the rural character of their communities, and in Canada that coalition can feed on an additional force: anti-Americanism. Yet, Wal-Mart hasn’t exactly been bruised by all these attempts to stifle its growth; they have been pretty successful in expanding their network in the US and Canada. One of the pillars of its success has been to take on unions and in doing so it not only is able to increase its performance by aligning management and employees, it also is taking on one of the key constituents of the coalition that opposes it. Last year they scored a victory against unions in Manitoba, earlier this year a masterstroke ensured that Wal-Mart could open a big outlet on Vancouver Island.

How did they achieve this? Elizabeth Nickson reports that native Indian bands invited the retailer onto their reserves, allowing Wal-Mart to circumvent unions and environmental and rezoning regulations. As Nickson notes, it drove a wedge right through the anti-Wal-Mart coalition as environmentalists realized they couldn’t pick a fight with their natural allies: native Indians. On a number of occasions I have pointed to the economic benefits of Wal-Mart's wealth and efficiency generating machine and Nickson points to a report from McKinsey which provides some numbers to back-up that claim:

The august McKinsey Consulting Group in their report, The Wal-Mart Effect, estimates that the retailer's focus on low prices and its constant stream of money-saving innovations accounted for up to 25% of the U.S. economy's productivity gains during the '90s. Warren Buffet believes that Wal-Mart contributes more to the health of the U.S. economy than Microsoft. The Manhattan Institute's Steve Malanga reports that a study sponsored by Wal-Mart but conducted by the Los Angeles Country Economic Development Corporation estimates that "Wal-Mart's entry into the local market would save county shoppers about US$1.78-billion annually, and southern California shoppers US$3.76-billion annually or nearly US$600 per household. Those savings, redirected to other spending would create up to 36,000 jobs, compared with the maximum of 5,000 jobs lost among competitors."

What the native band in Canada has essentially done is providing Wal-Mart exactly with the centerpiece of its path to success: taking advantage of a highly unregulated environment. The McKinsey numbers can easily be replicated in other geographical areas and once more provide evidence that a dearth of regulation in the long run provides huge benefits to society. True, there are aesthetic and valid environmental concerns that should always be taken into account when giving Wal-Mart access to operate its business, but it seems that a band of native Indians, in Canada no less, have provided the latest installment in a phenomenon that’s running out of steam: the war against Wal-Mart.