Conversely, this is also why many people are poor in the first place: not Wal-Mart by itself, but the entire credo of producing cheap crap cheaply for better ma

Conversely, this is also why many people are poor in the first place: not Wal-Mart by itself, but the entire credo of producing cheap crap cheaply for better margins. This locust-like scheme is also, obviously, unsustainable even in the ideal case. While there are definite benefits to the people in the process of exploiting regions with lower standards of living and moving on to the next region when the old one is bled dry - i.e. when their standard has moved up beyond the narrow margin - sooner or later the world will run out of dirt-poor people, replaced by just regular-poor people which means increased production costs. There is a potential, then, to make up the margins from volume (i.e. decreasing per-item profit), but this is certainly not something most locusts take into account in their current business practices. It is a bit too far into the future. The second concern is more structural: will the labour colonies be able to utilise the infrastructure left behind by the locusts (assuming the locals still actually have control of their own resources, factories and so on) to become "first world" or forever be left subordinate to others? It seems quite possible that having these industries implanted in societies - rather than having evolved locally - may not allow them to become fully independent, equal players. Summa summarum: while some if not much of the critique of Wal-Mart is a bit silly or short-sighted (granting the premise that the world is capitalist for the time being), it is not all borne out of a sense of superiority of the latte-drinking elites or whatever the counter"argument" often is.