The Case for Breaking Up Wal-Mart

By Barry C. Lynn, Harper's. Posted July 24, 2006.

Wal-Mart's massive growth has begun to disrupt America's entire retail economy, forcing companies large and small to adapt to its ruthless practices if they want to do business. Is it time to bring in the government to break up the mega chain?

There is an undeniable beauty to laissez-faire theory, with its promise that by struggling against one another, by grasping and elbowing and shouting and shoving, we create efficiency and satisfaction and progress for all. This concept has shaped, at the most fundamental levels, how we understand and engineer our basic freedoms -- economic, political, and moral. Until recently, however, most politicians and economists accepted that freedom within the marketplace had to be limited, at least to some degree, by rules designed to ensure general economic and social outcomes.