Art Carden, Charles Courtemanche, and Jeremy Meiners just published a paper on the cultural consequences of Wal-Mart. Here’s the abstract:
This essay explores the relationship between commerce and culture in the context of the recent debate over the social effect of Wal-Mart. In spite of much public debate, little is known about how Wal-Mart affects values. Using data collected from multiple sources, we show there is little evidence that Wal-Mart makes communities more conservative or more progressive.
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I find it hard to believe that shopping or not shopping at Wal-Mart will effect your ideology.
I’ve seen both Conservatives and Liberals shopping at Wal-Mart, it’s usually the Liberals that are complaining about it, even with a full shopping cart.
It’s not universal of course, but I do know quite a few people who are not that aware of their own ideological leanings – even though they do have them – and the more Leftist and populist types tend to avoid WalMart and the more Right wing tend to shop at WalMart almost exclusively.
Of these people I’m thinking of, none of them are very engaging in broader political or ideological discussions, and if I suggested to them that they are shopping where they’re shopping because they have certain ideological reactions to the pop culture around them they would think I was reading too much into it.
Everyone I know that voted for Obama just because it seemed like the thing to do will tell you how great Target is, and that they prefer Frys or Albertsons to Walmart for a host of reasons, but politics never enters into it.
Likewise, the guy that votes McCain because he can’t figure out what else to do shops at Walmart.