From today’s Cleveland Plain-Dealer:
This is why so many job-starved Clevelanders have voiced concerns. Consider the coalition that is building: civil rights groups, elected officials, labor unionists, ministers, small business owners, and, most recently, Cleveland bloggers. We raise our voices in opposition because of the negative effects of a Wal-Mart Supercenter on our town.
In other words, Cleveland’s elites who don’t shop at Wal-Mart are opposed to allowing other people to shop at Wal-Mart. And those with jobs are raising their voices on behalf of “job-starved Clevelanders.” Real profiles in courage. Good thing they weren’t around when the dry goods stores and blacksmiths were feeling competitive pressures many years ago from supermarkets and the “horseless carriage”.
Instead of a Wal-Mart, some propose a new “barter” system among downtown businesses (to prove I’m not making this up, I quote):
Instead of a Wal-Mart why not:
Use the steelyard site to set-up a bartering community between local businesses. Some years ago I was in Connecticut visiting a college friend for a time. Local businesses had joined together and created a bartering system which allowed small business owners to spend real money on other things. An example:
A portrait painter needed some film developed. Instead of going to the nearest big box, she took it to a local developer who was part of the barter network and used some barter points to pay for it. The photo guy might have needed a birthday cake for his daughter and will use his barter points to purchase the cake from a local baker that is part of the barter network. The baker needs his car repaired and so uses his barter points at a local mechanic. The mechanic has been saving up her barter points and decides to get a portrait made for her sister and so she goes to the original portrait painter.
When I was working on my graduate degree in Economics at Clemson, many of the small businesses around Clemson actually had a flourishing barter system, like that described. But the operative term to describe it there was “tax dodge.” Barter and in-kind contributions among various local businesses was a system for buying and selling goods and services without having to pay taxes on it.
And I doubt that it was justified as an alternative to Wal-Mart.
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