The “Free Market” spiel is almost always brought up when someone wants to challenge a new Walmart.
I have helped dissuade several Walmarts from locating somewhere by citing a “Free and equal” market does not give away the huge pot of incentives Walmart always demands when the competing local merchants get nothing. When Walmart does not get unfair concessions, they locate somewhere else.
Think about it - why should the local merchants already in existence, basically give money(tax abatements, etc.) to build competition to put themselves out of business?
That’s not a “Free and equal” market.
They get tax abatements because they employ a large number of new workers, both in the construction and in the operation of their superstores.
That tax revenue from those who work there offset any lost revenue from the abatement and is used as an incentive, Usually where a Wally’s opens, a Lowe’s or Home Depot follows...more jobs. MORE JOBS than the mom and pop stores ever provide, and at better benefits, too. As for the unionized groceries? They’re expensive, and when people go to Wal-Mart instead it puts another union=dominated business on notice that to survive they’ll have to somehow bust the union.
The reasons people oppose Wal-Mart are many and varied, and all bad reasons. The most odious are the NIMBY knockers who want their bucolic little areas to remain so. Well, you cannot stop progress or halt development. If you don’t like it, move somewhere else.