Why do people get worked up over Wal-Mart?

This column is not an endorsement of Wal-Mart. It's frankly not my favorite place to shop. But I'm wondering when crushing the competition became un-American? Isn't that the whole idea behind a free-market economic system? Isn't competition supposed to lead people to innovate, invent and find new ways to give customers what they want at a low price, and doesn't it do this because the alternative to being innovative and inventive is to go out of business?

Or do we believe in competition only until someone does it a lot better than someone else? Do we believe in private property rights until, like the people of Hercules, it involves a property owner who is big and rich and generally despised?

Where do low prices and our romantic notions about small shops and early 20th century downtowns intersect? And whose interests are we serving? The same Pew survey found that the people most fond of the store are the ones who earn less than $30,000 a year — poor people who need low prices.

That does put opponents in a difficult, rather snobby, position.

Federal regulators are going to rule soon on the store's Utah bank charter. There are some intelligent arguments against allowing commerce and banking to mix. Interestingly, though, the feds already approved a similar plan for Target, with virtually no opposition at all.

My guess is that, unless people can come up with a better argument than that it hurts competitors — a difficult argument to make in a land awash in retailers — Wal-Mart will keep the lights on for those 2 a.m. mutant shoppers.

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Jay Evensen is editor of the Deseret Morning News editorial page. E-mail: even@desnews.com.