We believe that Wal-mart is an iteration of new tendencies in global capitalist power, a power whose primary driving evolutionary motor is its need to overcome, incorporate, subordinate, co-opt or otherwise harness evolving forms of resistance that always-already escape its grasp. Any analysis of resistance, however must be informed by a rigorous analysis of power. As we will shortly make clear, we are deeply skeptical of forms of resistance to Wal-Mart currently on offer, at least in North America, precisely because they do not fully attend to the evolution of capitalist power the firm represents. By global standards they are also, even at their most energetic, phenomenally tepid in both their demands and their tactics. As a result, our analysis has a definite dystopian flavor. But this appoach is as performative as it is analytic: we are seeking to paint a picture of the world Wal-Mart wants to build so as to call out those social forces which might stop it from coming to pass.
-Max Haiven
