the Sugar Conspiracy

Friday, October 22, 2004

Wal-Mart in Mexico

I know Wal-Mart is an international phenomenon, but it still shocks me to read things like this:

Wal-Mart is already Mexico's largest retailer, with 664 stores in 66 cities, with sales of $12 billion.

Mexico's largest retailer is a company from Arkansas. Welcome to the wonderful world of globalization. From a story about Wal-mart's newest store in Mexico.

A Wal-Mart store rising near the 2,000-year-old pyramids of the Teotihuacan Empire has ignited the wrath of Mexican conservationists and nationalists, who say the U.S. retailer is destroying their culture at the foot of one of Mexico's greatest treasures.

Is the retail giant invading sacred ground and stamping on cultural tradition or just continuing a long tradition of trade?

Teotihuacan and Wal-Mart, centuries and cultures apart, share one thing in common: Both blossomed from trade.

Teotihuacan, which flourished between 250 and 600 A.D., controlled an intricate network of commercial routes that stretched north, west and south, reaching a thousand miles to the Classic Maya civilization of southeastern Mexico and Guatemala.

Tens of thousands were employed there in crafts. Some estimates say there were 100,000 traders. Among goods exchanged were valuable gray and green obsidian used in knives, instruments, mirrors and jewelry, and bartered for faraway sea salt, shells, Quetzal feathers, jade and chocolate.

posted by chris at 1:12 PM
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