Lately all people seem to be talking about is how much they hate Wal-Mart.

I remember my first Wal-Mart experience. In 1993, I moved to Ithaca, New York to attend graduate school. There wasn’t much in town. Some tony shops where, I presume, professors shopped, three supermarkets, P & C, Tops, Wegman’s.

Not earning any money (a trend?), I really couldn’t afford to buy much. When I needed supplies to outfit my apartment, I most often travelled to Syracuse, an hour away, and the largest shopping area near by. The local shops, with their expensive wool sweaters, and pricey accessories, weren’t in my budget.

When I heard there was this store called Wal-Mart in Cortlandville, I was intrigued. Cortlandville was only 16 miles away, not sixty like Syracuse. The local KMart always looked like no one ever shopped there — and it’s never updated inventory showed that.

I had only heard of Wal-Mart, and perceived it to be like KMart or Zayre/Ames or Bradless or Caldor – the discount stores I had grown up with.

So it was with glee that we drove to try out this new super-store that had taken rural areas by storm. It was all it had been touted as. I could buy cheap dishes and other household accessories, linens, and all other sorts of things a graduate student living on loans could afford.

When Wal-Mart was publicized in the 1990’s as the fastest growing retailer in the world, I was amazed. All during my childhood, I was mortified to have to shop in discount stores, when some other kids shopped at the WestFarms Mall. Wal-Mart took discount shopping out of the shadows. People were proud to shop there and tout the discounts.

But back to my original question — why do people hate Wal-Mart? Many say to me — but what about the closing of all the mom and pop stores. Funny how those were the same arguments used when malls came to the suburbs. The truth of the matter — the suburban mall started the decimation of the central city store starting in the 1970s. Wal-Mart is just finishing what was started by JCPenney, Sears, and the Gap years ago. People also lament the low wages at Wal-Mart. My first response is always — a job is better than no job. For many rural communities, this retailing behemoth brought jobs where there were none.

The truth of the matter is, however, I don’t shop at Wal-Mart. I don’t subcribe to their retailing philosophy — so I just skip it. If many of the people who didn’t subscribe to Wal-Mart’s philosophy didn’t shop there . . . well then they’d either go out of business or change their philosophy. The truth of the matter, as exemplified in several newspaper articles earlier this year — is that many secretly shop at Wal-Mart. A newspaper reporter interviewed many on-strike supermarket workers there during the strike last year — why were they shopping there? — because it was less expensive than traditional retailiers and they were saving money.

The bottom line is that many who hate Wal-Mart can afford to shop elsewhere. I say, let the market decide.