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Walmart In Society

Satisfactory Essays

Wal-Mart serves numerous functions in society. The most obvious one in my opinion is to supply society with various items needed for both inside and outside the household. Another function of Wal-Mart that I quickly observed is their responsibility to try and maintain low and fair prices for its consumers on a consistent basis. One more function of Wal-Mart to society is to provide a safe and clean environment where people can feel comfortable while shopping for various items. I believe these functions are quite similar to what Wal-Mart provides for people in their individual lives. These are the same functions that I look to receive as a customer when I shop at Wal-Mart. I do believe that Wal-Mart has both manifest and latent functions. …show more content…

The major difference that I noticed is the inexpensive prices on Wal-Mart items and the conveniency to be able to buy all the things you need at the same store. This is certainly more valuable to the lower and middle class because people belonging to these classes do not have the budget to afford overpriced items. However, on the other hand, it is not nearly as big of an issue to the wealthy class of people who don’t suffer the financial problems as the lower classes have. I don’t think Wal-Mart perpetuates the inequalities in our society. They are fair to all genders, races, classes, religions, ages, and sexual orientations. When you shop at Wal-Mart, you see all different types of people from the groups I mentioned above. Walmart does contribute to conflict between unequal groups in our society. A good example is when a new Walmart is built in a small town. Local thrift and hardware stores are the primary locations to buy your household and outside items. Wal-Mart has an unequal advantage in sales because they are such a large and well known corporation compared to a small locally owned store. It is natural for conflict to occur when the small local stores start to lost significant amounts of business. Wal-Mart helps with the improvement of inequalities in society because they don’t discriminate against gender, race, class, religion, age, or sexual orientation. That goes for their consumers as well as their

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