We had record sales, we had record savings, we had record reinvestment back into our capital....” This is what Scott Lee, President and CEO of Walmart, flamboyantly told his audience of its employees or (associates), shareholders and stakeholders in a packed hall some years ago. Lee spoke about profit, and still more profit. The speech was a throwback to the classical principles of capitalism of maximising profits that Adam Smith enunciated in the eighteenth century. This is from a 2005 Robert Greenwell documentary and evocatively called “The High Cost of Low Prices.” This should be mandatory viewing by the rulers and ruled. The documentary highlights the poor wage and working conditions in the anti-union Walmart outlets. It is also about how FDI in China and Bangladesh has functioned which may be a truer indicator of what can happen in India.

A price to pay: A recent study in the US by the Manhattan Borough found many small retailers would be shut in the neighbourhood of a Walmart, if it were to open there