Still Broke: Walmart’s Remarkable Transformation and the Limits of Socially Conscious Capitalism

Most households in the US primarily support themselves through the income they earn from work. As a result, businesses have a significant influence on the economic security and opportunities for economic advancement available to individuals, families, and communities across the US. Often issues of wages and working conditions experienced by working people are framed in business discussions as a function of market conditions and considered separately from issues of household or community well-being, but in recent years more companies have been exploring the intersection and explicitly considering worker well-being as part of a new approach to business, sometimes termed conscious capitalism. As part of this trend, the Business Roundtable in 2019 overturned the two-decade statement that stated a corporation’s principal purpose was to maximize shareholder returns and wrote a new statement that corporations should also deliver value not only to shareholders, but also to customers, communities, and — importantly — their employees, thus resulting in long-term prosperity for both business and society. In his latest book, “Still Broke: Walmart’s Remarkable Transformation and the Limits of Socially Conscious Capitalism,” Rick Wartzman considers the experience and history of Walmart moving towards a more conscious capitalism and the recent efforts the company has made to provide higher wages and better benefits and opportunities for their employees. The book raises important questions about how much an individual company can do on its own to improve the quality of jobs and people’s ability to earn a living through their work, the degree to which business imperatives encourage companies to improve jobs and when those incentives conflict with that goal, and whether public sector action, either through labor market regulation or the provision of social supports, needs to be strengthened to ensure work in today’s economy is contributing to an inclusive economy in which all can thrive. On March 30, 2023, the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program hosted a book talk that explored these questions and more. Please enjoy this conversation featuring Rick Wartzman (Bendable Labs), Byron Auguste (Opportunity@Work), Julie Gehrki (Walmart), and moderator Maureen Conway (The Aspen Institute). For more information about this event — including speaker bios, video, audio, transcript, and additional resources — visit https://www.aspeninstitute.org/events/still-broke-walmarts-remarkable-transformation-and-the-limits-of-socially-conscious-capitalism-a-book-talk-and-panel-conversation/