this post was submitted on 30 May 2024
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I fundamentally agree with you that publicly-traded corporations are inherently problematic due to the nature of their fiduciary duty to shareholders. That said, I think Costco is clearly the lesser of these particular evils. I have no doubt that given time they'll turn to shit, but thus far (to my understanding) they at least pay something resembling a living wage and have reasonably consumer-friendly policies.
Shopping local could (if even possible) be the more ethical option, but most people are struggling and small grocers simply don't have the margins to generally be affordable. I'm betting very few of them are able to pay their employees anything close to Costco either (if they even care to - plenty of small business owners are greedy in their own right).
Now if only I didn't have a panic attack every time I set foot in a Costco ...
You're absolutely right. Give credit where credit is due.
But eventually when the line stops going up then all of those worker/customer friendly policies will go out the window.
Oh, absolutely. It's all but inevitable and we're not exactly spoiled for good options in our oligopoly-friendly country, but at least for the moment they're not Loblaws/Walmart.
As far as I can tell, Costco isn't the lesser of two evils, but rather the one non evil choice of the pair. Their profit margin is something like 2%, which is just what they get from membership fees. But this is what I recall from memory, and it's data from many years ago, so if anyone has evidence to the contrary, do share.
Now that you mention it, I seem to recall reading something similar a few years back. I still think they'll inevitably break bad though - all it will take is some board and/or leadership turnover. We can at least enjoy the ride (and cheap hotdogs) in the meantime.