Wal-Mart Cures Poverty

The initial article at TCS by Michael Strong gives the numbers, but I think that BizzyBlog’s conclusion is what needs to be emphasized:

If the choice is merely preventing starvation with private charity and foreign aid vs. economically uplifting commerce, I know which side I’m on. I wish the folks in Bentonville understood that their doomed-to-failure appeasement efforts and the implied recognition of the Chinese Communist Party could get in the way of the company’s powerful global poverty-fighting formula.