Creative Destruction

In a post criticizing Walmart (via MR), Kathy G says:

To get a sense of what that means, consider, as Nelson Lichtenstein points out this invaluable book, that at the height of its power back in the 1950s, General Motors, then America’s largest corporation, was responsible for about 2% of the GDP. And just as General Motors, along with the other Big Three auto-makers, set the standard for one model of employment — the so-called “Treaty of Detroit,” which secured for workers collective bargaining rights, a middle-class wage, and extensive health, unemployment, pension, and paid leave benefits — well, Wal-Mart has pioneered a rather different paradigm for labor relations.

Yeah. GM and the Detroit auto industry are just a really good model to follow. They’re creating jobs left and right these days!