"Unlike the first corporations that created new sectors by means of some invention (e.g. Edison with the light bulb, Microsoft with its Windows software, Sony with the Walkman, or Apple with the iPod/iPhone/iTunes package), or other companies that focused on building a particular brand (e.g. Coca-Cola or Marlboro), Wal-Mart did something no one had ever thought of before. It packaged a new Ideology of Cheapness into a brand that was meant to appeal to the financially stressed American working and lower-middle classes. In conjunction with its fierce proscription of trade unions, it became a bulwark of keeping prices low and extending to its long suffering working-class customers a sense of satisfaction for having shared in the exploitation of the (mostly foreign) producers of the goods in their shopping basket."
— Yanis Varoufakis, The Global Minotaur: An Interview with Yanis Varoufakis (via pieceinthepuzzlehumanity)
