Success Quote by Lee Scott

Scott is trying to reframe a public fight about Walmart from an argument the company can lose (wages) into one it can dismiss as prejudice (community rejection). The line sounds almost conciliatory - "that's your choice" - but it functions like a rhetorical trap: if towns oppose Walmart, he suggests, they should admit the real motive isn’t worker pay but some less respectable impulse, a kind of cultural snobbery or protectionism. It’s a neat inversion. Instead of Walmart defending its labor model, critics are put on defense for their motives.

The phrasing matters. "Through our ads and through our discussions" signals a coordinated persuasion campaign, not a conversation. This is corporate narrative-setting: define the frame early, repeat it across channels, make the opposition’s argument feel off-topic. "Don’t say it’s because of wages" does double work - it preemptively denies the legitimacy of wage-based critique and implies that wage talk is a smokescreen deployed by activists, unions, or local competitors.

The context is the early-2000s era when Walmart’s expansion met rising backlash over low pay, benefits, and the hollowing-out of Main Street retail. Scott’s intent isn’t to prove wages are fair; it’s to make wages irrelevant to the decision. If the fight becomes "Do you want us?" rather than "Do workers earn enough?", Walmart can win by sheer inevitability and convenience politics. The subtext: resistance is emotional, not economic; therefore the company’s model doesn’t need to change, only the public’s perception does.