My fellow Americans, we are murderers of a sort. We sit in the shambles of an almighty bloodbath you help create.
Years ago we killed the old Main Street with all its businesses. We shuttered its department store and hardware, its shoe and clothing stores and gift shops. We reduced Main Street to tattoo parlors, ear piercers, second-hand stores and vaping suppliers. We achieved this by abandoning Main Street. By shopping at malls.
Years before, we killed neighborhood grocers. We abandoned them. By shopping at supermarkets.
Today we kill malls and stand-alone retailers. We abandon them. By shopping online. We starve restaurants. The ones in and near malls. They depend upon us shopping at malls. But these days we have cut back our shopping at those malls.
Hey, life is simple. So is death. When we shop online we kill malls. We kill various retailers. By shopping online we have killed 15,000 stores and restaurants. Just since 2017! We have throttled the life out of 5000 so far this year. Experts predict we will exterminate another 75,000 stores in the next 5 years.
We are the Adolph Eichmanns of retail. Our victims include Radio Shack, Toys R Us, Mattress Firm, Bed Bath & Beyond, GNC, Payless ShoeSource, Victoria’s Secret, Family Dollar, Gap, Subway, Rite Aid, Target, Ikea, and many more.
Not that we should feel guilty. We are caught up in natural forces. They made us do it. We are sucked into a primordial gale. The gale is called Creative Destruction. Charles Darwin and Karl Marx brooded over it. Who woulda thunk?
These brilliant men and others described the phenomenon. Some believed destruction comes first. Destruction clears the way for creative forces to move into the relative vacuum. Others believed creativity comes first. Wielding its power, creativity destroys the old, the inefficient.
Marx cited capitalism as the villain. He figured the surging forces of capital undermined and destroyed what capital had created.
Schumpeter saw things differently. He applauded the powers of creativeness. He believed new ideas swept aside the old.
Darwin engaged in a similar debate about species, instead of economics. He claimed extinction of species – destruction – opens the door for new species to come forth. Others said it is the other way around. New species kill off the old.
In some ways this is nothing more than the ageless debate over whether the glass is half-full or half-empty.
Let us leave the intellectuals to argue over this. While we study reality. The reality is that our spending habits killed Main Street and neighborhood grocers. And we are doing a lethal job on malls these days. We are a destructive lot. We have seen the enemy and…well, you know the rest.
Don’t worry. We cannot hold this against us. No, no. We are powerless. Mere specks swirled about in a typhoon.
A further reality is that we don’t know what else hurtles toward our communities. Will the malls we created and today destroy leave us with derelict eyesores? Will refugee stores from those derelict malls return to Main Street? To move into the eyesores we created? Back when we shifted our spending to the malls?
Will big box retailers shrink their boxes? Some already have. Target is making its stores smaller. So is Ikea. Sears now builds stores one-tenth the size of their old ones.
If struggling mall retailers don’t return to Main Street will Main Street collapse further? Stay tuned.
How far along are we with this mess? Today about 16 percent of our buying is online. Guys who study this tell us it will be 25 percent within five years. If 16 percent has caused this much havoc, what destruction will 25 or 30 or 40 percent bring about?
Amidst this turmoil, let us comfort ourselves. Let us assure each other that some retail buying will never, ever change. We will always have good ol’ Starbucks and McDonalds.
Excuse me for a second. I am expecting a drone delivery of…you guessed it. With frothy milk. And super-size fries.
From Tom…as in Morgan.
Find Tom on Facebook. You can write to Tom at tomasinmorgan@yahoo.com.