Main Predatory Business Discussion

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Kalaong Since: Jan, 2001

Oct 27th 2013 at 9:43:33 AM •••

Preserving the Real Life folder.

Real Life

WalMart and other "big-box" stores are pretty much what inspired this trope, whether true or not. In fact, this page used to be called VoldeMart, a portmanteau of WalMart's name with that of Lord Voldemort.
In England and Europe this is basically taken as a fact, supermarkets in the UK have been caught demanding that farmers give them their crops basically for free and the entire milk industry runs at a loss because they don't get even a fraction of what supermarkets sell their products for. This kind of thing has led to recent events such as European police being hosed with milk by angry dairy farmers. Here is a video.
Car and tire companies were accused of this in the early 20th century, mostly due to the demise of the electric urban streetcars. Fear of people not buying their products basically encouraged one of the earliest examples of Predatory Business. They would buy urban streetcar companies, then liquidate them to eliminate the competition. Fines for such were proposed... but they were able to get them all down to a dollar. Each. (Part Predatory Business, part Screw the Rules, I Have Money!.) [1]
Companies developing genetically engineered plants such as Monsanto have come under fire and have been seen as this by local farmers, due to neighboring farms using seeds patented by such companies as these. Unfortunately, the patents are on self replicating products - meaning that if pollen from a patented plant blows over from a neighboring plot into yours and starts producing a certain patented genotype or trait... they CAN sue you. Even worse for "organic" farmers since they can not only be sued by Monsanto, but the unintentional hybridization with genetically modified crops renders their own crops non-"organic", driving them out of their niche market.
- A nasty side effect: the patented plants are more productive and profitable than unpatented crops, so unpatented seeds are being driven out of the market. Add in that Monsanto has been able to repeatedly RICO seed cleaners(machines used to prepare harvested seeds for storage and replanting) as "evidence of patent theft" and unpatented crops are in serious danger of going extinct. This looks like a very successful Take Over the World scheme.
  - On top of that, none of this may be purposeful - current patent laws are so obscenely complicated and stupid that if agricorps don't go above and beyond to defend biopatents, the government will cite Brand Name Takeover and revoke them, flushing billions in R&D down the toilet.
Australian retail giants Wesfarmers and Woolworths seem to be taking their cues from WalMart, as Hungry Beast explains here.
Here is a list of examples from recent history, presented by Cracked.
Several of Michael Moore's films deal with this phenomenon in the United States

MetaFour MOD Since: Jan, 2001

Oct 20th 2011 at 10:12:43 PM •••

Link to ykktw thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=efvtdj28v26ycguudkpsostb

TurdleEmperor Since: Jun, 2009

Sep 3rd 2010 at 12:58:27 PM •••

I Don't understand the title of this Trope. Vote to change?

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AmusedTroperGuy Since: Sep, 2010

Nov 26th 2010 at 3:55:46 PM •••

It's an Incredibly Lame Pun between the Mart (like Wal Mart) and Voldemort, the Big Bad from the Harry Potter series. Personally, I find it clever.

Edited by AmusedTroperGuy

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