QotD: Wal-Mart

[W]ealth is not the same as power. In 2000, Wal-Mart might have been richer than Peru, but set beside the government of even that dysfunctional country, it looked pretty feeble. Wal-Mart had no powers of coercion: it could not tax, raise armies, or imprison people. In each of the countries where it operation, it had to bow down to local governments. Previous giants such as ITT or the East India Company could muster real political power; Wal-Mart was simply rather good at retailing.

John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea, 2003.