The contradictions are, as Jean and John Comaroff (2000) point out, mutually reinforcing: the neoliberal assault on economic and social security (of which Walmart is a key agent) breeds new forms of social conservatism and reactionary politics as well as new forms of religiosity and fatalism. While “servant leadership” may seem like just one more example of Walmart’s idiosyncratic and disingenuous corporate culture, it is an intimate counterpoint to a managerial strategy that effectively transforms local store managers, as well as more senior company officials, into specialized “risk managers” – not merely suited bureaucratic automatons but finely honed, “naturally” selected (via the “market”) creative subjects who are able to “plug in” to Walmart’s logistical mainframe and work everywhere throughout the corporation to cut costs and maximize efficiency (Atkinson 2003; Wallgum 2007). As Rosen (2006) documents, managers at Walmart are themselves governed by stress, forced to meet ever-leaner criteria, constantly under both digital and cultural surveillance to ensure they never cease to cut waste, improve inefficiency and respond to local markets. Managers who cannot improve same-store sales year-overyear are fired, demoted or publicly shamed.

Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, loc. 290