According to this editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal, Wal-Mart’s CEO, in one of the silliest PR moves in history, called for an increase in the minimum wage. The editorial speculates that the hidden reason for this might be a desire to make it more difficult for small retailers to compete, since they (the beloved “Mom and Pop” stores that left-wing activists profess to care about, but happily strangle with taxes and regulations) often pay at or close to the minimum wage. Maybe, but I suspect not. The few sales that might be gained if a few M&P stores closed are hardly worth factoring into the decision.

Rather, I think what we have here is a CEO who is jittery about all the bad publicity his company gets from Big Labor and its allies, so he says something calculated to buy off the whiners. Guess what — it won’t work. Wal-Mart can no more buy peace with its enemies than GOP politicians can buy peace with union opponents just by voting the way the union bosses want on occasion.

Notice one important thing here. The CEO of a firm that benefits enormously from free trade is content to advocate a statist measure that will have a deleterious effect on many small firms, subjecting them to further governmental meddling, just so he can posture as a compassionate businessman. That’s the worst thing about most American businessmen these days — they are not principled defenders of economic liberty.