Sam Walton was devoted, first and foremost, to his employees. (That's the cover of his autobiography at right.)

He was famous for driving around the country, arriving unannounced at stores, leading employees in cheers. It was almost Japanese.

People forget today, but Wal-Mart salaries in its early days represented big raises for rural people who otherwise faced lives of poverty, absent the small luxuries city folk took for granted. Thanks to Sam Walton, Wal-Mart employees could afford to shop at Wal-Mart. He transformed America from a land of rich city-poor country to one of middle class uniformity, and if you once lived on the poorer side of that divide it made him a great man.

Henry Ford was the same way. His River Rouge plant didn't just turn out a low-cost car (the Model T) . It turned out well-paid workers who could buy those cars. Ford, too, revolutionized America, making this a nation on-the-move.

My point today is that, in both cases, there were side-effects, which demanded renewal and change. And the refusal to change just delayed these crises -- it didn't prevent them.

Let's start with Ford first, since the story's been long-told. (This picture is from the collection of the University of Wisconsin.)

Ford's obsession was low costs. When GM brought cars high-style, sales faded. Ford made changes to his cars grudgingly, and refused to change his low-cost obsession.

There were two results for the company. Ford, a working man's hero in his youth, became anathema to workers in his old age. The violent strikes that finally unionized the company nearly destroyed it. Ford was also reluctant to bring in educated, scientific managers. It was left to grandson Henry Ford II ("Hank the Deuce") to re-invent the company in the 1940s and 1950s, under college-educated leaders like Robert McNamara.

There were also negative results for the country. Pollution, sprawl, the automotive obsession, the oil crisis -- all these resulted from America refusing to stray from the path the Ford company pioneered back in the 1910s. All our current crises are direct results of that. When assumptions aren't questioned, and sometimes overthrown, you wind up in the ditch.

So we come to Wal-Mart.

The story is the same except for one thing. Sam Walton is dead. Don't blame him for any of this. He turned many of his loyal employees into multi-millionaires. He lived frugally, and never went beyond himself. Mr. Sam didn't see what became of his company, and we'll never really know what he would have thought of it, or done about it.

It's Walton's family and corporate heirs who have screwed the pooch, by carrying out his low-cost strategy until it has become damaging, both to the company and to the country.

Today's Wal-Mart families are drags on the rest of us. With over half lacking health insurance, they are a direct drain on your tax dollars, and an indirect drain in many ways. People without health insurance don't get preventive care. They get sicker, and cost more money to cure. They die younger. Their children are less-likely to gain the middle-class lifestyle Sam Walton taught their parents could be theirs with hard work.

Walton's heirs have become the right-wing's bankers, donating enormous sums to Republican candidates and causes, just as Henry Ford did in his old age. They have become the scourge of union organizers, just like Ford. They have become, in effect, caricatures of Mr. Walton, as Ford became a caricature of himself.

This storyis typical of today's Wal-Mart and you can find similar outrages nearly every day. Wal-Mart, which once grew the rural environment, now engages in its destruction, forcing out small producers, exporting American jobs to China. Wal-Mart, which once stood up for the interests of the Little Guy, is now a Big Bully.

I can't tell you how this story ends. I only know that it will. The size of the crash, the damage to the company, and to the country - these are unknown.

But no trend lasts forever.

Even the best strategy can, unless constantly re-examined, become a caricature of itself. The Ford company nearly died. What will happen to the Walton company?