The complaint that if people really valued small independent shops that they would use them seems to ignore the fact that the way that the concept of "choice" works is determined by the manner in which public policy works. Not least in deferring control over it to powerful global supermarket chains.The reality that needs to be dealt with is that in an atomised society based on car use, supermarkets are going to get the bulk of trade. Take Tamworth in England. The small centre of this old market town consists of shoe shops, travel agents, down marker supermarkets, the Co-Op, personnel agencies etc.
Just outside near the by-pass that runs through the expanded town and links the legoland estates with one another are ASDA Walmart, Sainsbury's, Burger King, McDonalds Drive Thru, Matalan and all those warehouse style retain chains precision placed for the car owner as in the USA.
The old shops have died out. Truckle's Cheese Shop has gone. a notice saying 'Use or Lose' was up there in the 1990s. The sign and shop are gone. The old pubs with their historical names have gone. The poor frequent noisy chain retail pubs such as the Wetherspoon's pubs with their pubby affectation have replaced many of them.
These bleak warehouses of booze with their feeble attempt to recreate what pubs once were are pub re-enactment chains. Replete with sepia photos of local history and glossy magazines telling the punters why there beer is cheap and what offers are on in future mediocre substitutes for the old pubs.
Friday nights are noisy and full of violence waiting to break out and frequented by roving police vans waiting for trouble and omnipresent CCTV cameras. The reality of what was once a lovely market town is now a floodlight wasteland and one that has got worse as the out of town retail park has gutted the centre.
The fact is that a large number of people use supermarkets because they are convenient and often cheaper than small shops. The design of whole towns since the 1980s and the Great Car economy has encouraged these patterns of consumption.
Small shops are there for those who live within walking distance. The car has killed that off and contributed to a society with growing problems with boredom and obesity. In London, ironically, such small shops can continue as those who live there find the car more difficult and time consuming due to the traffic.
Hence it is easier to get back after work and go to the local grocer, usually run by immigrants or the families of immigrants who are willing to work hard to make money by servicing local needs. Even then supermarkets open up "Local" branches will self service machines.
Perhaps people favour the alienation of modern life. The fact it is possible to get Tesco to come to the door to drop off food. To order most things online and never have to bother with social interaction other than via the Internet. After all, the important human requirements can be ministered to through it.
The old small shop was not just a place where things were bought but at the heart of a community, a people where people met and talked. All of that has gone. Modern consumerists want freedom, autonomy, control and choice. A cold, impersonal world. Yet one freer to spend less time thinking about anthing other than the consumer goods "I" want.
Yet it is most likely this is what people want. accepting this is hard but the Internet will replace what were considered normal human interactions. Even "love" is now part of the supermarket economy through Dating Sites where autonomous consumers precision select partners from the list of personality profiles.
Britain is one colossal supermarket and those who do not like it need to get in step with the reality that they have willingly colluded in. And accept responsibility for the torpor that ensues, one enlivened only by football kitsch, the craving for violence and sensation.
Yet the over dependence on the car is one that means all Western nations depend on oil supplied from places like Iraq as a necessity, despite the hypocrisy over criticising Blair for trying to secure the long term viability of this model of consumerism.
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
Leo Tolstoy
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