THE PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE OF HUMAN CATTLE.

I worked four years at Asda, putting myself through college. ‘Associated Dairies’ had a robust union back then, the General Municipal Boiler Makers Union saw to it that my Saturday was at time and a half and my Sunday was at double pay. As a student with no dependents it just about covered my costs. Sure I had to supplement my wage by flogging portraits and landscape paintings, but that was the entrepreneurial expectation gifted to me for growing up in Thatcher’s Britain. The legacy of the local butcher boys Peter and Fred Asquith, who co-founded the supermarket with Hindell’s Dairy Farmers to create Associated Dairies & Farm Stores Ltd in 1949, was something the Iron Lady would have been proud of: in 1965 Asda became a US style strip mall complete with mega car park and in 1999 the biggest retailer in the world acquired the supermarket, and they “joined the Walmart family”.

The term ‘family’ means something different to the owners of course, but the public still get sold the idea that this isn’t a multinational conglomerate. The ‘family’ in question is of course the Walton family, who Forbes report “are still the wealthiest family