Comment by deaux

I don't see why Walmart wouldn't get this big even without centralized banking, bailouts, and hard money (say gold convertibility), thanks to economies of scale. In the late 1800s you had Standard Oil. That didn't need any of those things to arise.

Of course the things you mentioned further accelerate walmartization. But that's the chicken and the egg. The government does bailouts and prints cheap money because the corporations do exactly what I said: the winners (who arise naturally thanks to economies of scale) will put their resources into gaining these things.