I think the herding principle has a lot to do with the protests against Wal-Mart. When people want to express a collective mood, they want to share in it. So generally, rallies, and protest marches and that sort of thing are a good way for people to collectively express that sort of that mood. And of course they reinforce each other when they get in a crowd situation. People have manipulated crowd situations forever, from Alexander the Great to Bill Clinton. So it’s a good way, if you want to make political progress in some way, to go about it. But again, these things don’t last very long. They last a year of so, then something else comes by, flips in front of the collective consciousness and they’ll focus their emotions on something else.
So if there’s any message to the people who work hard to keep Wal-Mart going, and the shopper coming in, it is “this too shall pass.”
