A&P flourished when people went downtown to shop. As new suburbs spread, A&P’s stores were old and distant. A&P filed for bankruptcy in 2015. By Nov. 25, 2016, its last stores had closed.
Last week, Kroger grocery chain’s lowered earnings forecast caused a 19 percent drop in share prices, which had already declined 12 percent in 2017. This was before Amazon announced that it is buying the Whole Foods grocery chain — more than 460 stores in 42 states, Canada and Britain — for $13.7 billion, which is approximately how much Amazon’s market capitalization increased after the Whole Foods announcement.
Disruption never restful
Whole Foods, like Kroger, had been experiencing difficulties from competitors and expanding consumer options. The Wall Street Journal reports: “Consumers are buying more of their groceries outside of traditional supermarkets. Online merchants, discounters and meal-kit delivery services are all grabbing market share.”
In the accelerated churning of today’s capitalism, changing tastes and expanding choices destroy some jobs and create others, with net gains in price and quality. But disruption is never restful, and America now faces a decision unique in its history: Is it tired — tired of the turmoil of creative destruction? If so, it had better be ready to do without creativity. And ready to stop being what it has always been: restless.
Americans just now are being plied with promises that the political class can, and is eager to, protect them from the need to make strenuous exertions to provide for themselves in an increasingly competitive world. If the nation really is ready to sag into a rocking chair, it can while away its days and ward off ennui by reading the poet Philip Larkin.
It seems, just now,
To be happening so very fast.
In his poem, “Going, Going,” Larkin explained why he wrote it: He was feeling “age, simply.” He was 49.
Soon America will be 241. It is too young to flinch from the frictions — and the more than compensating blessings — of a fast-unfolding future.
George F. Will is a columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group. Email: georgewill@washpost.com.