The better media narrative is how horrible Walmart is, but people vote with their wallets. Consumers have LOVED Walmart and benefitted from its creation.
This doesn't follow, because, among other reasons, it's a collective action problem. If Walmart has the lowest prices, consumers are individually incentivized to shop there -- even if the collective result of all those consumers shopping there is that small businesses close and some of those very same consumers lose their jobs, or competition is lessened (which also ultimately harms consumers), or [insert other incredibly well-documented bad consequence of Walmart sucking up all the business in a community]. Plus, lots of people don't have the privilege of "voting with their wallets"; their income is too low to make those kinds of choices. And for those who can choose, most people are not equipped to connect their choice to shop at Walmart to long-term consequences for them and/or their communities -- the connections are simply too invisible, or people aren't paying attention, or whatever. The fact that people have chosen to shop at Walmart, for perfectly rational reasons, doesn't mean they've ultimately benefited from it on average. (To be clear: maybe they have! I would be surprised, but my point is just that the argument doesn't follow.)
As I read your argument, you're saying that Americans have benefited from big business because consumers typically pay less for products. Okay, sure. But what are the underlying costs of those cheaper prices? That's what I'm getting at. Have all these big businesses actually resulted in better outcomes (in wages, health, happiness, life outcomes, what have you) for the average American? What's happening to competition and how does that affect prices in the long run? How are communities affected in less tangible ways (mental health, social ties, etc.) when Walmart (well, now...Amazon) takes over and puts the little guy out of business?
You originally said:
The fact that these CEO pay practices have arguably resulted in the biggest and best companies being in the USA has almost surely benefitted Americans more than $20-$30 per person.
Whether people are paying less for stuff is undoubtedly part of that. But it's only part of the equation.
In terms of Job creator vs Job shifter, I think to be honest most bigger/better companies typically destroy jobs. This is disruptive in the short term, but in the long term this is a good thing. This has been the story of progress forever. Its that whole thing that I don't want to type out about tilling the field vs using a tractor.
Well, look, I'm no economist, so maybe I'm talking out of my ass. But I'm personally not sure that the transition from less-evolved technology to more-evolved technology is super comparable, in terms of long-term societal benefits, to a transition from lots of jobs at lots of places to almost as many jobs at one place (or, okay, a few places). I hear you on "they're both an increase in efficiency," but the latter involves a concentration of power (over wages, working conditions, etc.), which carries all sorts of other issues.* (All the current reporting on working conditions at Amazon--which used to be articles about working conditions at Walmart--doesn't come out of nowhere.) Is it good for society, because it's more efficient, when Amazon sucks up all the jobs in a community (including, in some places, the jobs that used to be at Walmart)? I mean, to get back to Walmart, they've been ubiquitous for decades now--certainly long enough to understand at least some of the long-term consequences. Are the communities where Main St. slowly shuttered after Walmart came in better off now, on the whole?
*I might feel differently about this if America actually had robust employment protections and/or widespread unionization, and the jobs at these big businesses were paying living wages and providing strong benefits--in short, giving people great lives. As I'm sure you can tell, from all available information, I personally don't think that's what's happening.
