Sure, you're absolutely right, and I like your labelling of Wal-Mart as 'symptom'. Quite.
I'd much rather that those employed in the big exploitative chains (often on zero hours contracts) had more rewarding (in every sense) employment. But, yes, that depends on dealing with the underlying disease.
Getting there from here, however, may include singling out some companies for particular disapprobation or boycott because of certain practices. I don't necessarily believe the good life can be achieved by the slow crawl of incremental change. OK, so Barclays disinvested in Apartheid South Africa eventually, but there was still a long way to go before I was going to bank there. Similarly, if Nestles stop their unethical marketing of baby milk (the reason I have boycotted them for nearly thirty years now), there's still the matter of how they've treated the Rowntree workers in York (some of ehom I knew personally), and their inappropriate extraction of water, depriving underdeveloped communities.
I am aware that Nestle doesn't seem to have suffered too much from the loss of my business - but just think how big their profits would be if they'd had me on board! 😀
Nestle aren't the only company acting unethically in that area. But they are the worst. If Nestle gets out of the game, the others should know damn well we're coming after them.
Other boycotts are more successful. Although there are a lot of High Street chains which use the product of sweatshop labour, the death toll at the recent factory fire prompted a campaign to get them to sign up to better working conditions. And it worked by picking them off one at a time. Now pretty much every clothes retailer on a typical UK High Street will be signed up.
Even then, though - that won't get us to the Promised Land. It'll just be the sharpest edges worn off the capitalist system. And the survival of capitalism depends on not quite pissing off enough people to enough of an extent for them to demand change, whether that means keeping people ignorant, or loudly promoting your 'green' credentials (without getting too much into the details).
Change is a difficult and unsettling process, and people shy away from it into the imagined comfort of their existing pain.
Edit: X-posted with zauhar, with whom I would agree.
