The Target Corporation defines itself in opposition to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other retailers. At Target, shoppers see large banners encouraging recycling, and employee areas feature posters promoting racial equality and gay rights.

Target essentially presents itself as a warmer and more ethical alternative to Wal-Mart. However, beneath its progressive veneer, Target is just as exploitative and amoral as its competitors.

At Target, low prices are made possible by poor working conditions. New employees are paid marginally more than the legally prescribed minimum, leaving workers in most states with less than a living wage. Some Target employees must supplement their income with food stamps in order to survive. Meanwhile, Target’s upper management absorbs enormous amounts of money, with CEO Gregg W. Steinhafel bringing in well over $13 million per year.

Target employees are effectively forbidden to organize in order to improve their conditions. New workers are subjected to elaborate propaganda videos detailing the supposed awful consequences of unionization. In instances in which serious attempts at organization were mounted, employees have been threatened with dismissal should their attempt to organize succeed.

There are 1,750 Target stores in the U.S., and none of them are unionized.

However, Target’s cashiers and cart attendants enjoy positively luxurious working conditions compared with the people who produce Target’s merchandise. Much of Target’s manufacturing is farmed out to places like China and Cambodia, where a worker can be bought for less than $1 an hour and child labor laws are laxly applied. One Jordanian Target supplier came to international attention earlier this year when female workers reported being regularly raped and tortured by their employers.

Target’s domestic political policies also reflect a willingness to profit from human suffering. The company has become the largest campaign contributor to Tea Party darling U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, who, among other things, believes that Darwinian evolution is a hoax and that teachers use “The Lion King” as gay propaganda. Most pertinently, Bachmann’s solution to the current economic depression is the abolishment of the minimum wage, something which would give Target a greater opportunity to squeeze profit out of its workers.

In 2010, Target donated $150,000 to a fund for Minnesotan gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer. Like Bachmann, Emmer supported aggressively anti-labor legislation, including the elimination of the minimum wage in Minnesota.

Target has capitalized greatly on its image as the underdog to Wal-Mart’s evil empire, but in reality, Target and Wal-Mart are identical in their total devotion to profit by any means necessary. Shop at Target if you choose, but don’t fool yourself into thinking that you’re participating in anything positive.