Whole Foods CEO John Mackey attracted quite a bit of ire a few months back when he wrote an editorial for the Wall Street Journal in which he advocated that Obama and the congress consider an approach to health care reform similar to the health benefits which Whole Foods provides its employees (centered around high deductible coverage and health savings accounts.) Within days, several progressive sites were calling for boycotts of Whole Foods, seeing Mackey as giving aid to anti-Obama forces. Mackey himself is somewhat bemused by the firestorm his editorial caused.
“President Obama called for constructive suggestions for health-care reform,” he explains. “I took him at his word.” Mr. Mackey continues: “It just seems to me there are some fundamental reforms that we’ve adopted at Whole Foods that would make health care much more affordable for the uninsured.”
Though he’s not gunning to cause any more controversies, Mackey has an interesting weekend interview in the Journal where he talks, among other things, about his philosophy regarding capitalism and business, and how it’s changed over the years since he founded Whole Foods with $45,000 in friends and family-raised seed funding in 1978.
“Before I started my business, my political philosophy was that business is evil and government is good. I think I just breathed it in with the culture. Businesses, they’re selfish because they’re trying to make money.”
At age 25, John Mackey was mugged by reality. “Once you start meeting a payroll you have a little different attitude about those things.” This insight explains why he thinks it’s a shame that so few elected officials have ever run a business. “Most are lawyers,” he says, which is why Washington treats companies like cash dispensers.Mr. Mackey’s latest crusade involves traveling to college campuses across the country, trying to persuade young people that business, profits and capitalism aren’t forces of evil. He calls his concept “conscious capitalism.”
What is that? “It means that business has the potential to have a deeper purpose. I mean, Whole Foods has a deeper purpose,” he says, now sounding very much like a philosopher. “Most of the companies I most admire in the world I think have a deeper purpose.” He continues, “I’ve met a lot of successful entrepreneurs. They all started their businesses not to maximize shareholder value or money but because they were pursuing a dream.”
Mr. Mackey tells me he is trying to save capitalism: “I think that business has a noble purpose. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with making money. It’s one of the important things that business contributes to society. But it’s not the sole reason that businesses exist.”
What does he mean by a “noble purpose”? “It means that just like every other profession, business serves society. They produce goods and services that make people’s lives better. Doctors heal the sick. Teachers educate people. Architects design buildings. Lawyers promote justice. Whole Foods puts food on people’s tables and we improve people’s health.”
Then he adds: “And we provide jobs. And we provide capital through profits that spur improvements in the world. And we’re good citizens in our communities, and we take our citizenship very seriously at Whole Foods.”
I ask Mr. Mackey why he doesn’t collect a paycheck. “I’m an owner. I have the exact same motivation any shareholder would have in the Whole Foods Market because I’m not drawing a salary from the company. How much money does anybody need?” More to the point, he says, “If the business prospers, I prosper. If the business struggles, I struggle. It’s good for morale.” He hastens to add that “I’m not saying anybody else should do what I do.”
Well, that’s not exactly true. Mr. Mackey has been vocal in his opposition to recent CEO salaries. “I do think that it’s the responsibility of the leadership of an organization to constrain itself for the good of the organization. If you look at the history of business in America, CEOs used to have much more constraint in compensation and it’s gone up tremendously in the last 30 years.”
emphasis added
Working in an area of business (pricing) which management traditionally turns to when trying to eke more revenues or profits out of a business that is not doing as well as they’d like, the bolded point is something of which I’m particularly aware. Tools such as pricing can be used to optimize a business, but (contrary to the belief of some executives) you cannot make people want something they don’t want simply by pricing it right — or indeed by any of the other “marketing magic” available in business’s bag of tricks. At the end of the day, the way to have a sustainable, successful business is to provide people with something they need or want. While making a profit in a business is a primary reason for its existence (just our for any working person their paycheck is a primary reason why they show up) the only way to make profits achievable is to provide something that others value. And while it’s possible to do this while caring only about the profits (or the paycheck) you’re generally going to be most successful at it if what you really care about is providing that service profits are simply the way you measure your success.
When businesses (or individuals) start thinking about how to make profits without thinking about how to provide people with something they will actually value, they usually are undercutting their ability to do either in the long term.
I think the problem here is in the word “value” which is inherently subjective. Notice that MacKay never uses it. The noble purpose he aspires to is much more objective: healthy food, socially responsible trade, biodiversity, etc.
I am sure walmart sells many good that people “value” but do they aspire to a noble purpose in the selling of those goods? They might say so because they are offering rock bottom prices which do help the family budget. But is there a trade-off?
Other than the fact that they have become China-Mart, Wal-Mart is a very helpful company. They are very, very beneficial to the poor. They hire people with low skills and also sell necessary goods at prices the poor can afford. Is that their mission? I don’t know. Does it really matter? In the temporal sense, no – they provide the benefit anyway, wether for virtue or greed.
The problem with modern American quasi-corpratist capitalism is that it is not truly free-market capitalism, which is the only naturally occuring economic system. Management is usually made up of bean-counters who have no closeness to the business’ purpose just the bottom-line and shareholders are more often investment companies that have the same bottom-line orientation. If individuals own shares they are often treating the market of stocks as a gambler’s paradise rather than a place where one can easily transfer titles of ownership in a business they care about.
Along with the easy money and manipulation of the Fed with its control of the banks and the money supply we do not have a free economic system that truly rewards entrepreneurs with a vision. We need to get back to that. Will the market always reward people with vision? No and it shouldn’t.
The market, free from government intervention, is ultimately responsible to the end consumer. Consumer’s appetites dictate who succeeds and who fails. If people are thrifty, financially literate and moral the market will reward business that meets those standards. Unfortunately, those examples are dwindling in the modern controlled American and global economy.
I never really liked Mackey’s stores becuase they are full of crunchy, granola eating people and tend to epitomize the neo-hippie trends; however, in light of his philosophy I think I may frequent the stores more, although they are quite expensive.
Odd how the same people shop at Whole Foods and Starbucks, yet one company is pro-free market and truly responsible, the other is anti-capitalist, hypocritical and full of self-absorbed and condesending green (watermellon) ‘charity’.
AK,
“The problem with modern American quasi-corpratist capitalism is that it is not truly free-market capitalism, which is the only naturally occuring economic system.”
Markets evolved over time. The first societies were in fact communal. I’m not saying that this means we must be communal, but that different stages of technological development give rise to different economic systems. For most of human history the vast majority of the people did not participate in markets at all. They produced what they needed to live. For most of civilized history participation in markets was secondary to production for immediate consumption. Only in the last 400 years or so has production specifically for exchange become the predominant economic system.
“If people are thrifty, financially literate and moral the market will reward business that meets those standards.”
The problem with this is that it is almost as utopian as socialism. Any system can work if people are moral; the problem is that many people choose not to be, and ruin any system that they participate in.
The Church has always recognized the right and duty of the state and the people to regulate the economy to serve the common good. The state is not perfectible, and markets are not perfectible, because man as such is not perfectible; as the teaching of the Church makes clear, however, ALL of these institutions are required to serve the common good.
That means that leftists are wrong to categorically dismiss the market and rail against it as inherently immoral; and it also means that rightists are wrong when they categorically reject a meaningful role for the state and the public sector in meeting people’s needs. History has indeed shown that both are necessary, and that one without the other has the potential to lead to great injustice and civil disorder.
JH,
“Markets evolved over time. The first societies were in fact communal. I’m not saying that this means we must be communal, but that different stages of technological development give rise to different economic systems.”
Joe, I agree with your assessment, we were originally communal because we were in survival mode. I was referring to civilization. Men living in civilized society and not in communal tribes. In stating that free-market capitalism is the only NATURAL economic system I am making a statement of what freely acting men will do: engage in mutually beneficial voluntary exchange. The only technology needed for that is money, a medium of exchange. Even if production is nothing more than growing crops or raising cattle and even if the medium of exchange is trading crops for cattle. That is the essence of free market capitalism. Without interference of any sort, that is what rational humans will do.
“For most of human history the vast majority of the people did not participate in markets at all. They produced what they needed to live. For most of civilized history participation in markets was secondary to production for immediate consumption. Only in the last 400 years or so has production specifically for exchange become the predominant economic system.”
People did exchange in markets. The market has been the center of the city and the principle reason for travel for all of human history. In the last several hundred years we have simply applied better transportation, advanced productive capacity and more fluid money. The basic exchanges are still the same. Crops for cattle or gold for ploughs or dollars for computers – it is all basically the same.
“The problem with this is that it is almost as utopian as socialism. Any system can work if people are moral; the problem is that many people choose not to be, and ruin any system that they participate in.”
Not really, by moral I was referring to the aggregate and not necessarily the individual actors. If the principles, traditions and customs of a society are basically moral then the institutions will be basically moral despite the large quantity of sinners and the smaller quantity of deliberate sinners. In any event, a free market liberates human creativity and innovation and allows methods and means for checking and punishing the immoral actors. All government methods for checking bad behavior developed in a free market first, meaning the creativity of some individual devised the method which is used by government. Governments are inherently administrative and not creative.
“The Church has always recognized the right and duty of the state and the people to regulate the economy to serve the common good. The state is not perfectible, and markets are not perfectible, because man as such is not perfectible; as the teaching of the Church makes clear, however, ALL of these institutions are required to serve the common good.”
I hope I did not give the impression that I am against this sentiment. When individuals actors who assign certain duties to government and leave most to the natural market the most social benefit is realized. None are perfectible, only utopians believe that, yet we are to seek something MORE PERFECT. We are to journey as individuals and in the aggregate toward perfection knowing it is like the horizon. We can see it, we can move toward it, but we will never reach it.
“That means that leftists are wrong to categorically dismiss the market and rail against it as inherently immoral; and it also means that rightists are wrong when they categorically reject a meaningful role for the state and the public sector in meeting people’s needs.
Those are difficult words. What is a leftist? What is a rightist? As I understand it we have assigned the LEFT to those who advocate for absolutism and the RIGHT to those who advocate anarchy. If that is correct, then you are correct, neither option works with fallen man. I don’t subscribe to either idea, no rational person can. As with everything save for Love of Christ, balance is what is required.
“History has indeed shown that both are necessary, and that one without the other has the potential to lead to great injustice and civil disorder.”
I don’t think we are disputing if both are necessary, I think we are disputing the point of balance. In fact it isn’t a duality, it is inherently trinitarian.
We need to devise an order that assigns proper roles and the balanced amount of power to three spheres:
Church
State
Free Man (the market)
Church first because the moral order belongs to the moral authority. For us that would be The Church, for others, well, they’re confused. Nevertheless, there are some basic commonalities that are true no matter what ‘denomination’ one may belong too, even pagans, atheists and followers of false religions. The historic commonality is Christian morality. Heretical Christians, non-Christians and Catholic Christians all benefit from Christian morality as taught by Mother Church. This country was founded on these principles, despite the fact that the Protestants refused to attribute the teachings to the Catholic Church.
I think it was Patrick Henry who stated, “It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
State is second in the sense that men in the aggregate have given consent and certain duties from their own sovereignty to government. Limited duties, with a specific and narrow scope. Primarily to protect LIFE, LIBERTY, PROPERTY and FREEDOM OF WORSHIP. If government is limited to the protection of the aforementioned, not the regulation, not the promotion, not the management but simply PROTECTING, then that government is legitimate, licit and as moral as humanly possible. Prosecuting murder, especially of the pre-born and waging just war are designed to protect life. Liberty and property are protected by ensuring that the market is not coerced by anyone. Freedom of religion is obvious.
If government is limited to those activities and respects subsidiarity (federalism) then men are free to act within the confines of good, informed conscience. Those who do not, face punishment by both the market and the government.
All three orders are necessary, integrated and need to be balanced and coordinated appropriately. That will never happen, but it is not for us to make it happen. Our duty is to seek the more perfect integration, coordination and balance of Church, State and Free Man. The efficacy is the work of God.
AK,
I agree with a lot of what you say, but I reject the strict limitations you think ought to be imposed on government.
When I talk about not rejecting the state or markets, I am talking about the economy as well as everything else. Let me be more clear: the Church has not only supported, but insisted on, state intervention in the market when it becomes apparent that the latter cannot meet the needs of people, provide them with that which is their right as human beings with with dignity, to preserve social order, etc.
In a modern technologically advanced society, what we cannot have is unaccountable, concentrated economic power, whether it is an outcome of markets or government decrees.
Joe,
I think we agree on most things and I know we agree in the macro-cosmic sense. I think we are finding babelized disagreement in the micro-comsic sense.
The reason for strict limitiations on the government is NOT becuase government is BAD. Authority is a good. Governmnet must be restricted because it is SANCTIONED FORCE. That is a devasting power. Used morally it is a benefit; however, if that power is used immorally, even for ‘good’ intentions, it is calamity. Governments, all kinds, are run by sinful, fallen humans. Without restraint the monopoly of power will typically attract the greedy, ambitious and worse. That means the sanctioned force of government can be in the hands of humans cooperating, willfully or negligently, with Satan. Checking government is not an indictment on government, it is an indictment on man.
Furthermore, the Church is NOT infallible in economic matters. I respect and agree with Church teaching on the moral intent of man’s economic activity. The problem is that what the Church has insisted needs regulation is NOT the market of freely acting humans it is the very intervention of humans acting with force of government. We have to keep in mind that our sins are ever present wheter we are a businessman or a government regulator, neither is infallible and neither is exepmpt from corruption. The difference is the businessman has to operate with numerous other actors some as corrupt as he and others far less so. The government regulator has COERCIVE POWER and there is no check on his corruption becuase the government is a monopoly.
The only market of government exists internationally and one can argue that in the last hundred years or so, we have established a global government monopoly apparatus so government monopoly has no competition. That is the problem.
All that power concentrated in a few hands WILL invariably lead to that power being in the hands of corrput and evil men. Even a good king cannot be sure that his offspring will have a good rule. Usually for monarchs and inheritors of wealth, by the third generation it is all squandered.
Limiting and checking the power of government is what keeps evil men in check and allows the vurtuous to benefit the most in need.
Markets cannot create conentrated power. Only FORCE can do that. Governments role is to keep force OUT of the market so that the power is always with the lowest commong denomentator: The end user, the consumer.
I believe we could have a clearer discussion of the problems were we to give up believing that the U.S. of A. is basically a moral country. I have, for example, just finished reading George Archibald’s JOURNALISM IS WAR. He recounts his various investigations into the vile shenanigans in the cesspool of Washington in the past two decades.
It is distressing to realize that all our suspicions of politicians and union leaders and CEOs and the Catholic clergy are not without foundation. We are forever hoping that somehow our politicians will not infected by the poisonous miasma that is Washington [sad that George’s glorious name should stand for base corruption].
Two classic examples were the town hall meetings in which one Representative said that he would listen only to people from his district and was told that the participants were people from his district.
In another the Representative proclaimed that it was his town hall meeting and he would set the rules.
The sadness arises from the fact that these people have been blinded by the Washington miasma. They come from relatively simple backgrounds. They have not discovered the vaccine against the halls of power.
Gabriel,
“I believe we could have a clearer discussion of the problems were we to give up believing that the U.S. of A. is basically a moral country.”
Words are tricky things. They are inadequate for communicating, but the best we have available.
The US of A IS a moral country in the sense that the principles she was founded upon are moral. She is also moral in the sense that within the context of her history, with all her blemishes and horrors, she is the most consistently moral country.
The bulk of her people seek virtue, imperfectly, and in comparison to the peoples of Christendom, with less efficacy. Perhaps we are struggling for virtue in a world with Satan on the loose.
Our culture is certainly NOT moral and we do have to take responsibility for that but loss of our culture does not make all of us immoral. Was anyone moral in Sodom and Gomorrah? Moral people, or at least people seeking to be moral, may be immersed in a culture that is immoral. Jesus dined with sinners and publicans. Perhaps we are here to reclaim the USA for her King.
Our political class is overwhelmingly immoral. Thieves, usurers, liars, perverts openly displaying their homosexual proclivities, adulterers, megalomaniacs, etc. are in more abundance than moral men. This is the reason government is supposed to be BOUND with the chains of the Constitution.
Our biggest problem is our institutional desire to evict God from public intercourse and governance. We CANNOT remain moral if we demand that he leave us alone. Without Him we are certainly immoral. The work of the enemy seems to be succeeding becuase we keep diminishing God’s role in our public lives, but this need not be so. The first amendment secures our given right to worship the God of Christ freely. We need to make a courageous, respectful and civil PROTEST against the removal of God from our public lives and our governments.
For the LORD did not give us a Spirit of timidity.
We need to stop being timid, cowed by political correctness and deference for the sensibilities of men. We need to walk boldly into the fire proclaiming our King. Otherwise we are just spectators to the demise of a once great nation. Silence is consent.
Pray the Rosary with your brothers and sisters on the corner of your street, in front of the city hall, in the centers of commerce. Proclaim the King and see how many moral people will join you. Then tell us if this is still a moral country. I think she is. I beleive she is. I hope she is. The USA is consecrated to our Blessed Mother. Respect your mother and ask her for the graces to set this moral country back on the path to Heaven and away from the abyss.
I’ll join you.
American Knight:
What you write seems to me to be wish-filled thinking. Our culture, thus our country, is not moral. It has no defenses against immoral positions. For example, it may well be that a majority of Americans do not hold with abortion “except except except…”.
Abortion is not illegal in this country.
It appears that many [most?] couplings are not done with the marriage lines. [What society has ever survived without a clear understanding of marriage and the family?].
What of the next stage the education of children? The school system is hostage to unions which protect mediocrity in its members and in students.
Consider the history of the country. It took a while to slaughter enough Indians that they became no longer a problem, except that they are forced to live in reservations where education is abominable and drunkenness rife.
Need I dwell on slavery which continued to the 1960s?
The War on Poverty seems to have impoverished many more. Roe v. Wade was quite clearly an effort to decrease unwanted populations.
And so on and so on and so on.
The much praised liberty has become a liberty to do whatever you could get away with. And to avoid as much responsibility as possible – personal and public. And to call in the lawyers to protect yourself, teste the ACORN business.
We are not on this earth to build America as the City on the Hill.
Gabriel,
What you may perceive as wish-filled thinking is Hope.
I know our culture is immoral, but as I stated in my previous post that doesn’t make the country immoral. In principle the United States of America is founded on Christian morality by sinners.
To assume that it is an immoral country is to concede the fight. We live in an immoral country we have institutionalized evil so we are all going to Hell. I reject that.
We live in a moral country and most of us do it immorally and we have insitutionalized evil so those of us with eyes to see and ears to hear MUST be good Christian witnesses, fight for the re-establishment of our moral principles and re-consecrate our country and our selves to the Blessed Virgin and through her immaculate hands and heart to her Son, our Lord.
I think we are here precisely to build America as the City on a Hill and our own state, town, home and body too!
The efficacy of that work is not for us to decide, but it is our duty to do the work with that end in mind.
“Thy Kingdom come” That means into our hearts, but it also means into our familiies, our towns, our country and the world.
American Knight writes Friday, October 9, 2009 A.D.
“I think we are here precisely to build America as the City on a Hill and our own state, town, home and body too!
“The efficacy of that work is not for us to decide, but it is our duty to do the work with that end in mind.
“Thy Kingdom come” That means into our hearts, but it also means into our families, our towns, our country and the world”.
My attempt is to point out that being American is no guarantee of goodness. We have relaxed too much into the comfort of the wealth of natural resources and take it as a right.
The Founders were political creatures [and mostly ignorantly anti-Catholic]. They had fallen for the “Enlightened” nonsense of automatic progress, a word interpreted as improvement. Yet they were not shocked by being slavers.
You must put together for me a list of accomplishments of the U.S.A. to balance the various horrors committed in the name of Liberty and Manifest Destiny.
Gabriel,
I totally agree: Being American is no guarantee of goodness. Neither is being ‘Catholic’. Far too often we Catholics are tempted (God knows I fall for it often) to lean toward conceit when it comes to our faith. I am not condemning you, I am just using a handy exapmple. You stated, “The Founders were political creatures [and mostly ignorantly anti-Catholic]. They had fallen for the “Enlightened” nonsense of automatic progress, a word interpreted as improvement. Yet they were not shocked by being slavers.”
Your statement is correct; however, Catholics have also owned slaves and advocated for slavery. Many Catholics were involved in racist and biggotted practices as recent as the last century. So we cannot cast stones at our poor misguided Protestant brethren simply because our Church, is The one established by Christ and only we have Apostolic succession. This is true for the Church, it is not necessarily true for each Catholic.
I suspect this is the same for Protestants, in fact it may be more excuseable for them becuase they do NOT have infallible teaching, just the pale shadows left over from when their heretical founders were Catholic.
Since the Church is perfect and we know that Catholics are not can you draw the conclusion that the Church is imperfect or that Catholics are perfect? Of course not, The Church is the Church and we are sinners. The same analogy can be applied to our country, although less ‘perfectly’. America is good and moral, Americans may or may not be. Until all of our mores, institutions, conventions, customs, etc. are corrupted (sadly that may not be far off) then we have something good to hold on to and revert to, while correcting the mistakes of the past, which include slavery and something much worse – abortion.
The accomplishments of the USA that balance horrors do not exist. America is not a church and she has no spiritual soul, just a spirit of principle. Theie is no balance. The slaughter of Christians at Nagasaki with atomic weapons is unexcuseable we need to transcend it, not excuse it. Nevertheless, America has done more good for the world than harm, in her time but that doesn’t mean a balance has been achieved. Keep in mind she’s a country not a person. Most of our errors are propogated by evil forces and evil men working with them. We have a struggle ahead and the outcome will determine the fate of billions. In any event, this is not the thread to truly debate this issue.
Suffice it to say that Mackey highlights his ‘conversion’ from nice sounding anti-capitalist platitudes to the honesty of the fact that free-markets allow the morally inclined to thrive and provide for their customers, their employees and themselves for the benefit of all. In fact a free-market even allows one to glorify God in their free market activity if they so choose. Thank God for that becuase without these wealthy Catholics who thrive in the free market, we’d have even less parishes than we do. I heard that one good man underwrote the public prayer of the Holy Rosary in Kansas City for almost 200,000 of the faithful. It required a $200,000+ check – thank God for free-markets!