Whole Foods' CEO John Mackey and health reform
“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.”
What struck me about John Mackey’s August Wall Street Journal editorial regarding health care reform was the disconnect between the reactionaries who organized boycotts of the Whole Foods chain (many of whom were customers of the stores), and the founder/CEO’s viewpoints themselves. Here is a man and a company that has done everything right: he pays his workers an above average wage, promotes healthy living, delivers top notch service, sells products that he, his workers and patrons believe in and on top of it all, flies coach and takes no salary. Yet some merely see the term “free market,” and do a complete about face. Strange. They sure enjoyed this capitalistic bastion and what it had to offer before they learned that Mr. Mackey’s views weren’t the same ones that they had absorbed by osmosis from the cultural milieu du jour. Interestingly Mr. Mackey was, by his own accounts an anti capitalist until he started having to make a payroll. At that point apparently, the proverbial scales fell from his eyes and he converted…unbeknownst to some of Whole Foods’ most loyal followers. It was inconceivable that such an evil system could produce such a well meaning and socially conscious enterprise. The reactionaries were apoplectic, their cognitive dissonance unresolvable. “Boycott!” was the reflexive cry. The information never making it past the synaptic arc and into higher level processing long enough for Mr. Mackey’s ideas to be digested, thought through and considered. Contrast Mr. Mackey’s honest statement of “alternative solutions” with David Harlow’s analysis of his editorial. Harlow, a lawyer and health blogger brushes the substance of Mr. Mackey’s argument aside for a politically correct critique of the piece amounting to little more than, ”it’s OK to believe those things John, but please don’t be stupid enough to say them out loud.” Curiously enough, this boycott seemed to ignite a counter backlash in which many previous non customers took to shopping at Whole Foods. Touche.
For a truly constructive debate to occur, a dispassionate comparison of contrasting viewpoints must be considered; this obviously goes for both sides (I’m talking to you too “death panel” folks). From this little corner of the world, it seems that Mr. Mackey’s views have not even reached the consideration stage for a large number of people. I guess for some it is better to go down slowly, clutching the last remaining vestige of one’s world view, rather than consider that the alternative might not be as evil as one thought.
