On Boycotting Whole Foods
For a number of years, the closest supermarket to my house was a Whole Foods. During that time, I shopped there a lot. Since October I’ve lived around the corner from a Safeway and have been pretty much “boycotting” Whole Foods ever since. Recently, however, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey piped up with a renewed expression of his longstanding right-wing political views leading to renewed Netroots interest in a Whole Foods boycott:
I am a Nashville area surgeon and a loyal customer of the Nashville Whole Foods ever since it first opened. This is true no longer. I was stunned and deeply disappointed to read Mr. Mackey’s right-wing propaganda piece in the WSJ. He has his right to speak his point of view. I have the right to take my money elsewhere.
I saw that link via my friend Tim Lee who tweeted “Do Daily Kos commenters really want a world where CEOs are expected to pander to their customers’ political prejudices?”
And I’ll admit that at first I was pretty dubious of this notion. After all, if you don’t want to buy products that are sold by businesses whose owners and managers are conservatives, you would basically have to stop buying everything. Corporate managers are more right-wing than the country as a whole, owners of stock are more right-wing than the country as a whole, and owners of small businesses are much more right-wing than the country as a whole. Democrats are backed by the exciting categories of unskilled workers, professionals, routine white collar workers, and people with part time jobs.
That said, there’s asking a CEO to pander to your prejudices, and there’s pressuring a CEO not to go out of his way to offend your prejudices. Corporate executives have a lot of social and political power in the United States, in a way that goes above and beyond the social and political power that stems directly from their wealth. The opinions of businessmen on political issues are taken very seriously by the press and by politicians on both sides of the aisle. Once upon a time perhaps union leaders exercised the same kind of sway, but these days all Republicans, most of the media, and some Democrats feel comfortable writing labor off as just an “interest group” while Warren Buffet and Bill Gates and Jack Welch are treated as all-purpose sages. One could easily imagine a world in which CEOs were reluctant to play the role of freelance political pundit out of fear of alienating their customer base. And it seems to me that that might very well be a nice world to live in.
At any rate, very few businesses go as far as Whole Foods in marketing their products specifically as part of a quasi-politicized left-wing lifestyle and few CEOs go as far as Mackey in public advocacy of political views that are only tangentially related to his business. If Whole Foods shareholders were to start to wonder whether having their corporate brand dragged into the health care debate is really a smart use of their assets, I would call that a good thing. More like this please, in other words.
118 Responses to “On Boycotting Whole Foods”
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August 16th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Don’t you just love it when an icon of the Left, the “Think Global, Act Local”, birkenstock-wearing, Volvo-driving, crowd speaks the truth, makes a cry for liberty and individual freedom. He wants to be “greener”, less obese, take responsibility for our health, be adults instead of wards of the State.
Good for him!!
August 16th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Every dollar John Mackey has ever earned has come from “pandering to his customers’ political prejudges,” to put the matter in Tim Lee’s terms. That is his business model. That is his business’s selling point. That is his market niche, and his marketing strategy.
August 16th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Here’s another (and perhaps better) reason eschew Whole Foods is that they are one of the few supermarkets in the DC area that is not unionized. Safeway, Giant, and Shoppers all have unions whereas “liberal” gourmet shops like Whole Foods and Harris Teeter do not.
In addition, Shoppers doesn’t use the noxious discount cards and amazing doughnuts. Viva la Shoppers!
August 16th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
“few CEOs go as far as Mackey in public advocacy of political views that are only tangentially related to his business”
That’s the real problem here. He thinks that because he’s the CEO of Whole Foods, that he really *is* a very important expert on public health. It’s sort of like Angelina Jolie being a UN ambassador…why again? Was it adopting the kids from Africa or being in Tomb Raider?
“He wants to be “greener”, less obese, take responsibility for our health, be adults instead of wards of the State.”
Just so long as we don’t talk down to the poor fat people, by doing something like, I dunno, taxing their soda pop. That would be condescending.
August 16th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
I think there’s nothing wrong with demanding that the CEO’s of the companies you patronize at least stay neutral with respect to issues that are important for you.
Doug Manchester supporting Prop 8 was a great example. That boycott is 100% justified.
If you want us to treat you like businessmen, CEO’s, then don’t take positions like politicians.
August 16th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
He has a right to his opinions and if he’d kept them to himself rather than taking to a major national platform to try to kill health reform — an issue dear to the hearts of the many progressives who shop in his stores — I’d still be spending the thousands and thousands of dollars I have every year since 1992. Last Wed was my final shopping trip to WF. I just didn’t know it at the time.
August 16th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Shoppers doesn’t use the noxious discount cards and amazing doughnuts.
It took me a couple of visits to realize that when something was “on sale” at Shoppers, you could just buy it at the sale price rather than having to sign up for a discount card. It was a revelation.
August 16th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
I’ve spent a good amount of money at WF over the last 2 years or so. I really enjoy some of their prepared food and fruits and can’t say I won’t ever shop there, but this guy could have kept more of my dollars if he’d just keep his mouth shut.
August 16th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Whole Foods has a good chocolate selection, and they’re the only place I’ve been able to find that sells fish stock.
Other than that, why bother wasting your money on them? If you want good, high-quality food from a non-unionized store that appeals to liberal sensibilities, then shop at Trader Joe’s. You’ll save money, too. And if you insist on wasting money on expensive food brands, then places like Giant and Safeway have been adding aisles that specialize in the upscale brands that Whole Foods typically stocks.
August 16th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
I don’t think the surprise is that Mackey would feel the way that he does (see WF non-union status), but that he would be stupid as to go out of his way to offend the overwhelming majority of his customer base. Everyone knows that WF is almost exclusively patronized by upper middle-class lefties, and upper middle-class lefties love Obama and health care reform.
I think WF’s board might want to consider what could possibly have inspired Mackey to intentionally provoke his customers. No smart.
August 16th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
This is a terrible sentiment, and reeks of ideological rigidity. Mackey was hardly spouting propaganda; he wasn’t citing “death panels” or anything of the sort. Whole Foods has a great record on labor and the environment, that should be reason enough to shop there.
August 16th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
First of all, Whole Foods sucks. Yes, if you need good produce and there’s no civilized (Mexican, polish, etc.) market around, you can always go there. But it is preposterously over priced, and the faux ‘green’/hippieish attitude makes me barf.
I suspect that ‘progressive’ places, like Trader Joe’s, WF, Starbucks, etc. aren’t going to like the world as much if their employees are no longer slaves to their shitty-paying, menial jobs because they provide health care. It’s a cornerstone to their whole business model right now, and they rely on it. I will now entirely boycott WF, because of this asshole’s editorial, but I’m sure he’s not alone in his sentiments.
August 16th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Don’t you just love it when an icon of the Left
You can stop there. He is by no means an icon of the left. It’s been widely known how anti-union and pro-libertarian he is for some time. It’s just that Whole Foods attracts a lot of liberals regardless, because most corporate executives feel the same way and Whole Foods does do a lot of things right. Which is why it was so stupid of him to do this, because a lot of people don’t have tremendous supermarket brand loyalty and pissing them off can easily make them switch.
August 16th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
I think WF’s board might want to consider what could possibly have inspired Mackey to intentionally provoke his customers. No smart.
I don’t think he had the intent to “provoke” his customers. As MattY alludes to, CEOs are regarded as royalty by the public in America, and he was expecting that everyone would lick his ass in response to whatever he said. He simply hasn’t gone through the experience of pushback or being told, “you’re full of shit” in a very long time.
August 16th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Adam Says: Which is why it was so stupid of him to do this, because a lot of people don’t have tremendous supermarket brand loyalty and pissing them off can easily make them switch.
Bingo! If Mackey was so concerned about Whole Foods bottom line, he would have just stuck to running his business (which is having problems in this economy and with the Wild Oats disaster) instead of feeding his ego to the Wall Street Journal editorial page.
August 16th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
A better example of this conflict is Costco. Costco doesn’t want its workforce unionized. It’s “anti-union”. Therefore, in the minds of many progressives, it should be boycotted.
Never mind that Costco’s long been progressive in terms of both its political contributions and its corporate policies (unions aside). In contrast to Sam’s Club, its main competitor, it quite intentionally pays much better and offers much better job security and benefits. In every sense it has progressive corporate policies…except with regard to unionization.
It perennially appears on lists of top corporate contributors to progressive candidates. It allows non-members to shop its pharmacies and has a policy of charging a moderate set markup on all its generics to the uninsured (unlike, say, Walgreen’s and others who charge the uninsured fantastical 1000% or more markups on some of its generics).
Basically the only bad thing I’ve ever head about Costco is its anti-union policies. It’s not my intention to apologize for that—I’d rather it were not the case.
But we live in a world of grey and with regard to things like boycots, we should make our politically motivated decisions about our consumerism on the basis of something beyond whatever catches the attention of our outrage today.
I sincerely doubt that Safeway is a better progressive choice for grocery shopping than is Whole Foods. So the CEO of Whole Foods is a politically outspoken conservative. How does this compare to its actual corporate policies? How its employees are paid in comparison to Safeway or another corporate grocery giant? What are the ecological implications of shopping at Whole Food versus Safeway? These are the questions people should be asking…not concentrating on how Whole Foods’s CEO said something that pissed them off.
August 16th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Have you read Balko’s opinion on this, because it seems pretty spot on and far more sensible.
August 16th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
My sister works for Whole Foods in Chicago, so just a few points.
All the employees there know very well that the corporation is in no way a paragon of liberal values. But they work there for several reasons, the most important being the good treatment they show to their employees. I can’t speak for other regions, but in Chicago, the unionized grocery workers have a terrible arrangement. Jewel/Osco employees make $10 an hour, but have to give half of that in union dues, and while I’m normally one to support a union, in certain areas they do not help the interests of the workers.
Secondly, word has already been spread that the board of directors of Whole Foods is not pleased with Mackey’s op-ed. I believe they’ve issued a statement stressing that Mackey’s stance is not that of the corporation, though to be fair that is a fairly standard stance to take. Finally, it seems that Mackey just the other day sold a large share of his stocks and disappeared, further confirming the widely held opinion in the company that he’s a slimeball.
August 16th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Here in Oregon, Roth’s has remade itself and it beats Whole Foods with a stick. There is a lot of local food, organic food, low prices, and good service. It feels like shopping for food not searching for an identity. Much as I love liberal causes, I don’t buy groceries to save the whales.
I’m excited about cooking for the first time in a decade.
August 16th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Calling Whole Foods overpriced is absurd. For general groceries, maybe. But the quality of the meat, produce, prepared foods, vegetarian options, bakery, and seafood is so superior that it’s more than worth the additional cost.
If you think Whole Foods is overpriced, then you just don’t like eating good food.
And having worked at the Tenley Whole Foods seafood department for two years, I can also say they treat employees better than any service sector job I’ve ever had… including two union jobs.
(And, yes, the editorial was all kinds of stupid. Who cares?)
August 16th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
My feeling on this is that you should boycott WF if you want, but it doesn’t get us one day closer to health care reform.
It’s fine to align your money with your politics, and good that scales are falling from liberals’ eyes w/r/t the difference between Mackey’s respect for their lifestyles and for their politics. But there’s a difference between a strategic boycott and a punishment. This feels like he made a bunch of people feel stupid, and now they want to punish him. Eyes on the prize, people.
Whole Foods has a great record on labor and the environment
It has a terrible record on labor.
August 16th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
zed Says: “Jewel/Osco employees make $10 an hour, but have to give half of that in union dues”
Explain. Osco workers have union dues that match your math? Really? They give FIVE DOLLARS AN HOUR to their union. Jeebus, after taxes they work for free! And those unions are really flush with cash.
Again, explain.
August 16th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Corporations have been a party to an ever growing percentage of all economic transactions, world wide, for over 160 years. Reliably and especially in America, majority ownership and top management is greedy an or self involved enough to be considered sociopaths, or slightly better, reactionary and authoritarian.
There is no avoiding this reality. You can only pretend to by a boycott. Being against the form of the modern corporation is like being against air. Nothing will even temper this historic trend. Nothing, nothing save almost total economic or environmental collapse.
It isn’t like we, the we who read blogs, are living in some hell on earth. On balance on a percentage basis of all living persons today is perhaps better for more than ever before.
August 16th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
CEOs may trend conservative, but that’s life and not a reason that they should shut up when doing something on their own time, even something as mindlessly stupid as Mackey’s nonsense that only the wingnuts at the Journal would consider printable.
I guess a good counterpart would be Hollywood actors, who trend liberal and get a fair amount of cash from moderate and conservative customers. Should actors be required to keep quiet on politics too, or is it just life.
Then there’s the union thing – at least that’s about Whole Foods and not what someone does on their own time. I could see that meriting a boycott, maybe, but it’s a separate issue.
August 16th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Jewel/Osco employees make $10 an hour, but have to give half of that in union due
That works out to $800/month in union dues, which is about 25 times more than typical union dues for someone making $10/hr.
August 16th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Why shouldn’t CEOs cater to our political whims? They wouldn’t have big markets of happy customers if we didn’t do the heavy lifting. Where was Big Business when Social Security was being created, making it possible for millions of seniors to keep paying their bills and buying food during this economic crash?
Well, you know where they were- trying to keep Social Security from being created. They had just totally smashed the economy by giving themselves too much power, but still they wanted more!
None of these companies would last two minutes without the society we’ve created. They’ve been paid hundreds of times what they’re worth. If they’re going to be an aristocracy, they need to embody high ideals of civilization. If they can’t do that, they’re just gangsters.
August 16th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
“Corporate managers are more right-wing than the country as a whole, owners of stock are more right-wing than the country as a whole, and owners of small businesses are muchmore right-wing than the country as a whole. ”
Boy, it’s almost as if they know how well intentioned, but overly expensive govt mandates actually work out for employers and employees.
August 16th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
I guess a good counterpart would be Hollywood actors, who trend liberal and get a fair amount of cash from moderate and conservative customers. Should actors be required to keep quiet on politics too, or is it just life.
Liberalism would probably be better off if they kept quiet. So, yes, I would totally encourage conservatives and moderates to threaten boycotts. Of course, no one is required to do anything here–the actor isn’t required to shut up and the movie goer isn’t required to attend.
August 16th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
I’ve lived around the corner from a Safeway and have been pretty much “boycotting” Whole Foods ever since.
By an odd coincidence, I’ve been boycotting Safeway – Von’s, here in Southern California. There was a strike a few years ago. I and a lot of other consumers honored the picket lines – the supermarkets were losing millions. Now, you might think that this would signal to the various CEOs that the public is willing to pay a bit more in order to help out some of their fellow citizens. But the CEO of Safeway stood bravely against the public, and declared that those losses were an investment in the future.
In that case, I asked myself, why can’t an increase in wages be an investment in the future? At any rate, I decided since the CEO of Safeway found the idea of wages to repellent, I would keep mine out of his stores. And so I have done ever since.
August 16th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Just thought I’d note, since a couple people mentioned Trader Joe’s, that wikipedia says “According to BusinessWeek, Trader Joe’s pays above-union wages and generous bonuses.It contributes an additional 15.4% of each worker’s gross pay into a company-funded retirement plan.”
I don’t shop there myself, but this post made me curious.
August 16th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Adam Says: Which is why it was so stupid of him to do this, because a lot of people don’t have tremendous supermarket brand loyalty and pissing them off can easily make them switch.
As it happens, yesterday was shopping day for my household. After reading about Mackey’s opinion, I just sort said to myself, “Well, that’s it for Whole Foods, then,” and went somewhere else. This is the sort of dumb thing that pisses me off just long enough to switch to some other store and then never go back, even without super strong feelings about it. I won’t sign any petitions or carry a sign in front of the store, but I mentioned that I don’t shop there any more to friends at the bar, and when they found out why, they also felt the same way.
August 16th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Many stores like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s pay wages that are competitive or exceed union standards, largely because it’s worth it to them to ward off unionization. This is a positive state of affairs, but it only obtains where unions have sufficient density of representation to make it happen, and can only be maintained by continued organizing.
The point at which unionized firms go under because of competition from non-union firms is the point at which wages will begin to trend downward. It’s easy to see in different regions where there are different levels of union density.
August 16th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
I’m not saying that Whole Foods is taking the correct approach in their labor policies, but that is only a part of ethical grocery shopping. Whole Foods is one of the leaders in selling and promoting sustainable seafood. Trader Joe’s, on the other hand, has been rated the worst (even worse than Safeway) by Greenpeace for their seafood department. It isn’t clear to me how promoting overfishing and environmentally damaging farm fisheries is worse than Whole Foods anti-union activity.
August 16th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
That John Mackey has odious libertarian views is hardly news.
Read this piece which appeared in which appeared in Common Dreams in 2006.
August 16th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
My guess is that the op-ed was just a ruse to get the terrible hippie smell out of his Whole Foods stores. Good riddance, I say.
August 16th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Yeah, boycott the business that’s paying it’s employees a living wage and giving them good health care on top of that. What an evil person indeed.
In fact, let’s boycott every successful person who doesn’t agree with us. No more banks, no more health insurance, no more doctors…let’s boycott the lot of them to make ourselves feel better.
August 16th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
In fact, let’s boycott Obama for selling out on the public option. Let’s not vote for him the next time around because he’s too scared to destroy his presidency and the democratic party by pushing for a plan that a majority of this country wants nothing to do with–clearly because they’ve been scared by the right-wing machine that was pummeled in the 2008 elections.
August 16th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
If Ed Smithe had more faith in the free market, he’d realize that competitors would take advantage of the available customers whose demand is unmet, and provide them with what they want.
It’s the same thing as his chicken-little act about environmental policy – he just has no understanding of the proven track record of private enterprise to innovate, or to adapt in the face of consumers’ demand.
So sad.
August 16th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
In addition to Whole Foods and Trader Joes, there is Wegmans on the East Coast. Wegmans has 4 stores in the Northern Virginia area with a 5th planned for Leesburg.
August 16th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
You boycott Whole Food for the simple reason of ‘NO value for money’. We have brand new Whole Food opened on main street – El Camino Real in Mountain View California and you will not be able to tell whether it is a ‘lamp store’ or ‘grocery store’ because it has so much expensive lighting in that store where lamps are ‘on’ all the time. The shop is simply so exorbitantly expensive that it absolutely does not make sense to shop at that place. Same thing for the newest Whole Food shop in Cupertino, California – again so expensive that all the money goes to the company than producers I guess.
Whole Food for sure fleeces customers under the name of ‘organic business’. There is simply no point shopping at this brand except for very specific and few items. Otherwise it is only for ‘feel good’ so called Lefty guys of Sand Hill Road Palo Alto where VC Money resides or Beverly Hills, Hollywood or Hampton where over compensated Wall Street money resides.
Whether the CEO has a balanced political view or not – the shop is totally inverse of ‘value for money’; not worth bothering to participate in their scheme which makes their CEO and their share holders more profitable.
August 16th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
What’s this “should” and “ought” stuff, people? This is politics, not ethics. Make Mr. Ceo feel that the price of his political speech exceeds its value–by shopping elsewhere and making that fact known–and he’ll shut up. Otherwise, he won’t.
August 16th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
I don’t really have many more details, I don’t work in a grocery store, and only hear this from others. But according to my sister, they’ve had a few people join the workforce of Whole Foods from Jewel/Osco precisely because they wanted to escape the dues they had to pay. I realize the amount sounds absurd, and again, I can’t speak to any other region, but it’s what I’ve heard.
August 16th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Personally I wouldn’t shop at either WF or Trader Joe’s, unless they were the only options. I’m real lucky to live very close to an incredible, small, actual health food store. (not a faux health food store). They sell NO conventionally grown vegetables or fruits. You’d have to work really hard to find something that was not good for you there. Both WF and Trader Joe’s sell too much crap.
But I did sometimes go into WF for additional groceries because I liked them a little better than Trader Joes. And that I won’t do any longer.
August 16th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Actually over 70% of the American public supports the choice of buying into a medicare-like program. So that is a fucking lie. I really hate fucking liars, but one thing about a righty, if they are breathing they are lying. It’s in their blood.
The first part of your post is not a bad idea though. In fact if these early reports prove true, and Obama has walked from a public option, I’ll be doing just that.
August 16th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Fair enough, but please come up with a plausible pricetag for union dues rather than a number that’s so absurd on its face that it is impossible to believe.
(What your sister probably meant to explain was that half the dues went to the local union and the other half got kicked upwards to the parent organization, not that half their salary went to dues)
August 16th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Well, that’s the price tag I heard. Don’t forget, we’re talking Chicago here. Corruption of that sort is sort of the norm. But it wouldn’t be the first time I engaged in hyperbole (wittingly or not).
August 16th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
It seems wrong to boycott WF on the strength of this article since it is a reasoned argument (which i happen to disagree with). A new WF has recently opened up near me in Vancouver,Canada and although it’s great to walk around the prices are so exorbitant that I can’t justify shopping there, particularly as there are other high quality grocery outlets within a short distance. it seems with WF you are paying for the experience and the “feel good factor”.
August 16th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Some friends of mine refer to Whole Foods as Whole Paycheck since some of their organic stuff costs so much.
I think WF is a good place to get produce and I’ve also enjoyed eating dinner there. However, some items like contact lens solution are really expensive there and I’d generally rather do all my grocery shopping at one place so I don’t often shop at Whole Foods.
August 16th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
few CEOs go as far as Mackey in public advocacy of political views that are only tangentially related to his business
The CEO of GoDaddy comes to mind as another giant douche.
And Thomas Frank is good on the origins of CEO worship.
August 16th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Each year 101 K US citizens die because they don’t get timely care. We have the worst record for premature death in the industrialized world. I say boycott Whole Foods since they are contributing to that situation by giving some of their profit money (which comes straight out of their customers’ pockets) and all of their moral support to republicans. Let’s stop fooling around and let them feel it in their pocket books for a change. I certainly feel our current health situation in mine. I have no sympathy whatsoever with these heartless latter day scrooges. The guy went out on a limb. Let’s saw it off.
August 16th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
The best weapon is ridicule.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqd0XiNvtI0
And action.
sp
August 16th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Spend your trust fund money at a god damn farmer’s market, you hipster douchebags!
There are like 20 weekly farmer’s markets in motherfucking Cincinnati. I’m sure you can find one in whatever douchebag post-union place you live. If you think the bullshit produce and meat at WF is good–or even the not-remotely-organic Aldi’s crap at TJ’s–wait till you eat the REAL THING!
In 2001, I paid $25 a week in union dues at Kroger’s. In return, it was absolutely impossible to fire me. A coworker was high and beat up a customer unprovokedly, and STILL couldn’t get fired.
At Whole Foods, you can get fired for sneezing. Or for reading union lit.
A UFCW job is a plausible career, which’ll pay you $15-20 an hour with all kinds of benefits. Whole Foods jobs are for trust fund scumbags like MY while they’re at Yale.
August 16th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
If you think Whole Foods is overpriced, then you just don’t like eating good food.
What an ignorant thing to say. WF certainly does get high quality meat/fish and vegetables, but it’s not the only place in a large – or even medium sized – city to get those, and it is, indeed, ridiculously overpriced. It’s fine for a special occasion or if you’re wealthy, but crazy otherwise. I like eating (and cooking) good food and do it every single day, and I almost never pay those kinds of prices.
Um, unionized workers at Jewel/Osco don’t pay half their salary in union dues. Get a fucking clue, for god’s sake.
I’m in rare disagreement with MY here. I think it’s perfectly appropriate to eschew a store or corp. with socio-politically odious CEOs. Yes, lots of business types are very conservative or even reactionary. You can’t escape all of them or their companies entirely, but you can make your choices at the margin. I mean, the only possible potential suasion you have with them is buying their crap or not. No more WF for me.
August 16th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
the only reason anybody is paying attention Mackey is because he’s the CEO of Whole Foods. and the only reason Whole Foods works is because it offers an upscale version of a kind of crunchy, granola, earthy, faux-co-op to lefties with cash to spare.
that’s a fine business model – until you tell your customers that you think they’re fools. then you’re gonna find out that they were only fooled.
fuck you, Mackay.
August 16th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
What’s the problem one way or another?
An owner is free to express his views as he wishes; he’s only going to pander to someone’s prejudices if he feels it’s going to help his business. A patron is free to shop wherever he likes; he’s only going to stop going to a store if his dislike of a brand overrides his need for whatever it offers. This is pretty basic stuff.
If we all simply went by the motto, “If you do what you want, I’ll do what I want, and others will do what they want, we’ll all be fine,” there won’t be an issue.
August 16th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Second the suggestion to buy produce at farmers’ markets.
They also tend to be cheaper than supermarkets. Unlike Whole Foods.
August 16th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
I never bought anything at WF that I couldn’t buy elsewhere, and boycotting WF is forcing me to get friendlier with neighborhood shopkeepers who sell more or less the same stuff at (happy surprise) more or less the same prices.
Reading Mackey’s libertarian vision was like listening to a small child tell you about his picture of Heaven, a magical place where all dreams come true when good little boys and girls are free to make their own decisions, instead of bad old Daddy Government doing it, and there’s spun sugar clouds overhead and organic cider flowing from the faucets because of the magical free market. How a guy could be smart enough to run a company and dumb enough to swallow libertarianism, I have no idea, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to subsidize his credulous utopianism.
August 16th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
John Mackey has long been voluntarily one of the lowest-paid of the Fortune 500 CEOs – I don’t think he’s ever made more than $400,000 in salary per year. And frontline workers at WFM are actually paid pretty well despite the union-busting. Which isn’t to excuse that, or his Randian political views. But liberal voters should weigh actions as well as words. There are far worse CEOs in the United States.
August 16th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
What’s with the assumption that whole foods’ customers are all or aspire to be crunchy lefties or limousine liberals?
Someone should compare the demographics and political identifications of shoppers at a Whole Foods in DC with shoppers at the Whole Foods in, say, Alexandria, VA.
Whole Foods is good food shopping ($$$) first, and enviro/touchy/feel-good lifestyle statement second.
August 16th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Whole Foods is not ridiculously overpriced. Certain items at Whole Foods are. You can easily get most staples at Whole Foods and pay about the same as you would at Trader Joe’s. Farmer’s markets are great but it isn’t always easy to work around their schedules and meat and fish tend to be very close in price to WF (I’ve found this to be true in both NYC an SF). At their best, farmer’s market products are definitely better than Whole Foods equivalents, but the variance is also higher and it kinda sucks to pay $20 for a pound of mediocre pork at a farmer’s market. But I don’t see it as an either/or, there is definitely a place for traditional grocery stores and farmer’s markets.
If cost is an issue and Whole Foods were your only grocery option, you might have some problems. I understand that many people don’t want to make multiple grocery store runs and that’s fine, don’t shop there. But I find it insane that people seem to think that Whole Foods is somehow a force of evil in the world. Of course, I don’t really understand why so many people seem to balk at paying any kind of premium for food.
August 16th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
I suppose he would also consider it “pandering” to my “prejudices” to cease hypothetical segregated shopping for black folks and white folks?
It’s not that it’s my “predjudices”, it’s that it’s *right*, fool. If the CEO isn’t moved for that reason, then being moved because of a boycott is just fine.
Your friend knows this, of course, and is just pretending not to.
August 16th, 2009 at 10:48 pm
I agree with those who say that John Mackey’s entitled to his views, I said this in my letter to Whole Foods. But, I agree more fervently that being CEO of Whole Foods doesn’t make him a health care or government OR economic expert and thus he should have STAYED OUT of the debate. You cannot separate John Mackey the man from John Mackey the CEO of Whole Foods because the only reason anyone would listen to John Mackey at all (instead of say…me) on healthcare is BECAUSE he’s CEO of Whole Foods.
Using terms like “Obamacare” which is how the right has labeled health care reform and leads readers to think that instead of health care REFORM there is some sort of singular movement to provide care (single payer) was misleading and wrong. I will not grocery shop at Whole Foods again until he apologizes for using misleading statements to characterize exactly WHAT the legislation on the floor is about (I am speaking about HR 3200 here which is pretty much what we have).
Anyway, we skipped our first weekly grocery trip to whole foods in the six months since we made them our sole supplier. I hope they miss our $150.00 a week and the $$ of many more who want to send a message.
August 16th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
My new letter to WF in response to their “apology” for John Mackey:
Sorry, This is not acceptable. As indicated in my initial letter, you cannot separate John Mackey the man and John Mackey the CEO of Whole Foods in the public forum since the only reason John Mackey has any significance at all in the public forum is BECAUSE he is the CEO of Whole Foods.
Additionally, I don’t want an apology from customer service, I want an apology from JOHN MACKEY… for using misleading terms to characterize the legislation that is being proposed (using words like “Obamacare” which suggests a NEW type of care, like single payer which isn’t even on the table, instead of REFORM of existing care for which there is broad across the board support.) and for using his clout as a Whole Foods CEO to inject himself, inappropriately, to the debate. Furthermore, I do not accept an apology sent PRIVATELY to my e-mail account, but want an apology just as public as John Mackey’s whining little diatribe.
Since I am NOT the CEO of a giant corporation like Whole Foods, I can only do so much. One of the things I CAN do though, is spend my dollars somewhere else. I hope you missed my $150.00 this week… and the $$ of all my friends who are doing likewise… it will continue until there’s a formal PUBLIC apology. Guess the farmer’s markets will be getting more business from us now.
NO Thank you,
(me)
August 16th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Whether you agree with it or not (and I don’t), I think Mackay was making a good-faith contribution to the health care debate. Boycotting his store is overkill and it makes liberals look less reasonable. Obviously you’re within your rights to do so, but it doesn’t make much sense to me.
August 16th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
A boycott is not overkill. I think a lot of progressive-minded people are sick of supporting right-wing companies and business leaders, particularly after eight years of virtual rule by corporations during the GW Bush years. If Mackay wants to preach right-wing libertarian talking points, replete with lies about tort costs, long lines for medical treatment in Europe, and government debt (which his man, Bush, created with the tax cuts for the rich), let Mackey and Whole Foods make their money off the Palin-ites who actually believe that nonsense.
August 16th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Is it wrong to characterize that Tapped article (and most of the people’s opinion’s here) that one has a ‘terrible record on labor’ simply because one is against having a union, regardless of the actual way one treats employees?
August 17th, 2009 at 12:04 am
When MattY said ‘more of this please’ with the link to Kleinman, wasn’t he saying that one *should* eschew establishments with odious CEO’s? That’s how I read it.
August 17th, 2009 at 12:08 am
Corporations have tons of money to hire lobbyists to push their agendas through Congress. They disproportionately influence public policy through the use of money. But individual citizens can use money too, through the use of consumer boycotts, to attempt to influence actions of corporations — this tactic was used successfully, for instance, in the Civil Rights movement against bus companies, in farmworker struggles by boycotting grape and wine companies, or tomato packers, and the anti-sweatshop boycotts against Nike and other clothing companies.
August 17th, 2009 at 1:09 am
I wonder what his stockholders think of Mackey selling off 1.4 million worth of stock a week before he published his op-ed? Would those stockholders have like the opportunity to dump some stock before it was published? Or would they have asked him not to publish it…. ?
http://wp.me/paZOV-aJ
August 17th, 2009 at 1:17 am
Like several others, this boycott sends a very clear message to corporations that you can’t get away with branding a food product for liberals without investing huge amounts of money in greenwashing and appearing neutral on convtroversial issues.
I don’t think this is the right message. A boycott is a potentially powerful tool that should be reserved for affecting an actual change for the better in the company’s policies, labor practices, or environmental impact. What would this boycott be asking Whole Foods to do? Say Mackey was wrong and they’re sorry, while still continuing to be union-busting, paycheck-busting, faux-eco-friendly and so forth?
If this problem gets big enough for them, they’ll fork out a bit of spare change for a better PR fix, and it’s back to more of the same. I’d go with the guy who shops his local farmer’s market instead – you know exactly where your money’s going there.
August 17th, 2009 at 1:24 am
Is he dumb, or does he just think that we are stupid?
Whatever, I’m not shopping there again.
August 17th, 2009 at 1:25 am
Well, seems to me that this WSJ editorial may have served an important purpose: conservatives can now safely feel welcome at an overpriced haunt for fancy liberals. What used to be “upscale liberal” is now just “upscale.” It’s all about the bottom line, yo.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:06 am
This post and comments are the best laugh I’ve had all day.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:28 am
Those tempted to boycott may also enjoy this:
Trans-Atlantic retail expansion (both eastward and westward) of course frequently ends in tears, but there is a particular schadenfreude about this story given the bad press associated with their London launch.
August 17th, 2009 at 4:37 am
Re:#70 – AB in Berlin — Yes, what you say is largely true – a boycott like this differs from those I mentioned in #68, and lacks that kind of specific focus. It’s more like a boycott out of outrage and frustration – just not wanting to support the company, akin to many who have boycotted Coors Beer for a long time because of the Coors family ties to right-wing groups.
But even without so clear an intent, if enough people walk away from the chain, it can carry some impact — the Board could fire Mackey (admittedly not likely in the near future, and maybe not good for the company since Mackey may actually be a competent CEO, though he should have already been fired for attempted manipulation of Wild Oats stock); the anger and pressure felt by the company could motivate them to clean up their act with regard to labor issues (again, not that likely since their business model relies on low wages and benefits and keeping out unions); more likely is, as you suggest, they’ll up the ante –significantly, I think — on supporting very visible environmental and charitable initiatives in an attempt to show their customer base, “See, we’re a good company, we’re socially responsible.” Well, if the funds are considerable enough, that’s not the worst of outcomes.
August 17th, 2009 at 6:38 am
I wouldn’t be caught dead in a Whole Foods in the first place. Our philosophy is to food shop where the poor shop. For us, that is a supermarket and farmer’s market in Paterson, NJ, in a heavily Middle Eastern area. Lot of head scarves, burkas, etc., giving the usually dreadful experience of food shopping a more exotic feel to it.
August 17th, 2009 at 7:03 am
The analogy to Coors beer is a good one. I would never buy this brand. If the mouth breathers want to get ripped off, they have my blessing. They are not getting my money.
August 17th, 2009 at 8:32 am
Joe from Lowell talking/joking about free enterprise in light of my comments…Does it get any better than this!
August 17th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Expensive as hell and with a checkout line that’s usually five or more minutes long. Those are all the reasons I need to continue to avoid the place.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:22 am
I didn’t think you’d have a comeback, and I was right.
My point stands, Chicken Little.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:23 am
It is a testimony to your ideological blinkers, Ed, that you would be remotely surprised to see me comment that the competitive market place is good at innovation and meeting consumer preference.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:52 am
[...] I’ve been reluctant to talk much about the crazy op-ed the CEO of Whole Foods wrote in the Wall Street Journal trashing health care reform, because I’m not a boycotter, but I do tend to think that the board should shit-can him ASAP. People can yak about free speech, but when you’re a CEO part of your job is not pissing off your customers. Here’s Matt Yglesias: [...]
August 17th, 2009 at 10:00 am
When MattY said ‘more of this please’ with the link to Kleinman, wasn’t he saying that one *should* eschew establishments with odious CEO’s? That’s how I read it.
You are right, Kolohe. My bad.
August 17th, 2009 at 10:04 am
There’s a number of these “green” grocery chains that put great looking produce on display, charge an arm and a leg for it, and eschew local stuff. Bright red strawberries that seem to have been painted red but that taste no better than the obviously shipped-in-from-California stuff of the national chains. The “green” stores simply ignore local producers as much as the usual suspect Big Bidness grocery chains. Eat locally. Think logically. Trust, but verify.
August 17th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Wow, this discussion is exactly why I would never call myself a progressive. Mackey runs a company that treats its workers much better than most companies and generally (Whole Foods) tries to behave in an ethical manner, and so-called progressives want to boycott the company because the CEO dares to voice an opinion that is disagrees with the party line. Did anyone read the editorial? The guy actually proposed alternative solutions to the Obama proposal. Are you all really that certain in your views that your are willing to call any dissent right-wing hackery?
August 17th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Jeff, there’s been quite a bit of research into the buy local movement showing that it is less sustainable and more environmentally degrading than regular grocery shopping.
August 17th, 2009 at 11:14 am
I am actually more inclined to buy at WF now.
August 17th, 2009 at 11:55 am
If we had single payer health insurance, Whole Foods could afford to pay their workers more.
August 17th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
[...] is some interesting perspective from Matthew Yglesias on the efficacy of a [...]
August 17th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Supporting government provided healthcare is not a “prejudice.” Government provided healthcare is my inalienable right as an American, and I have every right to boycott an corporation whose CEO is trying to steal my birthright from me.
August 17th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
“Jeff, there’s been quite a bit of research into the buy local movement showing that it is less sustainable and more environmentally degrading than regular grocery shopping.”
That research is funded by big agriculture and has no scientific validity. It’s just like the “studies” funded by Big Tobacco saying that smoking was good for heart health.
August 17th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
I love shopping at the Whole Foods right around the corner from my favorite Urban Outfitters.
August 17th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Mackey’s problem is not so much his list of ideas that would help our system–some of which actually have merit–it’s the bunch of right-wing lies he tosses in at the end. We could have debated his points individually without the boycott discussion; it’s one thing to offer up alternatives (which very few astroturfers are doing), it’s another to offer up broad, non-specific generalizations coupled with out-and-out lies. That’s why I won’t be shopping at WF anymore.
August 17th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
“Justin”: Wow, this discussion is exactly why I would never call myself a progressive. Mackey runs a company that treats its workers much better than most companies and generally (Whole Foods) tries to behave in an ethical manner, and so-called progressives want to boycott the company because the CEO dares to voice an opinion that is disagrees with the party line blah blah blah.
John? John Mackey? Is that you, John?
August 17th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
“At any rate, very few businesses go as far as Whole Foods in marketing their products specifically as part of a quasi-politicized left-wing lifestyle”: Ok, I shop at WF in NYC and I am probably to the left of Kucinich. But I’m not sure the other people who shop there share my politics (in fact a great many of them look far, far too uptight for that, and look like they are living in apartments that cost 4x as much as mine anyhow), and I’m having a hard time understanding how you think they “market their products specifically as part of a quasi-politicized left-wing lifestyle.” Just because republicans tend to favor shitty republican-type foods (processed crap in boxes, lots o’ mayonnaise, etc.) does not mean that conversely, there is something intrinsically left-wing about selling fresh vegetables. And I really don’t see the point in trying to politicize it further.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
I won’t shop there anymore period. I think liberals that contribute to the upscale lifestyles of ceos shouldnt be paid back with liberal bashing which freaks like this scumbag and the ceo of Urban outfitters do. They found the niche for their business and it’s to appeal to more educated upscale liberal voters and while these disgusting rightwing ceos pretend that their intentions are all about pleasing their target business group they actually abhor everything about them. The homophobic asshole Doug Manchester who gave 125,000 to break up gay marriages in CA has found out exactly what a boycott of conventions does to his hotel business and now we have all found out what a hypocritcal asshole he is with his ruthless divorce tactics with his wife of 42 years. Just don’t shop at whole foods period you will feel much healthier emotionally.
August 17th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
The sequel to Stuff White People Like just writes itself out of this brouhaha.
August 17th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
[...] Think Progress, Matt Yglesias thinks there may be some value in “a world in which C.E.O.’s were reluctant to play the role of freelance political pundit out of fear of alienating their customer [...]
August 17th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Need to correct a few things. First off you can’t get fired from Whole Foods for reading union literature. They don’t fire people at Whole Foods. Instead they have “separation.” If a WF employee gets caught reading union literature they can be “separated,” but not “fired.” More than likely though, a first offense will only mean the employee has to attend a mandatory “morale meeting.” All of WF’s terminology really reminds me of Scientology. It’s a grocery store and a cult all in one, run by a greedy, birkenstock wearing control freak.
John Mackey endorses high deductible insurance. This minimizes the burden of the company and puts most of it on developing “individual responsibility.” That means if you make “wages” at his store and then get sick, you have to come up with $2,500.00 before your very limited coverage can kick in. Now, to be fair, they do give employees a “wellness account,” but it doesn’t have anything like that in it.
I will be boycotting WF …forever… Whole Foods is an idea whose time has …gone.
August 17th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Whole Foods pays well? The union grocery stores in Portland pay about 25% more than Whole Paycheck.
The lie that Whole Foods treats its employees well is a lie the moneyed hipsters tell themselves to make it ok to shop there. These are the same hipster progressives who will protest a Walmart.
In my mind, there’s little difference between WF and WalMart as far as employee well-being goes. It’s just the class of the WalMart employee and shopper that gets under hipster skin.
August 17th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
For those who don’t know, there’s Boycott Whole Foods Facebook page.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/group.php?gid=119099537379
Ironically, Facebook itself is ethically challenged. According to the below UK-Guardian article by Tom Hodgkinson, two of Facebook’s three Board directors sound like very toxic venture capitalist libertarians (one of them having close connections to what Hodgkinson describes as the CIA’s venture capital arm). Read it and weep.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook
August 17th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
We had a decent health food store in my town until Whole Foods came along and sucked it up. I used to go there every week. Since WF took over the price of everything went up a lot, and they don’t have crap in the way of bulk teas. Screw them!
Matt Dyer, Portland Maine
August 17th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
In my community, WF is the only store I can find that sells low-sodium diced tomatoes, low-sodium tomato sauce, low-sodium soup, etc.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
If you like the idea of a corporate exec afraid to speak out because his customers might boycott him, what do you think of an employee afraid to speak out because his employer might fire him?
I think that both situations are fascistic, and people who support either idea are fascists.
August 17th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
I’m feeling pretty helpless and frustrated with Obama’s lack of good leadership for the public option (not to mention single payer); For obvious reasons I can’t cut Obama and the Democrats loose, but I sure as hell can cut Whole Foods loose. And have.
The day I learned of the article in the despicable WSJ was the last day of Whole Food shopping for me. I’m certain the Publix CEOs are just as bad or worse, but they haven’t rubbed my nose in it.
Gene (#104), you have no idea what fascism is about if you think that choosing not to shop someplace because you don’t like the politics of their CEO is fascist. Get a grip.
August 18th, 2009 at 5:42 am
A CEO “speaking out” qua CEO is different from a lowly employee speaking out qua private citizen.
Had Mackey written a letter to the editor of the WSJ expressing his opinion and identifying himself only as a private citizen, this conversation would not be taking place.
He chose to put himself forward as a public figure, moreover as a public figure by virtue of his being CEO of Whole Foods.
Those who read his op-ed are reacting to his expressed opinion as representing Whole Foods, and appropriately so.
August 18th, 2009 at 9:33 am
[...] Most of this outrage is over Mackey’s use of Whole Foods for political involvement. As Matt Yglesias of Think Progress wrote, “One could easily imagine a world in which CEOs were reluctant to play the role of [...]
August 18th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Whole Foods is bad for my blood pressure, which went up during the Bush administration. It is unhealthy for me to approach its toxic vicinity.
August 18th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Wow, now that you see this guy is possibly a conservative you throw him under the bus. Figures, the left doesn’t do it’s home work and jumps and cries when it finds something out. So, knowing this will you throw Al Gore under the bus? He is the one that will be the biggest benefactor of the stupid carbon offsets? He is going to be making money, does that make him evil? Oh…wait he still has the ‘I know better than you’ mentality so he is OK…I forgot about that.
Oh and to all of you that think Government Health care is a ‘RIGHT’…tell me, where does it say that in the US Constitution?
August 18th, 2009 at 11:34 am
[...] Matthew Yglesias: After all, if you don’t want to buy products that are sold by businesses whose owners and managers are conservatives, you would basically have to stop buying everything. Corporate managers are more right-wing than the country as a whole, owners of stock are more right-wing than the country as a whole, and owners of small businesses are much more right-wing than the country as a whole. Democrats are backed by the exciting categories of unskilled workers, professionals, routine white collar workers, and people with part time jobs. [...]
August 18th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
I am lucky enough to have both a pension, social security,
from my late husband and also pay the relatively low premium for medicare. I was also lucky that we were able to pay off our house so our main expenses are food, utilities, car expenses, and a few extras, like a bargain offer to the local opera company. I have to be pretty careful to keep within our budget as one of my children also lives with me and is dependent on me.
I do purchase limited food at our local Whole Foods. I do not agree with the opinions of the CEO expressed in the WSJ article, but I do not feel that I should boycott the store becuase of that.
I believe that eating healthy food is very important for my health and I buy selected items I cannot get elsewhere at WF. I do not buy their extensive upscale junk food but selected fresh food. It is not just a preconceived idea that organic food is better; Consumers Reports checked into this carefully and found that there was much less residue of pesticides and other unhealthy substances in organically grown foods. Organic farms are also better for the environment just because they do not use chemical fertilizers and sprays on their crops. They also use far less heavy duty machinery and emit less toxins and exhaust into the air, the soil, and the ground water.
There is a great article that was published in the New York Times last October, a month before the election, written by Michael Pollan, and addressed to the president elect. Pollan is a professor at UC Berkeley specializing in nutrition and is the author of several best selling books on food.
Here is a link to the article;
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html
It is fairly long but he has a lot to say. It is a fascinating expose of the big commercial and heavily subsidized factory farms growing mostly corn. He explained a lot of problems with our food supply that I have seen nowhere else. I learned a lot from reading it and I have already read a lot of criticisms of our food supply elsewhere. I think you will find it well worth the time to read it.
August 18th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
From where I stand, I think that one could just as easily imagine a world in which CEOs didn’t bother to play the role of freelance political pundit because we didn’t give their opinions any more weight than any other random person we didn’t know and presumably, didn’t know very much about us. This, it seems to me, would be an even better world to live in.
August 19th, 2009 at 10:31 am
You guys are hilarious. This article and these comments sound like the last gasps of a group that know they have lost and are now going to take their toys and go home. The boycott won’t do anything, there will be no single-payer health care system (yes!), there will be no “public option” (yes!), the evil Republicans are not responsible (Democrats control the Congress and White House), the reality is that the public no longer supports it (http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/08/18/2033674.aspx), your messiah Obama has already shown himself to be inept at accomplishing anything other than duping “progressives” into believing he will, he’s already quadrupled the deficit, your messiah Obama has started pulling troops out of Iraq and putting them in Afghanistan (the real next Vietnam and no more justified), the democrats will lose control of Congress sooner rather than later because they’ve shown that they can’t get anything done even when they control Congress and the Executive Branch (not that I favor Republicans).
Look, if you guys are so desperate for a new Byzantine bureaucracy, why not take a look at every major government program and see how well it runs. And I’m not talking about looking at the shiny happy benefits to the less fortunate that seem to be the only thing valid to you guys, but the economic reality of such programs. I imagine most of you must have tremendous credit card debt based on the type of economic understanding you seem to have. And for the last time, “HEALTH CARE IS NOT A CONSTITUTIONALLY GUARANTEED RIGHT!!!!” If you think so, you’re doomed to be an idiot for the rest of your life and I understand why you want the government to take care of you.
August 19th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
[...] disingenuous, and I can’t imagine anyone really expects him to do this. Yglesias thinks it might be useful less as a specific way of pressuring Whole Foods than as a general warning to [...]
August 19th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
I’m confused, Matthew. I was under the impression that you supported the political power of large businesses. I guess I misread your posting from just a couple months ago:
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/06/cap-wal-mart-seiu-join-forces-in-support-of-employer-mandate.php
It just seems like hypocrisy, but I’m just a simple-minded conservative. So maybe a future post could clear up this confusion.
August 19th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Oh, I absolutely agree. Mackey should be punished for having the temerity to express his personal opinions. Where does he think he is, America?
August 19th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
I live in Austin, and have shopped at Whole Foods since it was a tiny store on Lamar. But I will be expressing my displeasure with Mr. Mackey’s callous and ignorant statements to the WF board, and won’t be shopping there any more.
There are so many things factually and morally wrong with Mr. Mackey’s op-ed, and the title provided by the WSJ is the least of them. The idea that all illnesses can be prevented or controlled by eating organic food is laughable. My parents always ate enough bran and granola to feed a stable of horses, but my mom got colon cancer anyway. My dad died from complications of Multiple Sclerosis. Neither had health insurance when they were diagnosed, and my mom didn’t see a doctor early on because she couldn’t afford it on her teacher’s salary.
Mental illnesses are rarely covered by any kind of insurance, despite the fact that psychiatric care and medication is extremely expensive. Lack of access to screening and care is responsible for many preventable tragedies that run the gamut from wasted lives to shooting rampages.
August 20th, 2009 at 1:44 am
What nonsense. Go ahead! Dont eat at whole foods market! Clearly you can only digest politically-correct food.
So what if the guy who runs what you think is a “good” company has opinions you don’t agree with? What screwed up rationale do you have to assume that Mackey is supposed to play the part of a RightThinker and not speak his point of view in public?
Shop at WalMart then. They LOOOOVE government funded healthcare. They also donate scads of money to .orgs that pay people like Iglasias to do their wheedling for them. God, the confusion… “Why no! My organic tofu is tainted with the smell of limited-governmentism!”
And the claim that CEOs are some sort of over influential media cadre versus poorly-served Union Leaders is laughable. What, the only people who can speak in public are… government officals? The pundit class? Joe the plumber? Give me a break. The guy runs a business, has a perspective, speaks his mind. You may not like it, but thats public discourse. Boycott away comrades.