Okay, here’s the link: Whole Foods Market : Company : John Mackey’s Blog : Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business.
Read all that? Great… because it’s a little long and I don’t want to summarize it, and I’m about to comment directly on the content. ;-)
I think what Mackey is doing is great, but I do happen to agree with Friedman that their differences are mainly rhetorical. I also think that the Rodgers response is very good, but I can agree with Mackey’s response that he (Rodgers) may have assumed Mackey to be more leftist/collectivist than the case really is. For what it actually says, though, I thought Rodgers comments were well made.
This is more about corporations than governments, so it’s only peripherally related to the recent post about some of the economics of government charity… I thought the whole conversation was very interesting though. I think Friedman makes a good case, one I would agree with, that corporations give more benefit to society by maximizing profits than by philanthropy. In the case of John Mackey, I can understand why he disagrees — my sense is that he feels like if his company’s philanthropy were only to further the “bottom line,” that it would not “count”. (Again, he doesn’t say this — that’s my reading, I may be wrong.) Yet I do still think that the difference between what Mackey practices and what Friedman preaches are mainly semantic.
Interesting post.
I actually follow Mackey’s blog. He’s an interesting person and he runs an interesting company - one I shop at pretty regularly. Overall I am very impressed with Mackey.
I’m currently reading “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan. This book sparked a long internet based conversion between Pollan and Mackey. It’s worth looking up if you’re interested in our food chain (which I am). Both men have a lot of useful things to say.