RSM on Mackey
Considering my deep and enduring antipathy toward “Crunchy Cons,” I am more than willing to believe that Whole Foods CEO John Mackey is a menace to society.
...and here...
What red-blooded American can resist the temptation to hate a man who made his fortune marketing stuff like organic vegetables, free-range chicken and all manner of whole-grain products appealing to the colonic-health obsessions of aging Baby Boomers?
I agree with RSM's larger point, the stupidity of the boycotters and the superiority of the market to supply goods and services. However, I think the above statements and the one he concludes with, "I stand ready to hate Mackey as a peddler of holistic hokum", are signs that he misses what should be a fairly large point to anyone who believes in the American free market system. Mackey found a market among aging hippies who worship their taste-buds and colons, and are easily manipulated by guilt about the environment, then he subsequently discovered ingenius ways to separate them from their money. I think that is cool. Shouldn't he be commended for coming up with this idea whether he himself buys it or not? Otherwise you could spend your life criticizing those who "sell the sizzle" not the steak; they are not in short supply in our society.
I know McCain would probably hate my saying this, but I think the harshness of his words reveal that he has fallen prey to the same narcissistic tendency as Dreher. He's placing his tastes over his belief in the freedom of the market. And if he truly believes there is something immoral about selling these organic products, how is that different than tilting at the Walmart windmill for selling plastic Chinese trash?
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