John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods, is coming to Chicago to promote his new book, Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business: CONSCIOUS CAPITALISM (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013).
He is the outspoken libertarian who started referring to Obamacare as "socialist" in a Wall Street Journal editorial in 2009. In an interview with Steve Inskeep of NPR aired last week, Mackey switched his term to "facism."
Technically speaking, it's more like fascism. Socialism is where that government owns the means of production. In fascism, the government doesn't own the means of production, but they do control it. And that's what's happening with the health care program and with these reforms. … [I]f the government's going to tell Whole Foods Market exactly what our health care plan has to look like or it doesn't qualify, then we don't really - no longer have an opportunity to customize our plan for our team member's needs. We can no longer be flexible. We're basically just carrying out the government's orders.On Thursday, Mackey told HuffPost he regretted using the word "facism" because "it's got so much baggage attached to it." And a little later that day, to CBS: "[T]hat was a bad choice of words on my part." Nevertheless, Mackey continued, "We no longer have free-enterprise capitalism in health care. ... The government is directing it. So we need a new word for it."
What he says he means is that government is involving itself in the marketplace, directing details he wants to be free to direct, thereby interfering with "voluntary exchange", a term that Mackey says means "letting people voluntarily exchange for mutual gain ..."
What does Mackey recommend? "What I do believe in is free enterprise capitalism, and I’d like to see our healthcare system really unleash the power of free enterprise capitalism to create innovation and healthcare progress. I don’t think we have that – I think we’re moving away from that.""I don't know what the right word is," he muses.
He is bringing his views to Chicago. The Whole Foods Market at 1550 North Kingsbury - close to the corner of N. Sheffield and Weed Streets, about four blocks west of the North/Clybourn Red Line El station - is prominently advertising his appearance there on a book tour from 3:30 to 4:30pm this Wednesday, January 23.