A great story about the benefits of a capitalist system and much much more...

Watch the interview of Whole Food's CEO and co-founder, John Mackey here, the full interview is at the bottom of the page.

My Perspective:

John Mackey is a very smart and very experienced businessman. I believe that his story is the true story of business and capitalism. It is not easy, and businessmen take many risks and hit bottom multiple times before they succeed. They risk the most and do it all the time, and if it wasn't for them taking such massive risks no one would have anything but what they could make themselves. I don't even care about health food and that kind of store, but I may start shopping there now because I like Mackey's business sense. Who knows, maybe I will start eating better.

I'd also like to point out that when Mackey speaks about why more people shop at his store who have a college degree. He says because they are more educated, which I agree is part of the reason, but I think a bigger factor is that since a college degree increases earning potential, people that hold them can afford to shop at Whole Foods more frequently since it is usually a little more expensive than other stores. However, it does offer better quality food most of the time.

Again it's all about choice.

Check out 36:00 into the interview. It is amazing! probably one of the most correct description of what capitalism is and what it runs on in simplistic terms. The true purpose of business comes out and guess what...it's not about making money. Mackey says it well: "Of course a business needs to make money. I need to breath in order to live, or eat in order to live, but that's not why I exist, and it's not why I created Whole Foods Market to make as much money as possible."

and Mackey on the true purpose of business and capitalism:

"Business has the potential to have a deeper purpose. That is key to this...We need to begin to move people away that business is bad because it tries to make money. we need to articulate that every business is creating value for customers in goods and services, it's providing jobs for people, it's providing taxes...and all those are good things that business doesn't get credit for and capitalism doesn't get credit for, we need to articulate that."