Via Atrios, it seems that Jonah Goldberg's new and improved book title is going to be Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Hegel to Whole Foods. Wow, Whole Foods? I had no idea. So I clicked on over to CEO John Mackey's blog, expecting a fevered rant on the virtues of National Socialism. Instead, all I got was a manifesto about his business philosophy:
My thesis about business having important purposes besides maximizing profits should not be mistaken for hostility toward profit, however. I believe I know something about maximizing profits and creating shareholder value. When I co-founded Whole Foods Market in 1978, we began with $45,000 in capital; we only had $250,000 in sales our first year. In 2006, Whole Foods Market had sales of more than $5.6 billion, with net profits of more than $200 million, and a market capitalization over $8 billion.
Profits are one of the most important goals of any successful business and the investors are one of the most important constituencies of the business. Paradoxically, the best way to maximize profits over the long-term is to not make them the primary goal of the business.
Well, granted, it's not exactly a plan to annex the Sudetenland, but I guess fascists these days are a little more subtle.