Whole Foods, icon of "conscious capitalism", operates prison labor

By Ben Norton - posted in CounterPunch, 17 July 2015 (Original article in English)

Note: LThe opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and should not be taken as official positions of SITT-IWW.

Le PDG de Whole Foods John Mackey, whose personal fortune is estimated at more 100 millions of dollars, is a true apostle of "conscious capitalism." Loving each other ‘Libertarian’, Mackey argues that the solution to all the world's ills is to free corporations from all control. He believes so strongly that he has written an entire book praising the virtues of the free market..

At the same time as he preaches the salutary gospel of ‘conscious capitalism’, the Mackey Whole Foods business, which has a growing annual income of 13 billions of dollars, sells fish at exorbitant prices, milk and cheese from the work of prison inmates in the United States.

Chain fame of organic "green-capitalist" supermarkets benefits from a workforce that is essentially a commitment to the prison system du Colorado, paying only 1,50$ time for detainees to grow organic tilapia.

Colorado prisons are already cultivating 1,2 million pounds (55 tons) tilapia per year, and government officials along with their corporate friends are eager to increase this production.

That's not all. Whole Foods also buys artisan cheeses and milk grown by inmates. Colorado Correctional Industries Prison Corporation created what the magazine Fortune described as "a company of 65 millions of dollars in full growth employing 2000 condemned in 17 places."

The base salary for these prison workers is 60 ¢ per day. Whole Foods buys cheese from these prisons, who literally pay a few cents an hour to inmates, and dramatically increases prices thereafter.

This is by no means the only questionable practice of Whole Foods - a corporation that bills itself as the pioneer of a new generation of the big caring company. In June, it was revealed that the company had systematically surfacturé its customers in several stores for at least half a decade.

This two-weight system, two bars is striking. One can imagine that exploiting detainees - people incarcerated by the state - would be a contradiction of the so-called libertarian values ​​of voluntarism, of free association and non-coercion. Critics of right-wing libertarians will say that they have never been strong in moral coherence.

In fact, Mackey strongly opposes basic libertarian values ​​regarding workers' rights and labor organization. Bans unionization of Whole Foods employees, comparing workers' democratic control over their own workplaces to herpes. According to him, inn union, all like herpes, "Don't kill yourself, but it's unpleasant and embarrassing, and that prevents a lot of people from becoming your lover. ”

Pseudo-science peddling and market cult

Mackey is a follower of the libertarian school gurus in Chicago and Austria : Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. According to Reason, Mackey's works are also "sprinkled with references to ... astrology."

Unsurprisingly, this free market enthusiast who peddles pseudo-science like astrology also belies human-made climate change.. Mackey thus asserts that climate change - shown to be a major threat to human civilization and life on earth by scientific research – "Is perfectly natural and is not not necessarily bad. ”

Many economists have long argued that empirical evidence belies the laissez-faire doctrine. However, pseudo-scientific intransigence seems to lead Mackey to flirt with astrology and the rejection of anthropogenic climate change.

Ian Plimer, a marginal character more popular in the anti-climate change community, remembers Mackey saying : « ”no scientific consensus exists’ about climate change ; [adding] with a sincerity that you might call daring or reckless, that it would be a shame ”to allow the hysteria of climate change” to cause the increase dtaxes and dare rules, and in turn the lowering of our standard of living and increased poverty.” »

In other words, just as Mackey contradicts his own values ​​and exploits prison labor for profit, he also denies science when it best suits his capitalist free market ideology.

it born shouldn't surprise us. It is, after all, the inherently contradictory logic of the capitalist mode of production. The Market is God, and profit takes precedence over everything - over your principles, on other human beings, and especially on the planet we all share.

Note: SITT-IWW is currently running a union organizing campaign for Whole Foods workers across the United States..