Denne post er en opfølgning på Nikolaj Stenbergs tidligere indlæg i dag, social retfærdighed via kapitalisme, om John MacKey, manden bag succeen Whole  Foods Market. I modsætning til Nikolaj er jeg ikke sikker på at jeg ville handle i den pågældende kæde. At varer er økologiske er absolut ikke noget positivt salgsargument i forhold til en politisk (ukorrekt) forbruger som undertegnede.

Nikolaj fik mig dog til at hente Mackeys bog, “Conscious Capitalism”, på Amazon (som forøvrigt er et af de firmaer Mackey anser for at være ledet efter principperne bag “conscious capitalists”, andre eksempler er Google, IKEA og Starbucks).

Jeg skal med det samme understrege, at jeg ikke har læst hele bogen. Men af det jeg har læst må jeg nok erkende, at jeg måske nok stiller mig tvivlende overfor hans forsøg på at konstruere en helt særlig og unik form for kapitalisme med indbyggede gode intentioner. Muligvis er problemet at jeg ikke er “amerikansk nok” eller at han er “for amerikansk” til min smag.

Grundlæggende mener Mackey, at den Friedmanske tese om, at en virksomheds eneste sociale ansvar er at gå efter profitmaksimering, er forkert. Mackey opfatter nærmere profit som et (nødvendigt) biprodukt, men at det væsentligste er betydningen for en række stakeholders.

Min umiddelbare vurdering af denne position er, at det er nødvendigt hvis man ikke stiller sig tilfreds med konsekvenserne af ens aktiviteter, men lægger vægt på at blive berømmet for ens intentioner.

Mackey, som er erklæret libertarianer og støttede Romney ved sidste valg, offentligt har udtrykt skeptisk overfor klimadagsorden (på en Lomborgsk møde) og vist nok er budhist, har selv beskrevet grundlaget for conscious capitalism, som:

We believe that business is good because it creates value, it is ethical because it is based on voluntary exchange, it is noble because it can elevate our existence, and it is heroic because it lifts people out of poverty and creates prosperity. Free-enterprise capitalism is the most powerful system for social cooperation and human progress ever conceived. It is one of the most compelling ideas we humans have ever had. But we can aspire to something even greater. Conscious Capitalism is a way of thinking about capitalism and business that better reflects where we are in the human journey, the state of our world today, and the innate potential of business to have a positive impact on the world. Conscious businesses are galvanized by higher purposes that serve, align, and integrate the interests of all their major stakeholders. Their higher state of consciousness enables them to see the interdependencies that exist among all their stakeholders, and this, in turn, allows them to discover and harvest synergies from situations that otherwise seem burdened with trade-offs. Conscious businesses have conscious leaders who are driven by dedication to the company’s purpose, to all the people the business touches, and to the planet we all share. Conscious businesses have trusting, authentic, innovative, and caring cultures that make working within them a source of both personal growth and professional fulfillment. They endeavor to create financial, intellectual, social, cultural, emotional, spiritual, physical, and ecological wealth for all their stakeholders. Conscious businesses can help evolve our world in such a way that billions of people can flourish, leading lives infused with passion, purpose, love, and creativity— a world of freedom, harmony, prosperity, and compassion.

Som nævnt tager Mackey afstand fra Friedmans grunlæggende tese om at en virksomheds sociale ansvar består i profitmaksimering. Eller som Mackey skriver i en debat med Friedman i Reason Magazine, “Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business“:

In 1970 Milton Friedman wrote that “there is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.” That’s the orthodox view among free market economists: that the only social responsibility a law-abiding business has is to maximize profits for the shareholders.

I strongly disagree. I’m a businessman and a free market libertarian, but I believe that the enlightened corporation should try to create value for all of its constituencies. From an investor’s perspective, the purpose of the business is to maximize profits. But that’s not the purpose for other stakeholders–for customers, employees, suppliers, and the community. Each of those groups will define the purpose of the business in terms of its own needs and desires, and each perspective is valid and legitimate.

Jeg skal medgive at jeg er ganske enig med Friedman, når han i sit indlæg peger på, at:

1) “The most successful businesses put the customer first, instead of the investors” (which clearly means that this is the way to put the investors first).

2) “There can be little doubt that a certain amount of corporate philanthropy is simply good business and works for the long-term benefit of the investors.”

Og peger på betydningen af den gældene skattelovgivning for virksomheders filantropiske tilbøjeligheder på vegne af investorerne:

I believe Mackey’s flat statement that “corporate philanthropy is a good thing” is flatly wrong. Consider the decision by the founders of Whole Foods to donate 5 percent of net profits to philanthropy. They were clearly within their rights in doing so. They were spending their own money, using 5 percent of one part of their wealth to establish, thanks to corporate tax provisions, the equivalent of a 501c(3) charitable foundation, though with no mission statement, no separate by-laws, and no provision for deciding on the beneficiaries. But what reason is there to suppose that the stream of profit distributed in this way would do more good for society than investing that stream of profit in the enterprise itself or paying it out as dividends and letting the stockholders dispose of it? The practice makes sense only because of our obscene tax laws, whereby a stockholder can make a larger gift for a given after-tax cost if the corporation makes the gift on his behalf than if he makes the gift directly. That is a good reason for eliminating the corporate tax or for eliminating the deductibility of corporate charity, but it is not a justification for corporate charity.

Whole Foods Market’s contribution to society–and as a customer I can testify that it is an important one–is to enhance the pleasure of shopping for food. Whole Foods has no special competence in deciding how charity should be distributed. Any funds devoted to the latter would surely have contributed more to society if they had been devoted to improving still further the former.

Mit personlige bud er, at Mackey’s største problem er hans behov for at blive set på som en mand drevet af gode intentioner og et stort behov for at øge sin status i andres øjne. Som en egentlig forklaringsmodel lader hans consious capitalism en del tilbage at ønske. Ligeledes hans påstand om at firmaer drevet efter consious capitalism principper – hvilket her må tages som ikke profitmaksimerende – vil udkonkurrere “gammeldags” profitmaksimerende virksomheder ikke holder vand.

Jeg vil på ingen måde sætte spørgsmålstegn ved Mackeys evner som erhvervsmand. Det ville også være tåbeligt, med tanke på hans succes med Whole Foods Marked. Jeg kender ikke butikken og selv om jeg er modstander af dyrkelsen af økologi, og finder hele konceptet mildt sagt frelst, så vil jeg absolut ikke udelukke at handle der, hvis jeg en dag kommer forbi en.

Friedman gjorde det, og så kan vi andre bestemt også 🙂 Der er jo ingen grund til at være hverken fanatisk eller religiøst forblændet, blot fordi andre er det.

Men døm selv, hele artiklen kan læses her.