Saturday, 19 October 2013
Ethical shopping and the Whole Food conundrum.
There's a new store on the block. A branch of Whole Foods has recently opened and is chock full of introduction offers and cut price vitals. Her indoors reckons it's the dog's bollocks but I have yet to explore the emporium myself. Having never heard of the company I was curious about it's ownership and did a quick online search. Bloody hell! I am not a big believer in ethical shopping because although I know that the idea is well intentioned a commodity is a commodity is a commodity and be it "green" "ethical" or "fair" the social relationship remains the same. However Whole Foods owner John Mackey should give ethical shoppers plenty to think about. Mackey is a committed vegan, environmentalist and believer in animal rights and he is reported to have donated his stock portfolio to charity. Mackey is also a committed free market libertarian, a follower of Hayek, Friedman and Ayn Rand and a strong opponent of trades unions and all this leftie Obamacare nonsense. In fact he is on record as saying that ordinary folk are no more entitled to health care than they are to food and shelter! Plenty there for ethical shoppers to try and get there heads round. Good luck with that. Meanwhile, vegan or not, Mackey's store has been offering a very tasty half-price spit roast chicken. Fill yer boots.
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3 comments:
I think I can guess where he stands on abortion, on disability rights and on eugenics.
For many reasons I would not endorse his views on Rand, Hayek et al. But I cannot see anything that is unethical in his ethical standpoint - just positions to disagree with. But that will not satisfy current anarchists who long ago abandoned argument in favour of classifying standpoints and denouncing them. (Oh, he supports Hayek and Rand, then he must be a class enemy) As for Aidan, I would hope he takes an ethical position against abortion, as I do, and have maintained that it has to be regarded as an immoral destruction of human life, whilst also maintaining my defence of choice in the matter. Just consider that choosing the lesser evil does not make it virtuous, the lesser evil is still an evil, as many women will, tell you. On this issue the left have bought the slogans, and the arguments they rested on have long been refuted. Obamacare is a disaster and may be left wing but it is not going to do anything for the elderly working class, and whilst it has no resemblance to our NHS - envy of the world - it will increase the power of the state and the big corporations, and definitely consolidate cost conscious death panels. My former colleagues in bioethics at Yale are banging out their cost containment policies as I write this. As for eugenics - be careful as many of the great anarchist/left heroes - Emma Goldman eg. supported it.
i like mackey dees and not 2 worrid if he gets his burgers with sum horse or dokkey in em. after 10 pints I dunt taste it anyways :0
SidSnot
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