Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsBook disappoints after a rather promising introduction by J. Mackey
Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2022
The book's Introduction written by John Mackey interested me particularly because of the honorable mention of three great defenders of Capilism: Ludwig Von Mises, Henry Hazlitt, and Murray Rothbard. But as I started Chapter 1 and got underway, I grew disappointed. First of all, I noticed immediately the omission of Ayn Rand in his list of honorable mentions. Rand is a significant ally to Capitalism and incidentally is held in high esteem by the aforementioned men . It is, then, not surprising that the book weakens when it tries to ignore INDIVIDUALISM's vital role in Capitalism—and ignore its credit to every single accomplishment of Capitalism in history—and to replace it with COLLECTIVISM. That is, John Mackey's "Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the heroic spirit of business" amounts to collectivizing businesses. What a breakthrough idea. His means is of doing this is Altruism, of course, though don't expect the book to explicitly admit that.
Mackey tells an inspiring story of his stakeholders helping the business to get the store back in order after a big flood. Supplying physical labor, monetary aid, credit, moral support. But then Mackey draws the conclusions that they did this merely out of love for the brand and because they are good people with good hearts. He doesn't trace their motivations to the concept of: pursuing rational self-interest aka pursuing happiness. (Read Ayn Rand to learn more about this philosophy). What happened was... they were all pursuing their personal happiness, which happily aligned in getting the store built up and running. We can accomplish great things when our self-interests align with the self-interests of others.
John Mackey makes a disclaimer in the beginning of Chapter 1 that from this point forward, except for areas otherwise noted, that he will be speaking in an "our" voice. He fails to state who "OUR" consists of, at least not up to this point of the book. Naturally it means Mackey is off the hook of what's to come from the book. How convenient.
In this "our" voice, the book rejects 'profit maximization' as a primary purpose of going into business. I agree with him if the term "profit" refers to "financial profit" because monetary gain is only part of the primary purpose. But the proper thing to say is: man goes into business to pursue personal happiness. He does NOT go into business to pursue other people's happiness! It is false to claim that a man becomes an entrepreneur in order to give people jobs, to better the environment, to set good examples of social responsibility, to provide livelihoods for family, to help contribute to the communities—all of these are terrific but they secondary consequences. They are happy by products to the primary, selfish goal of pursuing one's own happiness.
Although I don't plan to finish the book, I predict John Mackey thinks that all business owners who don't put other people's happiness first —that is, who aren't altruists—are guilty of what he coins "low conscious" capitalists. Baloney.
To wrap up, if you're planning to read this book.... if you believe in the doctrine of altruism, if you think collectivism is fundamental to man's nature (it is not), then you might buy this book.
One more thing, I resent this book's "stylistic" choice to write the book from an "OUR" perspective. What is YOUR perspective, Mr. Mackey? You were off to a great start in the Introduction.
There are moments in the early parts of the book where the narrator(whoever it is) is speaking highly of capitalism with fervor and zeal....only to cut to a socialistic passage by some CEO expounding upon the entrepreneur's responsibility to solving societal problems, providing livelihoods for families, serving communities and institutions like schools and universities. I don't equate these with being "conscious".
Where are your opinions Mr. Mackey? Are you even really a "Capitalist"? Or just cashing in on the term? If you happen to be featured on your next book, I might give it another look.
