wrong because you are always wrong otherwise you would not work for "the new york times". [laughter] [applause] we have not been listening to people that know what they're talking about or the economist of the austrian school we have been neglecting them because they refuse to lick the establishments boots but that is a virtue not aid the mayor is time we start listening to them. i urge you to check out "meltdown" visit me at thomas woods.com we have been listening to the? long enough let's try to make some progress for a change in that some people who publicly with what they are talking about. thank you very much [applause] [applause] >> thank you for coming and retain my book i learned that

more than anything else libertarians like to argue both about what is the proper basis for there thinking and almost more important and in a pragmatic way what is the best way to sell there thinking to others? it is the second question that is at the heart of today's debate we have four people we have a four per panelist to will present opposing sides how best to sell capitalism we will start with mr. john mackey who is the co-founder and ceo of whole foods and also co-founder of flow conscious capitalism a concept he will be explaining and with him is mr. michael strong the ceo of flow which defines itself as a nonprofit devoted to liberating the entrepreneurial spirit for good. on the other side taking a

more traditional randian approach to capitalism will be mr. robert bradley who is the author of this book, capitalism at work business government and energy and also mr. edward hudgins he were president? >> of the atlas society the center for objectivism my also worked at the cato institute at the same time you were there and a committee of congress and the chair did today shin. >> we will now begin with mr. john mackey. >> i never should have agreed to go first right after lunch since nobody is here you do that or they put us in the wrong room. i only have five minutes so i really have to raise the long. someday historians will go back on the 20th century and

seat as a great battle that was fought between capitalism and socialism capitalism one by any objective measurement of prosperity want to compare capitalism but yet despite its great victory it did not capture the minds of intellectual or the parts of the people corporations today are the most influential institutions in the world but perceived as selfish, greedy, in explicative, and not trustworthy. the current crisis or recession we are in is being blamed greedy financial corporations in the regulation and free-market as opposed to the bad monetary policy and widespread government incompetence and corruption

capitalism one and yet we're in this crisis and capitalism is being blamed for it. they have serious marketing and printing challenges. that now appears we're going backwards it seems we're moving toward some type of fascism or where businesses are controlled by government or socialism where government owns business. this marketing and branding problem, i put at the feet of the defenders of capitalism who created a philosophy of capitalism that is very narrow and that rather craft it is focus primarily on things like defending the selfishness, self-interest, ag reed, and it has not been able to articulate to the world the duties, the great truth and the way capitalism and business benefits the

world. the defense of capitalism has resulted been capitalism being mistrusted and hated it is simply the wrong way to defend capitalism. what we need in the 21st century is a different narrative, a different way to brand, articulate and understand capitalism. i will argue today the best way to do that is through conscious capitalism. what is it? it is simple it is based on three primary principles. one, the enterprise has a deeper purpose than merely making profits. profits are good, business has a deeper purpose that transcends profits the business is not managed to maximize shareholder value or west but it should be managed

all of the independent stakeholders or dependent on one another finally the leadership of the business should not be in a primarily for what they can get out of it for their own selfish interest olmstead they should serve the enterprise and a deeper purpose. if we think about the purpose of business the first thing to understand is entrepreneurs create the purpose of business. i have known hundreds of entrepreneurs in m life including some of them mode most greatest entrepreneurs of our age and with only one or two exceptions they did not start their business is primarily to maximize profits for shareholders. they may not have always been able to articulate the fire that burns within them and what motivated their hearts, but in general it was to follow a deeper purpose and he will have -- you have to lowballed your purpose overtime to higher complexity

and meeting. bank of the company's you most admire that exist, almost every one of them is animated by a deeper purpose of the greatest ideals of western civilization the good, true, a beautiful, heroic that is what motivates the greatest entrepreneurs in the world about is what they strive for. the company's you admire like southwest airlines which is in pursuit of the good or a google, until, wikipedia and in their pursuit of the truth or beautiful berkshire hathaway or the heroic microsoft and the grameen bank and gates foundation what is the purpose? stakeholder theory hour debate opponents will attack today is conscious capitalism thinks of

business differently than 85 capitalism has a ballistic ecosystem view of the business as a complex itsf adapting stakeholders customers, employees and communities that are injured dependent upon one another. instead of focusing on the trade-off we found it is better to focus on the synergies that exists between the stakeholders instead of thinking of this zero sum game or somebody loses and somebody else wins and think of how to create value for everybody at the same time. a win-win scenario. when you begin to think this way you ask different questions then you begin to discover different answers. we believe the human mind is infinitely creative and conscious capitalism opens new pathways for creativity to begin to continue to progress to humanity.

we believe the creative entrepreneurs and colleges capitalism can solve all of the world's problems if we will only allow them to flores it will not happen until we become aware of the business that would be articulate that when we become conscious of that we can have a new narrative for capitalism that will change the world of the 21st century. >> thank you john. robert bradley may disagree with some of at and he will now tell us why [applause] >> let me begin by saying this is a very good conversation to have. i am very glad there is a conscious capitalism. i am very glad that john mackey and michael strong have done what they have done. they have taken a different path to libertarianism and have access to an audience that most of us don't have.

perhaps they did turn a few liberals then to libertarians. but with that said i have reservations about conscious capitalism that may be the major problem i have is conscious capitalism is a very and -- berry and to a nebulous and pernicious doctrine of social corporate responsibility also known as stakeholder theory.@ú,ñ5t

it can get a bit broad and nebulous. to me it is an odd taste opposition to the invisible hand of profit maximization where the tough love of impersonal market forces benefit all the stakeholders overtime and of course, you have to be good to succeed and a free-market economy. more importantly the invisible you hand sees financial wealth the maximization as a tiebreaker four disputes that can occur among different stakeholders. there are important libertarian arguments with the conscious capitalism it is certainly much better than what is most taught in business ethics class is today around the country, but it is still based on a dual assumption that i question the maquis model is based on one

market failure or profit failure and insufficient government regulation of market failure. giving rise to the need for the capitalist that needs a guide to what otherwise would be autonomous market forces. conscious capitalism and flow can be seen as more than good advice and self-help in my opinion but it seems to be a bit of a blueprint an invisible hand to supplement and cracked the invisible hand in the market. elsewhere, mr. mackey has called the invisible hand the single most believe in sight of social organization ever made in his three. that was made in liberty magazine in 2006. i see stakeholder theory as problematic as a number of free market business emphasis has shown.

stakeholder period instead of eight creation of wealth model creates a multiple master problem. . .

welford destruction. consider bank of america who followed through with the disastrous merger with merrill lynch because he thought, quote, it was good for america. and certainly owners are mad. and i don't mean this as a low blow, but i once worked at enron and can lane eight this statement at in ron's last sustainability conference, quote, we believe incorporating an environmental social consideration and to the way we manage risks, governor our products and develop products and services will help maintain our competitive advantage as we move forward we will leverage our intellectual capital and innovative capabilities to promote sustainable business practices around the world. also consider green bp, which practice stakeholder theory and

underperformed the market and bp has gone from beyond petroleum to back to petroleum as a result. ayn rand would call this a second-hand problem of a business trying to be all things to all people, consumers, employees, onerous, environmentalist society and even competitors and the vantage of the profit maximization model, the financial wealth creation model again is it is an impersonal arbitrator between disparate interest. to me profit losses the most reliable compass among the competitive destruction and and it's the tough business loved it goes missing when the subject of conflicting preferences of stakeholders are given a life of their own. >> we will get back to do in front to. >> last sentence. >> we must be careful about stakeholder theory or corporate

social responsibility in a free society, and certainly in the mixed economy. >> thank you. now michael strong the ceo of the flow will speak for conscious capitalism. >> thank you for those remarks. i think we are in substantial more agreement than they appear that the starkest disagreement john and i are not in sympathy with fer virtue. there is a way that in the woods beneficence, david kelly is part of that movement. we respect that but i think there is a shallow version of the capitalism that's problematic and what i am hearing is the term stakeholder input have problems and i want to say that term stakeholder because i think the reality as john and i were talking about is not problematic. before going into exactly the difference in interpretation stakeholder i just want to point out i think these issues of the

fate of libertarianism and free markets and withstanding of the free markets are important today. a few weeks ago foreign policy ran an article on marxism by a marxist advocating the relevance of marxist and i thought the pernicious intellectual theories the world has ever seen was dead and gone and it's scary to see in a year in which markets have been blamed for everything they did not pause to see the rise of marxism. so libertarians have to market more than we've ever done before and we need to take seriously the fact most people are all sympathetic to our ideas and what did we do wrong to create that hostility and what can we do right in the future? >> the future of conscious capitalism countries are driven by a deeper purpose than proxies maximus jason and put out what a concept that is. regardless of their rhetoric

about profit and focus of a dollar sign as a symbol if you look at the hero's their passionate entrepreneurs who love passionately the actable substance of their business. they are not mbas who will leave no dollar signs, the hour people rule of steel so when we talk about all to the doors driven by passion we feel if that is randian and one of the reasons brand is so inspiring she talks about her wicked witch was passionate about the good and the individual. on that side we see conscious capitalism beyond brand the an antireigned. with respect economics we are very museum, austrian economics and so insofar as rand supported the economics we are on the same page. everything we talk about in the capitol is in this voluntary. no government coercion. i think the confusing danger that was brought up by robert is that there is a german european sort stakeholder theory which

does involve government conversion it's most unfortunate and a serious problem for stakeholder theory that the worse if version exists but it freeman the university of virginia business professor who is the founder is a good libertarian and his purpose for creating stakeholder theory was the theory of management that he will be more successful as a manager of a business if you look at what your customers and employees really want and so forth and try to create a win-win and i think at some level that this simply obvious good business. i think at freeman was reacting to a generation of again we will pick of the nba's, where there was a quantitative focus that strictly looked at numbers without managing the human element. once you get into managing the human element caring about stakeholders makes obvious sense and a great consumer brands we believe will be those most effectively conscious capitalist brands.

the fact is due to mass flow hierarchy we have more than enough of what the need and simple material level. employees want better places to work, consumers want a more positive experience when they buy things. they want meaning in their products and we see conscious capitalism as a market-driven species of capitalism and rather than have libertarians behind the curve fighting where the market is going in terms of consumer demand. it would be great if for once they were ahead of the marketing angle and say this is where the market is going. we really have been supportive of this as long as it is strictly voluntary so we want to talk to people conscious capitalism and the way consumers can excerpt preferences by buying products and services from those companies that provide the best ecosystem for and we use, customers, suppliers, communities and the environment. quickly on the environment because of this the most

controversial, von mises provides -- fishery be overfished the solution is to have different fisherman owned property rights in the fishery. given that, i think a conscious capitalist company with respect to the environment should be advocating practically property right solutions to the environment showing they care about the environment in a manner consistent with free market principles rather than say we don't care about anything. i think it is not true a good free marketeer doesn't care about anything and we may as well be honest and say we are people that want to make the world a better place. that is why we are passionate. >> michael, thank you very much. now it hutchins will speak again for randian capitalism. >> thank you during much. by the way i want to start by congratulating john mackey on the success of whole foods, i do shop there and also i want to congratulate you on your attempt to bring free markets to a segment of the population that are woefully ignorant about free

markets and woefully socialist that is to say many of the customers who visit whole foods in d.c. is like obama central but i do like the stores. there may not seem to be a lot of difference and i think there is indeed a lot of agreement, but i want to make a couple of points. i don't call it randian, a call with objective is most of which comes from atlas shrugged which you can read the very popular book after 52 years. and i think the first problem i have with stakeholder here is how you define self-interest. now, the objective is ethics holds that we each are unique individuals. we are conscious as individuals, we are healthy or sick as individuals, happy or sad as individuals. we are alive or dead as individuals. the individual is the basic unit.

each of us must use our mind and independent judgment to discover and those ongoing enterprises that are our own lives how we can create the values that would allow less to prosper and flourish how to balance productive activities, careers, family, friends, self improvement and the like and it is this understanding by the way that justifies a limited government. rand would point out we are all the readers, whether we are nurturing a child to maturity or business to profitability whether we are writing a song or a poem or business plan, whether we are laying bricks to a building or designing or a range of finance these are creative acts we should be proud. now this view of self-interest, rational self-interest i think has a much better label perhaps van some of the ones often

parodied nasty selfish person who doesn't care about anyone else, that's what it means to care about one's self and this brings me to my first problem with the way stakeholder is interpreted. watching out for your customers and so forth that is correct in common sense but there is a danger the notion of keeping all stakeholders in mind can mean i am trying to guess she, what am i going to have to do to satisfy john and to satisfy rob bradley over there and all these other people and so everybody is kind of trying to think what it is they are going to need to satisfy themselves and others. it's difficult enough to figure out what it's going to take to satisfy yourself. this should be your main focus and then when you come to society whether through an enterprise or whatever you can't negotiate and throw out what is your own self-interest, what will interest you and if you can come together, great and wonderful and if you can't come together on a business plan or romantic relationship or

friendship or whatever, you go your separate ways, so there is a danger in the mind set of looking into everyone else's mind. i will add a second thing because michael strong's point about randian is absolutely correct and rand's books the heroes are passionate and what they are doing. it is largest profit, it is profit through a certain means. howard clark expressed it the best when he said i don't build in order to have clients, he was an architect, have clients in order to build. that view means that a certain point you are going t stand up for your own vision and of your so-called stakeholders disagree with the hour customers who want you to build a colonial house and you want to build instead modern houses or. so i worry that stakeholder

theory would have you potentially compromising your vision in the name of the old other speakers than to say i will try to convince you if we can agree, fine, if not, that's what we have to do. and i out of time now? one more minute, great, i can get one more of my points and here. also, on stakeholder theory i have problems with what happens in a situation where you have either a difficult market, hard economic times or a lot of competition. stakeholder theories works unprofitable times but for example, on a note in most of the shops here and in las vegas for those of you watching on tv or video most of the stuff are made in china or the philippines and i wonder what about the companies that had to say to american suppliers or costs are too high, you are our stakeholders but we are going to have to go somewhere else

because that's what customers are going to want. wholefoods i'm happy for its success a lot of times the prices are a little high but so was the quality. there's a lot of people that might want to go to wal-mart or other places the prices are low and that's wonderful. what i'm saying is you have to be careful with the stakeholder notion putting yourself into someone else's head because i think it can bring a very dangerous situation and when you come to a competitive market i think what he will sometimes point is you have to say to address the clickers sorry but we can only pay this wage, we can only pay these prices for of suppliers etc.. if you can make it work, great but you have to say no i am going to have to go for the profit, for my own vision. thank you, and i will have a few points later. >> we are now going to want to route to where our panelists will get to extend their own arguments, react to other panelists arguments and this round the objective tests lead

off with robert bradley. >> i would like to use an ek sample of where i think that an undue concern with stakeholder theory and how others perceive yourself rather than working from reality out has created a problem for conscious capitalism and this has to do with environmental sustainability. conscious capitalism has identified environmental sustainability and as, quote, the achilles' heel of the freedom of movement. now, i would like to turn this around and say that environmental sustainability is the achilles heel of conscious capitalism and particularly the uncritical embrace of corrine energy, energy that lives through government favor and particularly the global warming issue. to me this is where image has trumped substance. now the assumption here is that

the infants of and does not work and that thousands of pages of environmental regulations are not enough. now granted that conscious capitalism is very good when it comes to resources availability julian simon and conscious capitalism is great on property rights as a solution to common problems. but to me conscious capitalism goes off the real when it comes to the issue of climate change and global warming, and i would say please check your premises, for it is not the climate [alarm sounding] saturated just like the earlier month to see in scarce that began with the population bomb in the 1960's. it is not carbon dioxide that greenhouse gas that has significant benefits not only cost in terms of ecosystem and human impacts, and now with a decade or more of temperature

quiet is in the balance of evidence toward lower end warming scenarios where clan that economists can even say man-made greenhouse gas warming is good, not bad? this is a tough issue and, you know, it isn't fair to put people on the spot let's argue the science of climate change. why am saying is that to make climate change a driver of the entrepreneur of conscious capitalism is a recipe for failure. we need the contras capitalism movement to work with the left to do a much needed rethinking about this vital issue. this is a contentious issue. i do not want the left boycott wholefoods over this issue but if this is a major problem with

the invisible hand and if existing environmental regulation isn't enough where we need a new populist ethic this puts us on the wrong road because the climate movement, the cap and trade movement and the 1500 page waxman markey bill this point to be debated in the senate is the energy and climate road to serfdom and this contradicts so much of the free market principles that under conscious capitalism so i see a real conflict here. i would urge conscious capitalism check the premises, get back to the basis of climate change and particularly will get government failure, a political failure versus market failure in this issue as far as conscious capitalists being able to solve the global warming issue, this is a tears in the ocean problem.

if you look at the mathematics of greenhouse gas reductions, and what can be done under self-interest and under government mandates around the world we are talking about hundreds of degrees of of weighted warming 50 to 100 years from now so this is a big issue, a tough issue. i know i put you on the spot but all of us americans are now debating this and it is a huge issue for the freedom movement. thank you. [applause] -- before, rob. for the conscious capitalism, mr. michael strong. >> thank you, rob. i am flattered you chose to focus on the greenhouse issue because it is largely irrelevant to conscious capitalism as a whole. it leads me to think that we are winning our point substantially. it's perfectly possible from my perspective to have a conscious capitalist oil company that had no interest or support for the greenhouse issue at all.

they are analytically separate. now i am going to back up and go into the psychology of what we are doing with conscious capitalism. idealism and the 20th century is largely centered about communism which was insane. after communism fell a lot of the idealism went to environmentalism in a funny way and i think it's largely because there was no other path to an ideal world. i think many young people in particular want to create a better world, communism fell. we would like to replace the passion for environmentalism with passion for creating a better world and lots of different ways as many human beings were conscious business. we find a lot of young people are inspired by the idea of conscious capitalism, conscious of japan or should. they want to be good people and make money and they also and so everything we are talking about is a path for them to pull all these things together.

i think once we gained more momentum the hatred that characterizes much of the alarmist environmental movement will dissipate. i would like to see the next five years it might be ten or 15 but we are creating a substitute for the idealism that once collapsed when communism collapsed. >> to go into just a little bit of why we think that the issue of climate change is not attached to cut as capital some i think the brands are so powerful, the brand will food so powerful most people automatically assume wholefoods and anybody associated with wholefoods even on because i happen to know john somehow automatically agree with everything the demographic behind wholefoods agrees with. i would say that is in the case we are trying to create a big tent and want to pull those people as possible. in the conscious capitalism movement we have many people who do come from the left and one of the strategic elements behind

deeper purpose stakeholder theory the leadership is to create a big tent we are not saying what the deeper purpose is. it could be wal-mart, low everyday prices that could be deeper purpose that was in the original sam walton founder vision. so, and a certain sense conscious capitalism is more a theory how you are a capitalist than what you happen to believe in terms of the environment or anything else and sometimes i have had to act as a libertarian and four search within the conscious capitalism movement where somebody from that side wants conscious capitalism's the culture. to include government or union stakeholders and i have to say no, no, strictly voluntary direct stakeholder strictly management. that said we believe if we can shift the energy towards idealism about business is the best way to make the world a better place gradually the left and its hatred and the left is about hatred and a draft this point will dissipate and young

people will come in mass and to our side because they want to be idealistic parts of the the solution as the title of a recent book says. so again, thank you for meeting last a place we can show why we are the strongest movement and we will let the next person go. >> thank you, michael, for the objective is the site. edward hudgins. >> thank you. i want to address again the stakeholders issue by the way for those of you who may be haven't read what's behind it i do suggest you read the material on conscious cabalism and flow because i do want to have this discussion i think it's an important discussion so here is a final criticism on a half. the fundamentals of a free society are based on individual rights and that includes private property rights. what that means is ultimately we can discuss what's good for ourselves as individuals society

whatever but ultimately when i say that piece of land on half of the top of the mounted i want to keep it christine and keep the forest there because i like walking through it and if i want to cut down the forest and put up my observatory that's my business or put up a house or do whatever i want ultimately good fences make good neighbors and that's going to be the fundamentals of a free society is the inviolability of private property rights. what i worry about with the stakeholder concept is that it in place and i know this is not perhaps your intention but it in place while everything is connected with everyone else, win-win situations occur when you negotiate in a certain way and therefore because everything is connected, here's the point, our ideas of their own momentum sometimes and, well, in that case maybe we should have the government intervene. you guys would say that's absolutely not what you mean and

i would grant that's not what you mean. what i am saying is the logic of the idea bushes in the direction that since everything is connected to everyone else and you're good is connected to mind which is in certain ways that ultimately this is what leads to the erosion of the morality on which a free society and private property rights are based and you have seen that in a lot of collectivist society is that this is what ultimately emerges over a period of decades or longer. on worried that's the sort of thing you might get out of not conscious capitalism but especially the notion that everybody is a stakeholder and therefore everyone has a vested interest in win-win situations also true but therefore if you are not winning and many people lose in the short term in

business, well then maybe you should do something about it. after all in many cases suppliers when and markets change. people lose jobs and have to get something else, and another job. that's one of the unique things about the united states, we have the highest job turnover rate in the industrialized world and until the bush obama team dave this terrible recession we also had the highest job creation rate in the industrialized world because everything was turning over so in the short term some people lose that in the long term the system benefits and everyone has opportunities. i worry the stakeholder approach undermines the moral foundation for private property rights and if that is the case that's why you get people after several decades who don't have the sort of consciousness about the importance of property rights and they are willing to allow the government to do anything governments want.

again i want to thank the organizers for opening up the discussion and i would like to see more of this discussion and i would urge everybody to read atlas shrugged and the works on our what we say as well as the works of flow and conscious capitalism. thank you. in conclusion, john mackey will speak for conscious capitalism. >> yeah, the problem, and come is property rights or already being eroded and it's not due to ,ñpñ

they are improving the world. that's the story we need to tell and that's the store conscious capitalism does tell. conscious capitalism is not corporate social responsibility. i reject that connection robb was making. they are not the same thing nor discourages capitalism have anything to do with environmentalism or global warming. it recognizes the environment as a stakeholder and business needs to have responsibilities and that's it. it leaves it to the business to make the interpretations how to manifest that. it is worried if you have an emphasis on stakeholders that's going to erode property rights. well, i mean property rights i've already pointed out we are talking about putting stakeholders is recognizing that stakeholders are interdependent upon one another. it is not in any way meant to

erode property rights or take away the control of the corporation from investors. investors are the ones who get paid last. customers get paid, employees get paid, as suppliers get paid, investors get paid if there's anything left over after everyone else is paid therefore they must maintain control of the business, conscious capitalism does not support in any way erosion of investors' rights. in order to understand this interdependency of stakeholders, i will give you a simple example, end said you can't get into other people's minds and you better look out for your own interest. if that's your philosophy in the retail business you are going to fail miserably. you better get into the mind of your customers and the mind of your team members and understand what your suppliers care about

conscious capitalism focuses on holism it focuses on the conflict of interest that exist between the stakeholders. conscious capitalism focuses on the harmony of interest that exists between them through cooperation. randian focuses on the tradeoffs that exist. conscious capitalism focuses on the synergies that exist randian capitalism in the world today is donner respected is largely disliked and heated. conscious capitalism puts forth a vision of capitalism people can tell you and loved. finally capitalism and corporations are not trusted in the world today.

conscious capitalism creates the possibility corporations and capitalism can enter into widespread trust. in conclusion since i don't think conscious capitalism has been understood by my opponents here today i'm going to repeat the basic tenets of it. wan the enterprise has the potential to have a deeper purpose that includes that goes beyond merely maximizing profits and shareholder value. secondly, the enterprise can create and should create value simultaneously for all of the major interdependence bickel terse, customers, employees, suppliers, communities and investors. this way of thinking about the business transforms the underlying ethics of the business into a win win, win win strategy. the larger societal brand of capitalism and business can evolves to fulfilling the deepest human needs that we

have, truth, beauty, goodness, love, heroism. that is what conscious capitalism is about and that is what capitalism needs to evolve to in the 21st century. thank you. [applause] due to the multi panel nature of this we have a narrow range of questions probably no more than two and try to focus than narrowly and aim them to a person inappropriate. thanks. >> i would like to ask both sides what you perceive as the difference between conscious capitalism and the business insight its traditional and retail trade that is good business for business to keep its customers happy and to keep all trading partners happy. >> that is conscious capitalism. and i think adam smith and milton friedman would agree but wealth maximization is the tie-breaker and smith and

friedman would say is stakeholders are taking care of under a properly understood long term profit maximization model. >> i would add if you read atlas shrugged in ayn rand's articles you will find virtually every point john made about conscious capitalism versus what he called randian capitalism is not correct that the objective is to focus first and foremost on purpose the focus on harmony of interest, the characters and that was shot, rand commesso think of all of those points, that is exactly what ayn rand objectivism is advocating in the books. >> exactly. so what is a better way to market? what is a better way to brand to go out and tell the world capitalism is about selfishness

deeper purpose creating value not just for a few but everyone. i submit that is a better way to market capitalism. >> which is, and i don't think we deny that. >> next question. >> mr. mackie i live on the lower east side of manhattan, and you open your big store and drove a lot of competitors, small boutique food stores out of business. it was a losing situation for them, not a winning situation. i don't think there is anything wrong with that. why don't you tell those randian's that every once in awhile poll foods does harm competitors? [laughter] >> because i don't agree with that. first of all we didn't drive anyone out of business. we created value for customers and they voted. they voted them out of existence. [applause] that's all wholefoods fault. >> that is well said. tell that to --

>> my second point on that is in a stakeholder model properly understood, competitors are allies, competitors make whole foods market better and where would we be without a trader joe's forcing us to get better, where would we be without wegmann said if we didn't have competitors forcing us to get better? yes cofids comes to a marketplace that forces the people we compete against to get a better for their customers are going to vote them out of existence. that's how we make progress in capitalism society continued through competition. we must improve and provide greater value for the customers will vote us out of existence. by the way, i would agree that in fact that is what competition does, there are winners and losers but it's competition that creates value. >> we are meant to be done, rall has 20 seconds were the things to say. sorry there wasn't more room for questions.