Case study: Whole Foods Market

Résumé du document

Founded in 1980 in Austin Texas, Whole Foods is a supermarket focused in health, natural and organic products all across the United States.

First consolidated as a small local store with 19 workers, presently Whole Foods has outlets in 36 states in the US and other countries such as Canada and Great Britain; many of which are located in metropolitan cities.

This was possible because the percentage of people following a healthier lifestyle is growing faster, and the clients of the company are willing to pay for a better quality, no matter the price, and also this is why the profits are higher. All the items “Whole Foods” are organic and there are several kinds of products like in any other supermarket, but this company is focused in making the difference offering organic products with the best quality for a high level market.

There are about 600 work teams in Whole Foods empowered to make decisions, motivated and identified with the Company´s mission and motto “Whole Foods, Whole people, whole planet”. This philosophy is a reflection of the firm's strategy, making the team members feel content, which reflects in the way they do their job.

However, there are threats, and one for Whole Foods is the competitors, such as big supermarket chains and smaller shops who have tried to copy their products but trying to keep cheaper prices.

As the company's main target is either people of high economic status or highly committed to environment and health care, Whole Foods has managed to overcome recessions in economy without suffering so much.

Extraits

[...] So the self comes prior to the ends. This is just not possible in the communitarian perspective, because there is no such thing as a self without ends, since there are precisely what makes the self. Moreover, it underestimates the fact that we derive our values from the social matrix in which we live, since in Rawls' original position, the self is able to choose its ends freely. Thus, Rawls is committed to a theory of the person which is atomistic. [...]

[...] It does not have metaphysical claim. As a result, this view rather seems to be a ‘device of representation', a way of providing justification to principles of justice, and a morally relevant position in which one is to think of justice, rather than a theory of the person valid in any circumstances. References Rawls, A theory of Justice Stanford Encyclopedia, article Original Position Rawls, A theory of Justice Rawls, A theory of Justice Stanford Encyclopedia, article Original Position Rawls, A theory of Justice Stanford Encyclopedia, article Original Position Mulhall, S and Swift, Liberals and Communitarians Mulhall, S and Swift, Liberals and Communitarians Carse, L. [...]

[...] As Rawls specifies it, the self in the original position wants to pursue its own interest. Its motivation to engage within cooperation in the society is to get ‘social advantages' from this cooperation. For Sandel, this is not something imposed by the constraints of the original position but rather a way in which Rawls' theory of the person shows through. For it would not have mattered to the theory of justice to make the assumption that individuals are inclined to ‘benevolence' In this sense, the excuse of the device for shaping a theory of justice does not hold. [...]

[...] According to them, it namely neglects the extent to which the self is constituted by the social world in which one lives and from which one derives its conception of the good, and of how to live in society. This criticism can be powerful one, since it is able to undermine Rawls's entire theory. Thus the claim that the original position entails a theory of person is to be examined closely. This debate is moreover crucial within political philosophy, as it constitutes the central focus of the communitarian critique of Rawls' Theory of Justice, one fundamental work of contemporary liberal political thinking. [...]

[...] According to him, some conceptions of the good are not possible within Rawls' framework. Those conceptions of the good are those which ‘allow for or presuppose constitutive personal attachments to values, projects and communities' By ‘constitutive attachment', it is meant that these values are part of the self's identity, rather than an end which the self decides to pursue. It matters to the identity of the self whether it has this value or not. As Rawls' theory of the person implies that we are antecedently individuated selves, it does not allow such values to be taken into account in a Rawlsian state. [...]