Whole Foods CEO John Mackey on a Mission to Explain Free Markets

Trying to improve capitalism's undeserved reputation

Capitalism: a network of selfish corporations run by greedy, heartless tycoons — that was John P. Mackey's view of America's business community when he was a college student in the 1970s.

But a healthy dose of Adam Smith, Milton Freidman and other free-market economists — and a pivotal moment in which employees and customers helped rebuild the first Whole Foods store after a devastating flood — changed his mind, big time, Mackey told The World-Herald in an interview while in Omaha.

h/t Charles WT