We have all heard the rants that President Barack Obama is a socialist or communist. But forget such hyperbole and consider the following news item:
Panera Bread, the national bakery and restaurant chain, just opened a new store outside St. Louis. The store, operating under the name St. Louis Bread Co. Cares, sells all the normal items — muffins, sandwiches and drinks — but with one new twist: Customers pay what they want!
Feeling friendly, you can pay the suggested price or even overpay. Find yourself poor or just feeling stingy, pay nothing.
Is this the new America?
If you look around the globe, stock exchanges are being set afire in Bangkok, while for-profit businesses struggle elsewhere.
Perhaps the capitalist pigs deserve it. With financial scandals, bailouts and meltdowns aplenty, such may be the natural result of strangling the golden goose.
If not dead, traditional capitalism — where greed is celebrated — seems at least endangered.
Though some may celebrate, be careful. If America has a national religion, it’s capitalism. We may not have invented it, but we sure have mastered it. It’s our franchise.
Whether it’s marketing Coke, inventing new drugs that make grandma live to 100, devising complicated financial products like “reverse, mortgage, derivative, splits,” or buying things we don’t need on ridiculous late-night infomercials, we are good at it.
The world looks to us for it. Sure the world may mock our excesses and complain, but it’s more respect and admiration in disguise.
There is a reason we have a huge immigration problem: It’s because much of the world still wants to come to our capitalist shores for a better life. Imagine the disappointment if after arriving and working hard, immigrants learn we also give away the store.
Our immigrants know better. It’s one reason they fled Fidel Castro and all the old Eastern Bloc countries. Those systems don’t work. Capitalism, by and large, does.
Make no mistake, our ongoing recession and financial failures make clear that some retooling is in order. Can we make our system better, tinker on the edges and get rid of some excesses? Of course, but don’t abandon the franchise.
When the latest Microsoft application has a glitch, Bill Gates doesn’t ditch the product. He fixes it, makes some money and moves on.
And so it goes. Or should. No need to apologize for our capitalist acumen. We should celebrate it. It’s our ace, so let’s play it, not abandon it.
All of which leads me back to the Panera venture, which even has a sign that reads: “Take what you need. Leave your fair share.”
Come on! This isn’t some hippie commune we’re running here. It’s USA Inc.
Teach Panera a lesson. Take a lot, and pay nothing. That’ll learn ’em. It should put them out of business in no time and send customers to the nearby diner, likely run by some hard-working immigrant family seeking a better life, one yummy omelet at a time.
William Choslovsky is a Chicago lawyer.
