Wednesday, July 18, 2007

CostCo the anti-Walmart or the new Whole Foods ?

via Brad DeLong (who put his money where his mouth is) I see, Jim Sinegal, the chiefexecutive of Costco Wholesale,, who seems to know what he is talking about believes in efficiency wage models

Good wages and benefits are why Costco has extremely low rates of turnover and theft by employees, [Jim Sinegal] said. And Costco's customers, who are more affluent than other warehouse store shoppers, stay loyal because they like that low prices do not come at the workers' expense. "This is not altruistic," he said. "This is good business."


Certainly not Walmart, but what does this have to do with Whole Foods ? Blogaddicts like me, immediately think "Jonah Goldberg, Friedrich Hegel, Liberal Fascism" when we hear "Whole Foods". The last businessman to state the efficiency wage theory so clearly was Henry Ford who was a supporter of the Nazi party.

So I have a new proposed tital for Jonah "Profitable Fascism:Totalqualitarian temptation from Ford to Costco."

I hasten to add that I am joking about the fascism and that I hereby invite Mr Sinegal to give a guest lecture at my labor economics course (no expenses paid).

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