That's not the entire context. The man has a wider audience than most people because he's the CEO of a well-known, successful company. His words are also given more weight, and he therefore is a lot more able to persuade than most people. If this were D&D he'd have super high charisma.
Part of his success, however, comes from building a brand based on ideology. Whole Foods stands for the values of the Local, Green, and Fair Trade movements, among others. At least some of the people who shop at WF, and who therefore have contributed to the CEO's +100 charisma, do so because they feel like it's a good, responsible thing to do.
However, now the CEO is trying to persuade Americans to pursue a course of action which runs contrary to the values of his customers and the perceived values of the WF brand. From a business standpoint this could definitely be a dumb action. From the standpoint of doing what you believe in even if it hurts your bottom line, it's a stand-up action.
The man has also been an outspoken libertarian for years. There's no fundamental reason why an organic vegan hippie can't be a multimillionaire capitalist in this country. "You don't like to eat animals therefore you must support a public option" isn't anywhere close to a logical conclusion, even if most organic vegan hippies do happen to support it.
What you're saying makes sense, but it's also ignoring the part of the context. In my opinion, you make a good point, but an irrelevant one.
It's one thing to be an organic vegan hippie and a multimillionaire capitalist. It's another thing to use the platform afforded you in part by your customers to influence national policy in a way that conflicts with those customers' values and the perceived values attached to your company's brand.
I'm going to use an extreme example; hopefully it won't be so extreme as to be rendered irrelevant.
Suppose I run an organization, "World Fish", dedicated to preserving aquatic life in the world. My organization receives millions of dollars in donations every year and is successful at what it does. WF becomes a leading light of the "aquatic life" movement. Those who support aquatic life are proud to send money to WF.
Now suppose that in my country, a contentious bill regarding the ethical treatment of land-based animals (chicken, pigs, cows, etc) gets proposed by my government. The bill sparks weeks of debate and media coverage. Some see it as a moral victory, while other see it is another step toward "socialism" and governmental/societal decline. Then I, the figurehead of WF, decide to write an op-ed detailing my reasons for why this bill is a bad idea. It also details ideas I think will work, but which aren't the "moral victory" the bill's supporters are looking for.
Do you think that the people who've donated to WF for years are going to continue donating? Or do you think they'll feel betrayed? If these people value aquatic life enough to donate, they most likely value animal rights in every form. In their minds these values logically go together, and by giving money to me they likely never suspected I would try to influence public policy in a way they perceive to be harmful to one of their cherished values.
To bring this back to the real WF - this isn't just about the man and his opinions. It's about the values associated with the brand he's built, the nature of shopping at WF, and the context of this particular op-ed.
The WF brand is very strongly associated with morals. WF touts ethical treatment of people and ethical treatment of animals. As a consequence, shopping there (for some) is not just about price or quality of goods; it's a moral choice.
The people who are joining this boycott evidently feel that the public option is the moral choice for this country to make, and it falls into the same sphere of moral choices that Whole Foods is aligned with. Fair Trade is about treating people across the world with dignity and humanity; the public option is perceived as treating people in our own country with dignity and humanity.
It makes sense that these boycotters perceive betrayal when the CEO of a company that has become an extension of their identity opposes the values they thought they were supporting. It's not "You don't like to eat animals therefore you must support a public option"; it's "We bought from your stores, told our friends to shop there, invested in your idea, and helped make you rich and given you this platform, and now you're turning around and using that platform to betray our values - the values we thought you stood for." Mind you I'm not saying I agree with this, I'm not saying whether this is objectively logical or not, I'm just trying to outline what I think are the boycotters' perceptions.
The final piece is the nature of this particular law. If the CEO come out again Net Neutrality (since it's governmental regulation), I doubt anyone would feel outraged enough to boycott WF. But health care reform deals specifically with the ethical treatment of people, something which WF is associated with.
Reading the piece again, I don't even see Mackey as being fundamentally opposed to health care reform, or to the goal of treating people with dignity and humanity. Keep in mind that he runs Whole Foods as a company, not as a series of co-ops (as such stores are usually operated). Wouldn't it stand to reason that he's in favor of doing as much good as is financially sustainable? His main criticism is that the public option isn't financially sustainable. "We can't afford this, it will do more harm than good, and the individual consumer can be empowered to make a difference themselves"? That seems quite compatible with what Whole Foods is.
I get how it's bad PR on Mackey's part. But it's an unfair expectation on the part of the boycotters.
I'm not sure if you're referring to the boycotters or HN. But I'd hardly call a vocal minority "the market." The lines in the Whole Foods a couple blocks from my apartment seem to be just as long as ever.
In which case they're hardly infringing on his freedom of speech, now are they? I am, incidentally, quite serious: I can't see how "The boycotters are a meaningful threat to freedom of speech," and "The boycotters have negligible impact on the real world," are anything but mutually exclusive.
I really loathe the opinion that what the market believes or wants or that which helps businesses extract more money from the market is smart and anything contrary to that is dumb.
What is offensive about the boycott is that they aren't interested in debate, they are only interested in submission. Their calls for his firing in addition to the boycott are case in point.
