I saw this interview on Breitbart’s BigGovernment site. While this young man seems personable enough, his description of what he wants at work both gave me the shivers and brought me to high dudgeon: he works at a restaurant chain called “Noodles,” and he feels “restricted” at work, not free. Poor baby, he is told when to report for work and what to cook. He wants workers to take control of their place of work. Lewis concedes: “If the owner wanted to cooperate with us as an equal and provide his skills that he had, we would definitely cooperate with him. He’d have to abdicate his position as owner and controller of us and he would have to recognize that we — we run Noodles together and if he doesn’t want to cooperate with us, he’s against us.” He is willing to grant the owner an equal seat at the table when determining how the restaurant should be run. He believes that the employees should have equal say in how the business should be run (providing the owner is willing to “cooperate” with them, otherwise the owner would be out in the cold), and that the risks, blood, sweat, and tears of the owner of the franchise should mean nothing.
From further down in the article:
Aaron Kennedy, the founder of Noodles, grew up on a farm with few to no connections to money. Like my friend Rob, Kennedy also studied at the University of Wisconsin. At 29, while eating at a Chinese restaurant, Kennedy had an idea, and scribbled his business plan on a napkin.
Scraping some money together from his friends and family and maxing out eight credit cards, Kennedy opened the first Noodles in his basement, and then put together a team with whom he’d build and operate 100 Noodles branches all on their own. It is now a $75 million franchise with 240 locations in 18 different states, providing jobs to over 3,000 employees just like Rob. This is what the American Dream looks like.
Under Lewis’ vision, however everything Kennedy has worked for would be taken away from him. The status he has earned for himself through his achievements would be reduced to that of one filling out an application for the very business he built from the ground up. Perhaps my imagination is limited, but I at the moment I cannot imagine a greater humiliation. This is what socialism looks like.
Mr. Lewis’ idea of how to run business was a chilling reflection of the scene from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. My copy is out on loan right now, so I cannot give the exact quote, but there was a passage where a very enlightened woman described how a vibrant, profitable business was run into the ground when the original owner died and the children took over. They turned over all the decisions to the employees, who were able to vote on how to run the business and how to split the profits. Needless to say, it didn’t take long for personal issues to crowd out viable economic decisions. While the enlightened daughter felt good about what she had done as owner of the business, giving the employees equal say, she was speaking while her father’s manufacturing plant sat idle, rusting away, and all of the employees had lost their jobs.
If Mr. Lewis and his ilk want to run a business, I suggest they start one of their own. When his own skin is in the game, perhaps he’ll feel differently about turning over his power to those who have not learned how to make a business work. Socialists believe that if you have money or own a business, you are (a) evil, (b) lucky, (c) privileged, (d) lazy, and/or (e) need to be taught a lesson. Perhaps they can learn about hard work, motivation, business smarts, and respect from some of these people:
My Hubby: Started working for a plumber at age 13. Worked his way through high school, then through college. Went to work for several other plumbers for several years before starting his own business with an old, beat-up van, some hand tools, and a borrowed sewer machine. Worked 12-18 hour days, in the heat and in the cold, gradually building up his equipment and occasionally getting screwed by unscrupulous customers and vendors. When his wife (me) came on board from her corporate job, the work hours continued on into the night – through lawsuits, financial setbacks, and successes. They took personal and financial risks and managed to raise two kids through this business. We know of others like us, whom I cannot mention due to privacy issues. We are not unique.
John Henry Heinz
Steve Jobs
Alonzo Decker
Fred Deluca
George Eastman
And many more.
I notice a common thread. None of these people had things handed to them, nor did they take their businesses from anyone else.
Mr. Lewis, you and your friends want to make the decisions and run a business? Build your own. You just need to get off your collective butts. Literally.
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