talkpolitics | Will they succeed? Penera Bread red diaper, tree hugging, pink commie style!

"I'm trying to find out what human nature is all about," says Shaich, 56, who has converted a former Panera-owned restaurant in an urban area of St. Louis into a non-profit restaurant dubbed Saint Louis Bread Company Cares Cafe.

http://www.app.com/article/20100518/BUSINESS/100518019/Panera-Bread-experiments-with-Take-what-you-need-pay-what-you-can-store-model

What do you think? Will they succeed? I like this story, there us a certain defiance about it. A rich corporate big wig doing exactly what he wants with his store and his money. The libertarian in me loves this. The capitalist in me is doubtful.

This reminds me of the Bagel Man story in the book Freakonomics: http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/WhatTheBagelManSaw.pdf

Not the same moral lesson but such out of the box thinking in regards to retail sales. It also shows what happens when people have the option not to pay for something..

It also reminds me of the story of Thanks Giving.

The colony's leaders identified the source of their problem as a particularly vile form of what Bradford called "communism." Property in Plymouth Colony, he observed, was communally owned and cultivated. This system ("taking away of property and bringing [it] into a commonwealth") bred "confusion and discontent" and "retarded much employment that would have been to [the settlers'] benefit and comfort."

The most able and fit young men in Plymouth thought it an "injustice" that they were paid the same as those "not able to do a quarter the other could." Women, meanwhile, viewed the communal chores they were required to perform for others as a form of "slavery."

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Commentary/2005/11/Pilgrims-Beat-Communism-With-Free-Market

Are there any examples of such a business working?

p.s. For those who take umbrage with the title, it was meant in jest.