
The Moral Order of Panera - YeGoblynQueenne
https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-moral-order-of-panera-kaiser-schatzlein
======
rossdavidh
So, I can totally believe that this particular idea didn't work well. I can
totally agree that we should learn from it, perhaps that people want to give $
to feed the poor only when they don't have to sit next to them, or that people
on lunch break don't want to have to tackle a moral quandary just then.

But, the article seemed needlessly negative. So, the CEO of Panera tried
something, put his business experience to work seeing if this idea would
succeed, and when it didn't, after giving it a fair shot, he shut it down. I
don't think that's a reason to hate on him for trying it, or that anyone who
thought it was worth a try should have known better. Just a reason for solving
hunger in a different way (perhaps the simpler one of just giving food-
insecure people some lunch money).

~~~
cooper12
The reason it's so negative is because it already notes that prior research
showed consumer responsibilization doesn't work. Shaich might see himself as
good-minded, even volunteering as cashier, but he comes off more as misguided
(what with his Ted Talk enthusiasm) and out of touch (note the vast gap
between the customers and this man who made $2 million that year). I'm not
sure why you expected some bland analytical article. The author clearly
doesn't agree with Libertarian ideals or conscious capitalism.

~~~
jonas21
The only research this article cites is a 2017 study that looked at Panera
Cares itself. You can hardly fault the Panera CEO for trying when his efforts
are what allowed the research to be done in the first place.

~~~
cooper12
Okay I was incorrect on that front, [0] but the field of economics isn't
exactly new, nor is the general idea itself (things like pay-what-you-want,
voluntary contributions, etc).

[0]: Here's the paper:
[https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/205157071454056...](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2051570714540560)

------
tareqak
I found the employee who said the discount was only available the first time
to be a symptom of a self-defeating policy: once you make such a statement,
the transaction would become uncomfortably personal as illustrated by the
account of the mother in the article. Having a sign outside the store and
another one near the checkout would be less personal. The most that I would
ask an employee to say in that sort of situation is "Please pay it forward
when you can".

The part about the customer dress code was declared to be unevenly enforced
between the Panera Cares store and the normal Panera bread store, so that
seems like another issue of policy.

The Yelp comment that mentioned smell is a tough one. I was thinking about not
having any place to sit period to avoid that, but then one could make the
argument that isn't the Panera Bread experiment.

I applaud Ron Shaich for at least trying. I personally would not have gone
towards opening four stores without proving out and refining the first
experience of the first one. By just having this one store, it could have
stayed open longer before closing, and the employees working at that store
could have been given better job security e.g. if this store doesn't work out,
then I'll guarantee you a position of employment at your nearest Panera Bread.

------
Fellshard
There's a secondary cause mixed in here I'd like to propose.

If you were to pay forward at this Panera, you don't know where your money is
going to. That alone would make you hesitate as a consumer: You're not sure
whether you'll be paying forward for someone who is in extensive need of the
meal, or just a well-off customer who's looking for their discount-of-the-week
for a decent sandwich.

It's the same kind of unease that pushes people away from giving money to
panhandlers: they want to know that they are actually helping a person
survive, not enabling them to seek out the means that may have contributed.
(No, that's not what all of them will do. The point is you don't have the
information and you will tend to err on the safe side in that context.)

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panarky
We all collectively benefit when children get a good education, when everyone
has fast and safe transportation, when everyone has enough nutritious food,
and when healthcare is available to all.

These collective goods must be paid for collectively, or the free-rider
problem guarantees failure.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-
rider_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-rider_problem)

I will gladly pay my share to secure these social goods, but I won't shoulder
the entire burden by myself.

When I see most people free riding, I'm much less likely to step up and be the
chump who contributes.

~~~
TimTheTinker
> These collective goods must be paid for collectively, or the free-rider
> problem guarantees failure.

That’s close to the truth, but it ignores the efficacy of charities and
churches — where many people can (and do) give generously to help others. When
run well, those do far more good than even government programs.

I challenge anyone who cares about the poor and wants to make a big difference
to give to, volunteer at, or even start one of these nonprofit community
programs.

In my city there’s a charity that provides clothes to poor people at massive
discounts. They don’t feel like they’re getting a handout, since they’re still
paying (less than $1 per item) - hence they don’t lose any sense of dignity or
“providing for their family”. It also reduces free-loading since you _do_ have
to pay. And store employees take time to help people with all sorts of things
- job applications, government forms. If I’m bit mistaken, they also offer
counseling, showers, and a cold weather shelter.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
The thing is, charities and churches are rarely "run well". Many charities
have become a cash cow for their executives and office staff (“Hey, look, we
can direct a lot of these donations to paying us extremely generous
salaries”), with actual generosity to those in need almost seeming an
afterthought. I saw this firsthand when I volunteered in the central office of
a charity, and it rather shattered my idealism.

Churches have been notorious for either stipulating that recipients act in a
certain church-approved way to get aid, or giving charity in the hope that
recipients will convert. Either way, it hardly strikes most people outside
that religion as "generous".

It is worth pointing to the Nordic countries, where private charitable
endeavours have largely faded away with the rise of the welfare state, and
even the local churches are happy to let the state take care of the feeding,
clothing and housing business because the state enjoys economy of scale far
beyond any church’s ability. In spite of the dwindling of private charity,
those countries have less wealth disparity than countries fond of charitable
activity. Consequently, some feel that charity is a just an awkward substitute
for a functional state, not a good thing in itself.

~~~
TimTheTinker
> The thing is, charities and churches are rarely "run well".

Do you have any data or personal experience (not just one example) to back
that up?

The truth is, the vast majority of churches and local faith-based charities
just quietly do their thing and usually aren’t big enough to garner any
recognition or attention at scale.

Actually, it’s the big operations with money flowing to a central hub that are
usually the most suspect - when those at the top have less accountability and
more temptation to not put all that money where it ought to go. The American
Red Cross comes to mind. The only exception is large charities with a “100% of
donations go to help people” policy (i.e. employees and leaders have to raise
their own support to work there).

~~~
toomuchtodo
> The truth is, the vast majority of churches and local faith-based charities
> just quietly do their thing and usually aren’t big enough to garner any
> recognition or attention at scale.

Your original comment said:

> When run well, those do far more good than even government programs.

Can you prove this? Because Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and food
stamps do more good for 100+ million Americans than your local charities and
churches, nor do faith based organizations have anywhere near the resources
available to them government does.

~~~
freshm087
_Because Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps do more good for
100+ million_

Do more good because their have much bigger budgets? - Maybe. More good per
every dollar spent? I doubt it.

~~~
skybrian
It depends what it is. The government is efficient at sending people checks
and retail stores like Walmart are efficient places to buy things. It's hard
to see how to do much better for supplying people with new stuff.

On the other hand, thrift stores also have an important role for getting used
stuff like clothing to people who need it, and charities do some of that.

Then there are various services that charities do, which is a whole different
thing and not easily replaced. But some of their funding comes from the
government.

~~~
freshm087
I agree that gov't is relatively good at sending checks (except in some
economic circumstances, e.g. when the currency it prints is no more in demand
- like in Venezuela, or late USSR). However it doesn't necessary make a
particular welfare program efficient in general. Maybe recipients are poorly
determined (which happens more often with larger programs), or sending checks
is not the best idea at all.

------
js2
FWIW, Raleigh has had an independent non-profit pay-what-you-can restaurant
for about 16 months now:

[https://tableraleigh.org/about](https://tableraleigh.org/about)

 _Customers have multiple options to pay and to pay-it-forward.

\- Pay the suggested price

\- At least half of the suggested price

\- By volunteering with us

Pay it Forward

\- Tip to fulfill our mission

\- Buy a $10 token to hand out yourself in the community_

I suspect these may work better as independent establishments as opposed to
being part of a chain or large corporation.

~~~
maxxxxx
“I suspect these may work better as independent establishments as opposed to
being part of a chain or large corporation”

Agreed. I am always skeptical of large corporations doing charity work. It’s
never clear clear where the money is going and whether they just do it for PR.
I find it easier to trust smaller organize.

------
int_19h
It seems to me that the author misunderstands the nature of the libertarian
moral-economic approach. The whole point of it is that whatever decisions
people make wrt charity and welfare _with their own money_ are the only ones
that reflect their true morality, and thus, a free market will simply express
the moral consensus of the society in which it operates. Thus, if the
experiment supports the theory that "consumers don’t prefer conscious
capitalist businesses", from that perspective, it is not a failure - it just
means that the current consensus is that the various social causes aren't
important enough to pay for them.

That is also why people who subscribe to this value system wouldn't talk about
SNAP - from their perspective, it's some people deciding what to do with other
people's money, which cannot be moral by definition.

You may disagree with that value system and its definitions - I do - but you
have to at least acknowledge that it is different enough that what you see as
problems is not necessarily what its adherents see as problems. In this case,
the article writer is complaining at the end that it's a failed attempt at
"solution to a problem we already know how to solve" \- but is it really meant
to solve _that_ problem? I don't think so.

~~~
brianberns
> the current consensus is that the various social causes aren't important
> enough to pay for them

No, the only consensus I see from this article is that _this particular
approach_ to solving a very important social problem doesn't work.

~~~
int_19h
Like I said, I do not agree with libertarian ethics. I'm explaining how it
looks from that perspective. And in it, by definition, whatever the market
does is the consensus.

The larger point is that they're not trying to solve the problem you (and the
author) think about. It's not about solving hunger per se. It's about
alleviating it to the extent permissible by the bounds of what their value
system deems moral - and those bounds do not accommodate wealth redistribution
via taxation. So it's kinda like complaining that communists can't solve the
problem of protecting private property - well, yes, but they aren't trying to,
so you should complain about that very fundamental premise.

In a way, it is rather like religion. Islamic banking, for example, is hardly
efficient at solving most problems that modern banking does. If all you cared
about was solving them, you wouldn't need it. But if you are under a religious
prohibition on charging interest, then you have to come up with all those
alternative convoluted schemes, that don't cover many scenarios outright, and
are inefficient in others - but it's the best that can be had. Conversely, if
a problem requires a sinful action to solve, then it's not really a problem.
"Whatever God does is good" is a common religious trope - replace it with
"whatever the market does is good", and you'll see that it works just the same
here.

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jkingsbery
> If he did, he may have had to admit that Panera Cares was nothing but an
> elaborate branding exercise, a solution to a problem we already know how to
> solve.

I would expect there to be a lot less food insecurity if we actually knew how
to solve it.

~~~
humanrebar
Yeah, I would consider "get everyone to agree with me on topic X" to be a
_very_ unsolved problem.

------
nateabele
Agree with many other commenters here that holding this up as a supposed
failure of free-market libertarianism borders on absurdity. Cut against the
grain of human nature and you're going to fail, irrespective of your
philosophy.

Also, counterpoint:
[https://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/television/Rosas...](https://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/television/Rosas-
Pizza-gets-surprise-from-Ellen-DeGeneres.html)

------
tunesmith
It sounds like the problems are mostly shame and self-selection, which could
perhaps be iterated on, for instance with some sort of automatic dynamic
pricing. For instance, it's a lousy first idea, but I wonder if credit card
terminals can tell how close you are to your credit limit, and if you're close
it'll automatically adjust your price downward.

