Yesterday my kneejerk reaction was to support the Whole Foods boycott. Anything that exposes ex-hippie libertarians like CEO John Mackey seemed like a good idea to me. We need universal healthcare, and Mackey's recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal should inspire outrage.

Then I slept on it and changed my mind.

Collective action gets results, but what results do we expect of this boycott? That Mackey issue a public apology? That he change his stripes like so many shallow (and soulless) businesspeople have before him? Do we really believe that CEOs of branded empires must conform exactly to their customers' beliefs? That they must be "authentic"?

On Facebook, here's a quote from the Boycott Whole Foods group page: "Whole Foods has built its brand with the dollars of deceived progressives. Let them know your money will no longer go to support Whole Foods' anti-union, anti-health insurance reform, right-wing activities."

I'm with this in spirit. But for a boycott to be effective, the calls for change have to be more specific than decrying a corporation's "right-wing activities." Believing that enlightened businesses will save the world is a delusion—and it's a dangerous one, especially when it dissipates the energy of protest.

Even if Mackey decides to grovel, the course of President Obama's healthcare plan remains in jeopardy. In the current nasty climate, it's possible a boycott on these grounds will backfire, turning Mackey into a conservative celebrity. Meanwhile, the corporate PR machine churns on, reinforcing our gut feeling that we're "shopping for a cause" whenever we buy bread and cheese. 

Most of the rage seems to be about outting Mackey and his betrayal of those "deceived" progressive customers. Yet Mackey has made no secret of his attitudes. A few choice items from past interviews: he's an admirer of Ayn Rand, up to a point; labor activists report that he once said, "The union is like having herpes." If Whole Foods shoppers have suddenly been caught off guard, it's because they've bought into WF's official story and marketing gimmickry.

Now why is that? Back in the mid-'90s, I did some writing in the Harvard Business Review about the contradictions in New Age marketing. My ire was sparked by the disingenuousness of hippie business gurus like Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's and Anita Roddick of The Body Shop, mythmakers who used social-justice rhetoric from the '60s to sell ice cream and make-up.

Around the same time that I was stewing about the ideals these entrepreneurs were betraying, Jon Entine wrote "Shattered Image: Is The Body Shop Too Good to Be True?" When Business Ethics magazine published the piece in 1994, it caused a brouhaha. Entine and I teamed up for awhile, writing about the delusions fueling the socially responsible businesss movement.

Yet I felt conflicted myself about New Age brands. I wanted to love them; I wanted to believe. I just couldn't, and I still can't.

The thing about business is that it wants to make money—something grandiose talkers like Cohen or Roddick could never resolve. Ben & Jerry's is now owned by the multinational food conglomerate Unilever; The Body Shop is now owned by L'Oreal. See Entine's "The Myth of the Green Queen" for an assessment of Roddick's dubious legacy.

But these were the forerunners of a type of lifestyle marketing for consumer products that's so prevalent now few question its validity. We may joke about "Whole Paycheck," but rarely do I see anyone contesting the marketing hay made from Boomer and Gen-X desires for authenticity—or our need to believe that shopping is somehow meaningful.

Let me be clear:  John Mackey's emphasis on personal responsibility for "wellness" is both blind and patronizing. Whole Foods is a union buster. Its merchandising model is designed to gouge more money from customers. Its cross-country system of distribution is far from green, and WF is a competitive threat to small retailers.

Such practices are common to the low-paying grocery store industry, but I'd have no problem singling out Whole Foods for a boycott if the boycott were really about union-busting or WF's huge carbon footprint. In those cases, taking our customer dollars elsewhere might force Whole Foods to change in the ways it's possible for a retail business to change.

But let's not waste energy expecting businesspeople to say what we want them to say. Instead let's pick apart that thoughtless editorial in print, online, and in heated conversations. Let's raise our voices at town hall meetings and decry people who carry around pictures of Obama with a Hitler mustache.

And by all means, shop at local co-ops and farmer's markets whenever you can.

By the way: Stonyfield Farm is working hard to put organic dairy farms in Maine out of business and is the target of a far more specific boycott. I urge you to participate.