Hot Take: Popeye’s New Chicken Sandwich Would Be Better Under Socialism

I have not had a chance to try the new Popeye’s sandwich yet, even though one of the few in the Raleigh area is just around the corner, about 6 minutes away. I actually prefer going there over Bojangles, which may seem to be heresy here in the South. I like everything more than Bojangles, except for the dirty rice and tea. Can’t beat those. Plus, they do not have breakfast all day. Or at all. Regardless, John Sexton notices something

Perhaps you’ve heard by now that Popeyes’ new chicken sandwich is all the rage and is creating long lines around the country. This week, socialist magazine Jacobin published a piece arguing that as good as the new chicken sandwich is, it would be even better under socialism.

Vice says that Popeyes’ new chef-d’oeuvre “ascends into a new level of gastronomic achievement that is both a culinary and scientific feat.” The Los Angeles Times claims the fast food delicacy now serves as an “economic indicator” of the country’s fiscal health. The New Yorker suggests the sandwich could “save America.”…

Yet in the face of all this excitement stands a brutal reality: the profiteers of the Popeyes chicken sandwich craze are the bosses, while the workers bear the brunt. With orders exploding at locations nationwide, Popeyes’ employees are working harder under more grueling conditions and few benefits while corporate shareholders bask Scrooge McDuck–style in their riches…

One immediate way to curb this racket would be to increase the minimum wage to $20 an hour. With a full 20 percent of frontline fast food workers living below the poverty line, and many relying on food stamps and other benefits just to survive, raising the wage floor would deliver desperately needed relief to countless workers. While the company’s CEO Cheryl Bachelder recently defended its low wages on Fox Business by claiming the priority is to “grow top-line sales” and that an increase in employee pay would “raise prices for guests and lower hours for employees,” we know Popeyes won’t simply pass on the profit surge to its workers — the company will simply hoard that new wealth for executives like Bachelder.

This sandwich may have been created under capitalism — but under socialism, who knows where the frontiers of snack creation may lie?

The $20 an hour minimum wage is the updated version of the $15 an hour minimum wage which many progressives have championed. There are several problems with this plan of course, starting with the fact that CEO Bachelder is right about what raising wages to that level would do to prices.

Not quite sure what is grueling about working in the stores. My local one looks pretty darn clean, and it is always a pleasant experience. Under socialism, we don’t get the sandwich, because it would be too expensive, and only the hoi-palloi will be able to afford it. Plus, it wouldn’t have been developed, since why have something that most people can’t afford to purchase as such? And, under the Modern Socialist plans, the number of chickens available to become delicious sandwiches would be drastically reduced under their ‘climate change’ plans.

And, notice that we’re now up to $20 an hour for the minimum wage. As Sexton points out “Suddenly, instead of sharing the chicken sandwich wealth, managers are thinking about who they can lay off.” That might be generous. Managers would be thinking more of being able to find a new job, because the store would be soon closing permanently, since no one would be willing to pay $7 or more for the sandwich, which, let’s be honest, wouldn’t have been developed in the first place. What, exactly, other than misery, has been developed under Socialism?

@PopeyesChicken rules pic.twitter.com/6ALsbZKRIz

— WilliamTeach2 (@WTeach2) August 28, 2019