Jesusnomics

So in case you’ve been living under a rock, there are a bunch of people who have been camped out on Wall Street (and elsewhere) for the past while who are protesting against corporations and calling for…um…well, we’re not really sure what they’re calling for but I’m sure whatever it is has very good intentions. Because that’s what counts, right? It’s just good to see people standing up and speaking truth to power.

The problem, of course, is that in this age we’re not exactly sure what “truth” is. When someone is brandishing a sign that calls corporations “evil” you need some kind of basic frame of reference as to what evil is in order for it to have any real effect. As it is, apparently each person out there in the protest is making it up as they go along as to exactly what they think is wrong and is left to come up with their own conclusions (or lack thereof) as to how to fix it.

By way of contrast it is helpful to look at a set of protests that really did bring about some lasting change during the Civil Rights era. But the difference in the purpose of the Civil Rights marches with the Occupy Wall Street protests is striking. For starters, the Civil Rights marches actually had a stated purpose: ending segregation and discrimination. More importantly that purpose was backed by a moral resolve which was able to withstand fierce opposition. That resolve and moral certainty allowed for a unity of focus that brought people together working for common goals. When the marchers said that segregation and discrimination was evil there was no question in anybody’s mind of what “evil” meant.

But if evil isn’t real and if truth is whatever you make of it and if the only real moral ills in this world are whatever doesn’t make me happy, then it’s going to be really hard to get any group of people to share the same message for very long. And that’s if you can actually get anybody in the crowd to articulate a message to start with. Postmodernists really don’t make great protesters.

In an age when “big business” is often synonymous with “great evil,” it’s unusual to see someone stand up and extol the virtues of the entrepreneurial spirit. Yet, Theodore Roosevelt Malloch, chairman and CEO of the Roosevelt Group and research professor at Yale University, has written a book to do exactly that. Doing Virtuous Business is subtitled “the remarkable success of spiritual enterprise” and it is a manifesto on being both doing good business and the business of doing good.

Although he is himself a Christian (and most of the book is written from that perspective), Malloch also writes of extolling virtue as a universal good that is embraced by all faiths. He quotes both Augustine and Aristotle with equal ease while making his case that both “hard” virtues such as courage and “soft” virtues such as compassion should be part of the economic capital of a good business. In the long run these values will make a business thrive and increase the wealth and responsibility of those who practice them.

Malloch acknowledges that striving to use virtue and gaining wealth from it may seem antithetical in some ways to the teachings of following virtue for its own sake. But he points out that the success is a necessary by-product of using virtuous business is not in and of itself an evil thing. The obtaining of wealth and the pursuit of riches are not necessarily the same thing. Motivation means everything.

Throughout the book the writer presents stories and examples of people who did virtuous business, from architects to restaurant owners and from charity organizations to furniture designers, the pursuit of ethical business is shown to be not only good for the entrepreneur but for those whom they employ and serve as well.

With scandals and shady deals from large companies making the headlines on a weekly basis, it seems a bit mind boggling to think of the possibility that a huge corporation could be an instrument of virtue in the world. Yet, corporations are just groups of people and people are governed by the same spiritual laws that have existed for millennia. And, according to Theodore Malloch, doing good is just good business.

This book was generously provided for review via the blogger program at booksneeze.com

One of the themes constantly pounded by the Christian Left is how evil, uncaring, and just-not-nice-at-all American corporations are. After all, some of them have an awful lot of money and and run by really, really rich people. Do we really need any more proof that Jesus wouldn’t be a fan? Evidently not.

One of today’s shining examples of this is a piece written by Allison Kilkenny and blasted out on the interwebs by various folks such as @TheChristianLft

She writes:

Bank of America hasn’t paid a nickel in federal income taxes for the past two years, and in fact raked in an additional $1 billion in tax “benefits.” The bank is enjoying these profits after accepting $45 billion from taxpayers, which the company then got to count as a deduction when they paid back the money.

Well, that’s just terrible, don’t you think? Of course, a teeny bit of research shows that BOA’s profit margin is currently -2.7% and that their stock price history for the past few years looks kind of like this:

Now I’m not saying that BOA is a paragon of virtue, nor that they may not use every means in their power to pay as little tax as possible, just like every other taxpayer in the country. But I have to wonder exactly what the left expects them to do. If you don’t turn a profit, then there’s nothing to tax. Simple as that.

In reality, those on the left would not be content even if BOA just opened its vaults and started chucking money out onto the streets. It’s not the lack of taxes that bothers them. It’s the fact that they’re allowed to continue to own billions of dollars in assets instead of being forced by law to spread that wealth around to those who are seen to deserve it more than they do: namely the programs run by those selfsame leftists.

The warning to “take heed and beware of covetousness” applies just as well to the would-be socialist as it does to the filthy rich capitalist.