Sustainability and Transcendence in Business

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it

Jesus of Nazareth : Matthew 7:24-27

This weekend, I interrupt the series on Babylon and the Beast to introduce a short book that I hope will stimulate businesspeople think about their relationship with money. It is called, Sustainability and Transcendence in Business, and should take about an hour to read. Click here to download the booklet as a pdf.

Although I decided to do this a few weeks ago, the timing now seems appropriate in light of the news that the Archbishop of Canterbury wants the Church of England to create new credit unions in the hope of putting the loan company, Wonga, out of business and the subsequent revelation that the Church indirectly invests in Wonga. What fascinated me most about the story was not the discovery of the investment, because these sorts of embarrassing things happen in a complicated world, but the comment by one of the Church’s investment advisors that if the Church restricted its investments to entirely ethical companies only, it probably would not be able to make any investments at all!

Leaving aside the issue that it seems to me rather judgmental to think a business less ethical than any other just because it lends money, the comment underlined the point I made in last weekend’s Reflection about the challenges of living and working in a modern capitalist, consumer society that has abandoned ancient principles of community life in the pursuit of profit.

Sustainability and Transcendence in Business seeks to apply the Sermon on the Mount to business and, in doing so, challenge the assumption that all business must necessarily be capitalist. I hope that I am sufficiently clear that I am not in any way against the idea of private ownership of the provision of good and services or their circulation through society for profit. But I think that capitalism gives pre-eminence to money that is ultimately self-defeating.

The alternative to capitalism is not communism: there are other alternatives within a system of private ownership and free trade, ones where the primary aim of business is not to maximise profit but to make sufficient money to live on by serving communities through trade.

The booklet is not principally for Christians but for anyone who is open to having their assumptions about business being challenged. I have circulated it to readers of Reflections on God and Money in the hope of stimulating reflection, discussion and feedback. It is available by following this link Sustainability and Transcendence in Business and on the dedicated webpage on this blog.

Or cut and paste this website address into your browser:  http://www.clubhousew1.org/content/pages/documents/1375194581.pdf .

Next weekend, I plan to return to the Babylon series, looking specifically at the Beast and exploring why the Bible portrays governments as animals and monsters.

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