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Prophets and Profiteers
Additionally, the Protestant Reformation changed the
entire religious climate.
Again, it could be seen and felt on Sundays. The
new Protestant ethic injected a level of zest and energy
into the sermon:
"You can engage in hard work, thrift,
and industry
...
prosper not only in the hereafter but
here...prosper not only yourself but others
...
stewardship compels you to do this.... "
Thus, the
merchant capitalist class (the future Sam Waltons) was
launched -- sanctioned in part by the church. Many
were known to be spirited entrepreneurs and spiritual
Christians.
Sometimes we forget that
''profit"
is, for many
people, a ·1oaded and emotional term. However, when
we shop for bargains, when we look for better ways to
get our work done, when we pursue options in order to
manage all of the things on our schedule, when we
attempt a new recipe, when we stretch our pay check
to pay day, when we try to make the Dean's List, when
we work for wages and salaries, when our savings and
investments earn interest and dividends, when we lease
our land and mineral rights for rent and royalties -- it's
all profit motive.
We have just come to call it by different names. In
that regard, most of us would readily understand the
term
''family savings."
After the bills are paid, that
money which remains is family savings.
It
shall be put
to good use to secure the future for us and for those
who are important to us. Is it so different for
commercial enterprises in capitalism? What if we called
''profits"
by another name:
''business savings'?
Wouldn't there be quite a parallel between that and
"family savings"?
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