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15. Doing Good While Doing Well
''All too often,
"says John
J.
Davis, above mentioned
author of Your Wealth in God's World,
"capitalism is
condemned in tones of righteous indignation as a
morally corrupt enterprise.
"
Recently at a prestigious
mid-west university, a group of business people,
scholars, and ethicists came together to discuss once
again the question,
"Can a successful business person
be a Christian?"
A senior partner of a major national
law firm criticized business for its reward system based
on self-interest incentives:
Ifa person for the first 25 years ofhis career
is shapedprimarily by self-interest incentives, to
say nothing of the period of his educational
career with its grades and prizes, it seems
unlikely that we will produce corporate leaders
who will have an adequate vision of the long–
term good of the corporation and its
·
constituencies, much less any broader concept of
the common good ofsociety.
A professor in another location wrote,
''It seems to
me that it is quite an unworthygoal for business people
to go to work for the sake of bringing profit to the
stockholders."
Pandora would have loved this box. Jn
both situations, something very basic has been missed.
In order to earn a profit, the discipline of capitalism
dictates that the business person first satisfy the needs
of others, much as religion has .imposed similar rules
upon those who hope to
''profit"
in the hereafter.
Something to think about.
Whether in the spiritual realm with respect to
Heaven, or in the academic world for grades, or the
business world for profits, rewards and punishments
motivate people. This motivation leads to competition;
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