Today I heard on the Vicki McKenna show that Ben Bernanke stated at a Princeton University graduation address that all differences between people’s success (and wealth) came from differences in luck. A more immoral statement could not be made.
Business, the voluntary exchange of goods and services between freely deciding individuals, is the basis of all that is good in the world. All of it. And because of this simple truth, our calling to business becomes our highest calling in our service to God.
Business can only occur when a person puts himself into the service of another. The entrepreneur building a t-shirt factory to make shirts for thousands of complete strangers, or his hourly line worker who inspects the garments or the technician from the maintenance contractor cleaning out his washer line every quarter are using their personal talents to serve someone else.
In true business there is no use of force. No taxing, no stick ups, no extortion or racketeering, no bribes or grants or subsidies or regulations. Only the mutually beneficial exchanges between individuals that allow each party to make their lives easier, richer, or pursue some other goal further. In other words, using your Godgiven talents to do His work in the service of others.
True business results from voluntarily embracing God’s law. When we do true business, we fulfill the both parts of the two great commandments Jesus cites: Love God with all your heart and all your soul, and love thy neighbor as thyself. We utilize our God-given talents in His creative service for the benefit of our fellow man. When we help ourselves, and take care of our own business, we are helping our fellow man as well, by not being a burden or dead weight upon them. And when we use our unique talents to produce or do things, others can share in the harvest of our special gifts and we in theirs.
God’s face is truly reflected in all true business people. True business people are individuals of high moral character. These people are examples to be celebrated and imitated. They are heroes.
Without the entrepreneurs, we would never have any ease in our lives. No stoves or lights or houses or showers or medicines or you name it. There would also be no jobs for the rest, no income to participate in the business economy, many unable to provide for their families, limiting their ability to utilize their own God-given gifts in His service. These truths may seem obvious, yet a tremendous number of our fellow planet dwellers demonize these people endlessly, making them scapegoats for their own personal problems; lack of ability, drive, talent or bad attitude. What a great gift to receive from the people you are serving with all of your heart and Godgiven ability!
Less obvious are all the other things; No churches or priests, no charities or nonprofits, no Catholic schools, no think tanks, and no governments. There is no charity without the businessman. The self proclaimed do-gooder that organizes a tshirt drive and get’s mobbed on the beaches of Mexico by poor kids thinking he is Santa Claus believes himself to be a righteous soul as compared to those greedy business people. But in truth he’s at best a minor agent in the vast philanthropic web created by the aforementioned t-shirt factory builder who allowed a vast number of people to buy a vast number of t-shirts cheaply, so much so that they could buy ones they didn’t even need to donate to his drive for the poor kids of Mexico. Now who is the real do-gooder here?
Business requires only one tool - Integrity. As part of a family religious education assignment years ago, we were asked to define the word. We all knew it had alot to do with honesty, but also knew there was more. The More we decided dealt with followthrough - dependability, commitment, finishing the job, making good on your word. Anyone with integrity can do business, for everyone has talents, skills and ideas useful to their fellow man. Moral character, the historical record of an individual’s integrity, allows you to get into the game.
A breech of integrity in the game of true business knows no rival for swiftly administered justice. Arthur Anderson, the largest accounting consulting company in the world at the time, literally disappeared overnight when its role in the Enron scandal was uncovered. Phillips Environmental stock, defying the wall street tendencies of other waste companies in the mid 90’s, went from $23/share to a penny stock in one day when a greenhorn accountant actually went back into the warehouse to physically see the giant copper stockpile noted on the balance sheet but found none there at all. The copper was a fraud, as was Phillips Environmental. True business rewarded each of these players appropriately. Sully your reputation and it will shadow you the rest of your business career, if not completely destroy you. A reputation is very hard to restore.
The swift justice administered reflects the origin of true business in God’s law. The Ten Commandments are the rules of engagement and the Bible the playbook. You are certainly free to ignore or ridicule these resources but one does so at his own peril. Follow the rules of God’s law and you will be successful. What goes around comes around, the rule that is never violated. Sometimes it takes awhile, but everyone always gets their due.
Do not confuse business with corporatism. Corporatism uses force to facilitate self beneficial transactions under the false guise of doing business. In reality, corporatism exists exactly because the transactions it seeks are not mutually beneficial; no one would freely choose to engage in them. Therefore, corporatists must harness the power of government to force these transactions to occur, by lobbying for regulations, targeted tax breaks, subsidies and grants, the vile weapons of force wielded so cavalierly by so many in politics.
Many of us speak of free enterprise as the holy grail of politics. And it is. Get government out of the way. But free enterprise consists only of the ability to make your own unforced choices. The execution of free choice, business, becomes the physical fulfillment of the philosophical concept of free enterprise. Moral character of individuals is what drives business in a free enterprise system.
So what about luck? All entrepreneurs and business people will acknowledge they have been lucky and blessed. But this does not mitigate the devotion and ambition needed to become successful in business. I heard Rush Limbaugh define luck as the intersection of preparation and opportunity. He couldn’t be more right. All people are lucky; that is, opportunities to use your talents in the service of others constantly arise. How these opportunities are harnessed defines who we are and how successful we become.
Mr. Bernanke’s statement at the Princeton graduation requires an absence of free will. Free will, the ability to choose, good or evil, sets humans apart from all other beings. Free will is the gift from God which makes us in his image and likeness, which allows us to work in his service, to utilize our uniquely endowed gifts to further His creation. Free will allows each of us to determine our own destiny, of what we will become. Free will makes us who we are.
Mr. Bernanke’s statement ultimately denies the very existence of God. It denies God’s gift of unique talents to each individual and the corresponding responsibility to use them in the service of furthering His plan. Is there anything more immoral than that? PAGE