Should Christians work for a public company?
This week's post comes compliments of Dan Morehead and Dave -- they have made similar comments recently about working for public companies and I think they raise a very difficult question.
Dan Morehead: "Should Christians work for companies that are publicly traded? The notion here would be that the owners (stockholders) of companies that are publicly traded have limited liability (and therefore responsibility) and are disconnected from the locality of where the business operates. This makes it exceedingly difficult to be accountable to anyone other than the stockholders themselves and the demand for growth."
Dave: "It would seem that our ability to divorce ethics from our business practices proportionally rises as the chance of ever meeting the client you are profiting from decreases."
Two questions:
1) If you work for a public company, why and do you find working for a public company conflicts with the process of becoming more and more like Jesus?
2) If you don't work for a public company, why not...and have you worked for one previously and chosen specifically to leave?
Dan Morehead: "Should Christians work for companies that are publicly traded? The notion here would be that the owners (stockholders) of companies that are publicly traded have limited liability (and therefore responsibility) and are disconnected from the locality of where the business operates. This makes it exceedingly difficult to be accountable to anyone other than the stockholders themselves and the demand for growth."
Dave: "It would seem that our ability to divorce ethics from our business practices proportionally rises as the chance of ever meeting the client you are profiting from decreases."
Two questions:
1) If you work for a public company, why and do you find working for a public company conflicts with the process of becoming more and more like Jesus?
2) If you don't work for a public company, why not...and have you worked for one previously and chosen specifically to leave?
posted by Matthew at 12:56 AM
3 Comments:
I'm not in the business world, however I do work alongside a conglomerate of other physicians and mid-level providers who are contracted out by our hospitals to staff Emergency Rooms. We don't consider ourselves a "company" since that would sound kind of cruel, but our obvious goal is to increase/sustain patient volume while providing effective quality care. At times its exhausting trying to keep up with increasing patient load and sadly it occasionally robs me of those moments I come across talking with patients about Christ and spirituality. The point I'm getting at is that working for a company that distances itself from human relationship (being relationships between shareholders/employees, clients/employees, patients/physicians, etc) certainly limits our growth as Christians personally and in community. I beleive, as illustrated in the gospel, that the foundation of spiritual walk lies a great deal in human relationship/fellowship. Should Christians work for a public company? For me...not if it greatly interferes with my life as a Christian. Our careers and work environment should compliment our spiritual lives.
richardig
I work for a public company and have done so for about 9 weeks now. I previously worked for a partnership and consulted for companies with many different ownership structures and found them all to be working toward the same end: profit.
Economist Milton Friedman once argued that "there is one and only one social responsibility of business--to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud."
I would argue that today's businesses generally have no problem with deception or fraud so long as it won't impede their pursuit to increase profits (i.e., you're only guilty if you get caught).
So clearly, yes, I believe the demands from PepsiCo's shareholders conflict daily with what I believe Jesus taught but I haven't given up hope that we can use the system to change the system. Shareholders generally demand profitability from the companies they own but that same power can be wielded for good. For example, 50% of shareholder proposals in 2006 were related to sustainability. Because of external forces like the internet (the availability of information has made it difficult for companies to hide deceitful practices) and government (individuals lobbying for socially responsible legislation) and internal forces like shareholder demands, companies are making a move to do good. The motivation behind these actions is still lightyears away from being pure but, as a wise man once told me, "There is a lot to be said for getting people to walk in the way of Jesus. Who knows who they'll encounter along the way."
In the end, I think it is virtually impossible to ensure a company operates on entirely Christ-centered motivations because, as I look at His Bride, it is difficult to find even one church centered entirely on Him. The pursuit of money and power by sinful men and women in each organization distorts what could be. So, to that end, I continue to work for a public company because, as Jesus prayed, my prayer is not be taken out of the world but to be protected from the evil one (John 17:15). There must be a way for these organizations to be redeemed.
Personally, I think the place we all need to start is finding one Christian guy at work with whom we can pray, serve, and dream and seeing where it goes from there.
Matthew: Do you think Jesus' prayer for those he was living among in the face of his impending crucification can be so easily transfered to your working for Pepsi?
One question might be whether Friedman (and once upon a time, I was an undergraduate econ major and loved Friedman) is right? He might argue that businesses serve their customers and if their customers don't like the service, they will stop shopping. The market is free, right? The power that companies have and the lack of local accountability makes me question that. This isn't the best example, but India wasn't exactly asking for Coke when Coke decided it needed to undermine the national drink, tea. The question is: does the market operate freely? And why the faith in the system to fix the system?
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