Compassionate Capitalism: A Journey to the Soul of Business

Business is the most pervasive and influential force on the planet today. Its activities transcend national and international borders. Its activities are not unduly constrained by financial, political, cultural, ethnic, or religious concerns. The net of this is that business, as a prevalent and important force, has a moral responsibility to guide, enhance, value, and nourish the existence of all that it encounters. In the world today, the absolute opposite of this occurs. Business today seldom assesses the efficacy of its activities through the lens of anything but profit. Traditional capitalism forgets an important variable, that of happiness. The true purpose of business is to uplift the experience of existing. It is not to make owners wealthy. It is not to produce ever-cheaper goods and services. Compassionate capitalism is an economic system meant to make a lot of money, help a lot of people, and have a lot of fun. It is not to keep an avaricious and toxic economic model afloat. And it is certainly not (with no apology to Milton Friedman) to make a profit. From our perspective, business is nothing less than a spiritual discipline, it requires the same integrity, commitment, intentionality, courage, discipline, and compassion as any other spiritual discipline. Spiritual disciplines honor life, in all its forms, as having innate and intrinsic value simply because it exists. It’s the honoring of this value—the ennobling of this value—that is called forth when we approach business as a spiritual undertaking. It is the compassionate thing to do.Read more