My business major friends in college used to wonder if it’s possible to speak of “business ethics,” as if combining the two words created an oxymoron. Something like, “honest politician,” or “true lies.” They just don’t belong together. Recent Wall Street scandals still beg the question. I am not a cynic, and have a high view of the role of business as a contributor to the social good. A friend told me today about a community leader and businessman who has integrated his business know-how with his spiritual and social values. Some might call him a “social entrepreneur,”* and that’s not an oxymoron. Here’s the story:
Somewhere in a former communist country in Eastern Europe is a farm run by two professionals, a man and his wife. The husband is the Mayor of 5 little villages, as well as a businessman. The start of their “farm project” arose out of their faith in God and around the time that the communist political-economic system was collapsing. The whole point of the “farm” was to be a place to grow grain and make bread, raise animals for meat and milk – all to feed the sick, orphans, and widows, and provide a place for the healthy to work for their bread. This they have been doing for the last 19 years. The foundations have been laid more recently for it to become a place where orphans come to be trained in one of the trades – baking, butchering, animal care or agriculture.
“There is so much more to this place and the man who has spent the last 19 years of his life building it. He reinvests everything, saying the point is not money. It’s to take care of the sick, orphaned and widowed and provide help for those who want to work to have a way out of poverty,” says my friend.
The husband and wife did not have kids because they wanted to sacrifice their lives on behalf of other people. You might almost say that their “children” are the multiple businesses they have started – all to provide jobs. Earlier this year he had a heart attack and now has to have a triple bypass surgery. His wife is also ill and he said if he wants to live very much longer he has to start handing things off because he can not run all of this and make it grow any more.
Typically, a business owner would look for a buyer and cash-out. But he says, “I will sign it over to someone who shares our heart tomorrow, if they wanted it, but I will not sell it to a business person who just wants to make money.” He told my friend over and over that he has no sons, no one to leave his inheritance to, but that he knows that God is working all these things out.
This is not the typical story coming out of Eastern Europe. But, it is the kind of story that helps me resist the current economic cynicism, and believe that “big government” intervention is not the only or even the best answer for finding a way forward.
——————————————————————
* – For more on Social Entrepreneurship, check the Links under Business & Social Development
