Week 12: Becoming a Change-Maker

This week you will make your twelfth journal entry/blog post. Reflect upon the things that you are learning and experiencing so far in this course. What are you looking forward to learning and experiencing? What did you learn from the readings and videos this week?

I LOVED the readings and talks for this week. It's surely happened already, but I cannot remember the last time I wept for 20 minutes (out of tenderness, not frustration) during a college class. "Entrepreneurship & Consecration" by Elder Robert C. Gay has made an impact on me. He teaches that through business, we provide for basic needs, and then we rescue others as prescribed by the Lord. THAT is what business is for. THAT is what Handy never said in "What's a Business For?" Elder Gay taught that we have been prepared from the foundations of the world to LIFT this world! Empowering stuff!

Elder Holland's "Are We All Not Beggars?" was equally stirring. I loved hearing that talk the first time a few years ago. I am moved by the following...

I do not know all the reasons why the circumstances of birth, health, education, and economic opportunities vary so widely here in mortality, but when I see the want among so many, I do know that “there but for the grace of God go I.”18 I also know that although I may not be my brother’s keeper, I am my brother’s brother, and “because I have been given much, I too must give.”

We all have higher purpose. We need to love as Jesus loved. Nowhere in the scriptures have I ever found that Jesus really loved money, but I know He loved people. I need to follow His example and take care of myself, my family, and others.

Also, after reading What’s a Business For?, answer the following questions in your journal writing in ADDITION to your normal writing for this week.

Q1) Based on what you read in the first two pages (pages 3 and 4), why are virtue and integrity so vital to an economy?

Q2) According to Charles Handy, what is the “real justification” for the existence of businesses?

Q3) What are two solutions proposed by Handy that you agree with? Why?

A1) VIRTUE & INTEGRITY are vital to an economy because people need to be able to trust, otherwise they'll take their money out of play. "Markets rely on rules and laws, but those rules and laws in turn depend on truth and trust. Conceal truth or erode trust, and the game becomes so unreliable that no one will want to play. The markets will empty and share prices will collapse, as ordinary people find other places to put their money – into their houses, maybe, or under their beds. The great virtue of capitalism – that it provides a way for the savings of society to be used for the creation of wealth–will have been eroded. So we will be left to rely increasingly on governments for the creation of our wealth, something that they have always been conspicuously bad at doing."

A2) Handy's "real justification" for the existence of a business is to make a profit so that it can do something beyond, or greater than just achieving profit... something more or better than profit in and of itself. He says that business owners understand this, but that investors don't get it and don't care either.

A3) I agree with a call for businesses to consider trying their hand at making profit serving the poor as well as serving those more abundantly blessed. I agree with this because it's acknowledging that every human being has dignity and is a child of God. Lifting others up AND turning a profit, or turning a profit then lifting the poor... either way... is one of the reasons we're here: to serve one another. Heaven isn't going to be full of unkind, uncharitable, dismissive people, after all.

I also agree with the call for more honesty and reality in the reporting of results. Requiring more honesty & reality in reporting results, and somehow holding those feet to the fire, throughout the entire business would have people keeping each other honest. With everyone's tail now on the line, there is greater ownership in the whole situation. It would be awfully nice at this point for ownership to pay dividends to the key contributors, not just shareholders. The responsibility and ownership of the work from top to bottom will increase productivity, efficiency, and pride. Nothing bad, in the truth of all things, will come from more honesty.