Anti-Social Facebook Managers Addicting Children on Social Media

Rowan Williams, formerly Archbishop of Canterbury, spoke out repeatedly on the innate social nature of human beings. Before we can talk, we are talked to. Social interaction is firmly rooted in human nature as well as how we are constituted in groups and societies. Whereas Williams called for more compassion to emerge out of our social nature, a political realist might point out that we don’t have to look very closely to find a power-dynamic existing in practically any group. Nietzsche argues in Genealogy of Morals that exploitation naturally exists in how we as a social species are constituted because the will for power is the strongest human instinct. This motive can operate stealthily as compassion and even altruism. The Jansenist priest, Pierre Nicole, wrote an essay in 1677 to point out that what we moderns call enlightened self-interest is nonetheless rooted in self-love even when it is extended in acts of compassion that appear to spring solely from other-regard. On August 26, 2026, a landmark settlement was announced to end a trial in which 47 U.S. member states sued Meta, which owns and operates Facebook. Regardless of whether Meta executives agreed to pay $17 billion just to get rid of the bad publicity or because the accusations were true, the dollar figure alone suggests that Facebook’s management had indeed been intending to manipulate children by addicting them to feeds.  In other words, the company had been short on compassion even under the rubric of social media. Nietzsche would not have been at all surprised at such power being played to extract value from human beings under stealth.

Speaking on the settlement, Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones said, “For years, Meta intentionally deceived the public about the addictive and harmful design features that have wreaked havoc on youth mental health.”[1] The design features, such as unlimited “scrolling” and “likes,” were intentionally put in place to addict kids; that did not come about as an unintended by-product. Although Meta was not required to admit guilt formally, it is reasonable to assume that a business would pay such a hefty penalty as $17 billion were there not something to the case against the company in terms of evidence even of intent. So besides protecting “children from online harm,”[2] the settlement has value societally in exposing the intent to addict at the detriment of even children. The operative perspective at Facebook was likely one oriented to viewing humans for our use-value alone.

It is no accident that extracting use-value from human beings was part of a secret seminar at Stanford University. Also in 2026, Theo Baker, a student at Stanford, publicly exposed the seminar, which was being taught by Justin Lewis-Weber, a CEO in Silicon Valley. In his book, How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University, Baker reports that the course explicitly taught students how to extract value from people. Gaining utility from people without regard to how they are impacted, whether mentally or physically, stems from self-love manifesting narrowly as selfishness even if under the subterfuge of helping children to be more social with their peers. In other words, the students were learning manipulation tactics that could be used under the subterfuge of altruism. Phoebe Gates, founder of Phia, used the course to recruit employees. In 2026, wire fraud charges were filed against that company.

The upshot from all this is that the public (and elected representatives) knew very little of the sordid mentality underlying Meta’s corporate culture; even just from the $17 billion settlement we can only infer guilt because why else would a company agree to settle at such a cost? Many years earlier, Facebook had been found to have sold user-information to Cambridge Analytic, a political organization, but that was treated as a “one off” rather than as indicative of the way Facebook executives actually did business—and Facebook (or Meta) is a business; it is not social even though its industry is social media.

In terms of business ethics, intentionally or even unintentionally but continuing to addict young users of Facebook and Instagram violates Kant’s “kingdom of ends,” wherein rational beings are (ethically) to be treated not just as means (to one’s own self-interest), but also as ends in themselves. It is by the use of reason, Kant argues, that we assign value to things, so reason itself must have absolute value. A being that has reason thus has absolute value and should not be used merely as a means. This does not exclude using other people for one’s own ends, but this should not be the end of the matter, for other people should also be treated as ends in themselves. Addicting kids does not fall under “ends in themselves,” and so Meta can be held to have acted unethically. As much as business ethics focuses on ethical decision-making, ethical theories provide the real grist for the mill. Furthermore, the continuing negative impact of corporate culture is very relevant, as the case of Enron illustrates (e.g., “burn baby burn.”).  Even a highly squalid (ethically speaking) corporate way of doing business can be hidden from the public and regulators, and managers can dismiss ethical concerns very easily. So as in the case of Facebook (Meta), an episodic approach is typically assumed by external stakeholders; connecting the dots would take more effort and insight into the way corporate decisions are really being made.

Finally, we can pause for a moment to glance at the sheer pathos of distance that exists between Williams’ claim that the inherently social human nature can easily afford being more compassionate and the selfish addicting of kids at Facebook. Religion and business management seem to be disparate domains, and the easy compartmentalization by business managers who identify themselves as Christian renders the separation all too ubiquitous. The distinctively Christian divine command of love as universal benevolence, especially to outsiders and even enemies as selfless (or self-in-abeyance) compassion, runs counter to the firm-centric perspective and profit-centric rubric in business. The contrast is so distinct, even severe, that it is no surprise that business practitioners who self-identify as Christian have resorted to compartmentalizing their work from even themselves as human beings. The statement, “I’m a manager,” supports the construction of a “manager compartment,” but look at the underlying assumption: that a person’s essence is solely a matter of one’s functionality. It is easy to extend from this perspective to viewing social-media users solely in terms of their functionality, and thus use-value, as if value is a function of use.

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1. Barbara Ortutay and Kelvin Chan, “Meta Reaches $17 Billion Settlement with States in Landmark Trial over Teen Social Media Addiction,” APnews.com, August 26, 2026.
2. Ibid.

A Hindu Business Ethic

Applying a religion such as Hinduism to business is laudatory. Undercutting any benefits of doing so, however, is the advocation of religious principles that are so unrealistic in the business world that they undercut the credibility of the project itself. John D. Rockefeller was a Baptist who taught Sunday school at his church even as he pushed competitors out of business who refused to be bought out by Rockefeller’s refining monopoly, Standard Oil Company. To be sure, after retiring, he gave away about half of his $800 million (1913 dollars), but he did not claim that his personal generosity justified his earlier restraint of trade as a monopolist. Rather, he claimed to be more of a “Christ figure” as a monopolist than he was next as a philanthropist. In my study on Rockefeller, I concluded that he was delusional, yet to some extent well-intended, given the destructive competition that was ravaging small businesses in the refining industry during the 1860s. Rockefeller thought of his giant as saving the otherwise presumably drowning competitors, but Jesus in the Gospels does not drown people who are unwilling to be converted. Clearly, the application of religion to business can be abused, including in being much too idealistic, even utopian, and in being used to justify egregious economic tactics and even greed itself.

The full essay is at "Hinduism Applied to Business."

On the Ethics of Business Donations and Saving Souls

In the film, Major Barbara (1941), Barbara, a Major in the Salvation Army, has been raised with her sister and brother by their mother. She is legally separated or divorced from the father, Andrew Undershaft, who nonetheless finances the lavish lifestyle of his family. Even Barbara, the idealist Christian evangelical, lives on her father’s armaments wealth. Yet when she meets him after several years, she leaves the Salvation Army after Andrew and an alcohol producer donate large sums. Although Barbara recognizes that the Army in London needs the money, she believes that the Army has sold out because providing weapons of death and alcohol are sinful. “What price salvation, now?” a customer at the Army’s soup kitchen asks Barbara after she had taken off her Army pin and given it to her father. Barbara is not willing to continue with the Christian organization because in her mind it has sold out even though it admittedly needs the donations to survive. But has the Army sold out? Furthermore, does Barbara sold out in using her father's business to convert workers. Ironically, that may be more ethical than the Army's approach to saving souls. 

The full essay is at "Major Barbara."

An Interfaith Declaration of Business (Ethics)

Released in 1994, “An Interfaith Declaration: A Code of Ethics on International Business for Christians, Muslims, and Jews” is comprised of two parts: principles and guidelines. The four principles (justice, mutual respect/love, stewardship and honesty) are described predominantly in religious terms, devoid of any connection to business. In contrast, the guidelines invoke the principles in their ethical sense, devoid of any religious connotation. The disconnect in applying religious ethics to business is not merely in books; the heavenly and earthly cities are as though separated by a great ocean of time.

Are these religions applicable to business?    

To be sure, the text refers to business in discussing the ethical principles of love, stewardship and honesty, however briefly. Love in the business world is to extend out from corporate boundaries to  stakeholders. Stewardship applies to a business’s use of resources such that ownership itself is qualified beyond the reach of regulation. Lastly, honesty includes the use of “true scales.” The honest are said to get a religious reward (i.e., resurrection), presumably to compensate for any monetary loss in being honest in business.

Turning to the guidelines for business, they are portrayed predominately in the text mostly as a defense of corporate capitalism. Strangely, the reference to the principles is devoid of any religious association. The following guideline is typical: “The efficient use of scarce resources will be ensured by the business” (A.7). Another guideline adds a reference to an ethical principle: “Competition between businesses has generally been shown to be the most effective way to ensure that resources are not wasted, costs are minimized and prices fair” (A.2). To be sure, fairness is indeed an ethical principle, which John Rawls applies in his Theory of Justice. However, fairness is not among the religious ethical principles. Furthermore, no religious content is referenced in the guideline, as well as still another: “The basis of the relationship with the principal stakeholders shall be honesty and fairness, by which is meant integrity” (B.3). The reader is left to ponder what integrity looks like in terms of the three Abrahamic religions.

A major problem in relating monotheism and business ethics comes down to the enigma that God’s omnipotence cannot be limited by a human ethical system, and yet divine decrees that violate secular ethical principles are untenable and thus typically considered to be invalid. For example, killing people who refuse to convert because God says rankles the modern conscience into seemingly rebelling against the Ultimate. The question naturally flairs up regarding whether God really decrees the sordid practice. Looking out of a smoked window in this earthly realm, we mortals tend to conceptualize or sense God as extending beyond the limits of human perception and cognition. This means that we cannot rely on any firm answer in justifying a divine decree above a social ethic. 

For example, insisting that employees keep the Sabbath, whether on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, may not be fair to the workers who do not recognize the validity of the Ten Commandments. Given the limitations discussed above that preempt religious intuition, belief, and experience from being recognized as factual knowledge, an employer cannot justifiably treat the revelation as though a fact that an objecting employee has no cause to ignore. The question of the revelation's divine validity is ultimately at stake here, and no answer can possibly settle the matter in dispute.

In conclusion, it follows that throwing monotheism into the mix of business and ethics cannot reduce to a simplistic list of determinate guidelines. Getting beyond the “oil and water” of the sacred and profane turns out to be a whale of a challenge to religious business practitioners. In Christian terms, the problem can be put in terms of whether the "fully human and fully divine" Christology devoid of blending is a sufficient basis to cross the ocean of time between Sunday and Monday.  

Source:

An Interfaith Declaration: A Code of Ethics on International Business for Christians, Muslims, and Jews.

Related paper: "Religion in Strategic Leadership: A Positivistic, Normative/Theological and Strategic Analysis," Journal of Business Ethics (2005) 57: 221-239.

Related book: God's Gold  The text goes through the history of Christian thought on how greed is related to wealth and profit-seeking, and proffers an explanation for why the historical shift was from anti-wealth to a pro-wealth dominant stance. 

Corporate Social Responsibility Is Not Altruistic: The Case of Amazon Prime

In a doctoral seminar on corporate social responsibility (CSR), the professor turned to me, perhaps because by then I was also taking courses in the religious studies department, and asked, “What is enlightened self-interest?” In my answer, I argued that such self-interest is distinctly oriented to the long-term, rather than, for example, immediate profits. Alternatively, I could have stressed the ethical connotation of the word, enlightened, but the self-interest component would seem to invalidate an ethical basis. In line with the notion of love as caritas, which is human love (eros) sublimated up directed to God, as distinct from agape, which excludes lower, self-interest inclusive, love, doing good can go along with long-term self-interest. In other words, doing good has value because good is done even if self-interest is salient in the motive. In regard to CSR, the self-interest that coincides is long-term-oriented. Amazon, for instance, giving the poor (i.e., Medicaid recipients) 50 percent off on the monthly charge for Amazon Prime is in line with gaining full-paying customers eventually, for it usually takes a while for poor people to move up the economic ladder. 

In 2017, Amazon made discounts of an almost 50 percent discount on Prime memberships available to people receiving “food stamps.” The following year, the company expanded its reach to customers by giving the discount to people with Medicaid medical insurance. The first step to increasing a standard customer base is to reach out to people who would not become customers without an additional incentive. Amazon’s management wanted “to gain more market share among low-income consumers and those without access to traditional banking and credit.”[1] The company was betting that a significant enough percentage of the discount-taking customers would eventually have enough wealth to access banking that they could pay the full monthly price. I suspect that a manager “ran the numbers” based on an estimate of that percentage and set the discount accordingly as a break-even point.

That Amazon’s management was likely geared to the company’s long-term financial interest in terms of market-share generally and turning impoverished people into full-paying customers more specifically does not mean that societal good was not enhanced, for the purchase power of the poorest of the poor could be expanded. The good, in other words, lay in the added utility, and this is a significant ethical good, for the poorest, I can attest, suffer unrelentingly with the hardships of poverty. Not even hard work can result in appreciable change in terms of income and wealth. The poor benefitting from Amazon’s discount justifiably don’t care whether the company’s management extended the offer in order to gain market-share.

A company’s enlightened self-interest in CSR does not mean that good is not done. Its “certainly the case that we’re hoping to create some lifetime Prime members here,” a program manager at Amazon said when the expansion to Medicaid occurred in 2018.[2] The company was positioning itself to go head to head with Walmart. Amazon was clear that it was “making this move for business reasons, not for altruism, but”—and here is my point—“that doesn’t mean it won’t help people,” said Avi Greengart, an industry analyst at a marketing research firm.[3] Altruism may actually be quite rare, or even non-existent in its pure form, in human nature even as it appreciates the good. 
Caritas is much more realistic than agape. It is for this reason that the latter is designated as divine love—the self-emptying (hence selfless) love that a deity not having a human nature has. In Christianity, Augustine and Calvin emphasize in their respective writings that God is love. These theologians differed, however, on whether it is too much to ask humans to have and display selfless (agape) love rather than merely self-interest-infused love aimed high to God (caritas); Calvin was more idealistic in this respect. 
Doing good in the sense of improving the lot of other people applies to not only the Christian notion of neighbor-love, that is, caritas seu benevolentia universalis, but also simply wanting to make a positive impact society. Self-interest is more salient in the latter--that is, doing good ethically in the absence of love, but this does not mean that good is not done, even if as a byproduct. This brings us back to corporate social responsibility, realistically construed.

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1, Elizabeth Weise, “Medicaid Recipients Can Get Discount on Amazon Prime,” USA Today, March 8, 2018.

2,  Ibid.

3, Ibid.

Uncovering the Root of Poverty: An Addictive Habit

Addictive pain-killers killed 64,000 residents in the U.S. in 2016, in part because physicians tended to rely on patients’ self-determined ratings of pain on a scale of 1 to 10.[1] Such subjective ratings were of course vulnerable to self-seeking motives willfully negligent or even reckless in terms of health. A habit or marked tendency in favor of choices at the expense of a person’s own long-term well-being stems, I submit, from weak impulse-control. This factor can explain a lot about why poverty exists and goes on. 

Poverty, it has been said, is the cruelest form of war, for such war can go on and on and wreck subtle though tremendous damage on the afflicted. Yet the mentality that can get a person into such a war and associated bad choices can be easily overlooked by elites that deign to study the problem of poverty.

Attempting to explain escalating rates of suicide, overdoses, and alcoholism among uneducated Americans, Angus Deaton and Anne Case, who spoke at the CEO Council sponsored by The Wall Street Journal in November, 2017, pointed to the diminishing number of jobs “with a ladder up, with on-the-job training, with benefits.”[2] With less incentive to focus on doing well at work and less opportunity to get involved in a union, a person can easily feel despondent, especially given the breakdown of the nuclear and extended family and the decline of mainline Christianity. Drugs, including nicotine and alcohol, and ultimately even suicide, can remove the resulting sense of nihilism.

The job/family/religion explanation strikes me as overly formalistic, even external, however. For example, the rise of individualistic evangelical Christianity, which Deaton and Case claimed does not allow for a sense of community because of the theological emphasis on an individual's relationship with Jesus, can nonetheless provide social opportunities for people. A visit to any megachurch can demonstrate that “extra-curricular activities” go on in spite of the individualistic theological bent. Megachurches typically have coffee shops and fitness rooms, and even put on plays (e.g., at Easter). 
Similarly, not being able to get involved in a union does not exhaust the things a person can do with others in a group; political activism, for example, is open to workers outside of the work context (e.g., working on a political campaign).
I also take issue with the claim that uneducated workers do drugs because a promotion into management is no longer as easy as it may have been in the past. The work ethic is not predicated on advancement; rather, hard work itself is valued as a virtue. To be sure, the technologically and off-shore based relative loss of manufacturing jobs and the lack of satisfaction from working in a fast-food restaurant, for instance, have made it more difficult for uneducated people to find fulfilling jobs or jobs at all. Faced with loads of empty time--rather than trying to start an enterprise (e.g., a site online) or volunteer--drugs and alcohol are easy apparent fixes, or fillers. Yet the decision to have empty time is a course of least resistance rather than a fait accompli. The willingness to be lazy is itself significant, for it gets us closer to the underlying problem, which is internal. 
I submit that drug use, including alcohol and nicotine, does not stem from having lots of time from being unemployed. Rather, people who succumb to drug addition can be said to have weak impulse control; they do not have or use the strength of will to resist the urge to take another hit, or to try some drug in the first place. I've never tried heroine or cocaine even just to see what they are like because I know they are highly addictive so I have resisted offers to try them. So I'm surprised when I hear people who use those drugs treat them so casually, so conveniently, without any hint of impulse control. 
The lack of a college education is a contributing factor, for a surprising phenomenon of ignorance is its presumption to not being able to be wrong with respect to itself. So presuming to know all about heroine or cocaine and being able to manage them as if a physician fits with being uneducated. In college, students think through critiques of theories rather than taking them at face value; the professors model this. Being accustomed to critiquing other people's theories can get a person in the thought-habit of critiquing even one's own, even implicit, theories. In contrast, the assumption of ignorance that it must be right goes unchallenged by the uneducated. Interestingly, the difference is not just cognitive, for attitude is impacted by whether or not a person turns reason on oneself. The arrogance of ignorance contrasts with the humility that is ideally in putting one's own assumptions and beliefs about oneself and the world under the proverbial knife. Such an orientation necessitates the use of impulse-control, which in turn implies valuing it rather than conveniently assuming that it is not worthwhile. 

I submit that the “Two Americas” are separated by two trajectories of habitual thinking and values that stem from whether or not a person values and has good impulse-control. People who value such control loathe being around people who don't. Put another way, evading impulse-control is acceptable in some quarters while looked down on in others. The two respective cultures are each self-reinforcing, and social distance between those cultures naturally widens and is not just a matter of being educated or not. Unfortunately, I have been exposed to three "ghetto" apartment complexes, complete with "ghetto property-managements" whose mentality goes beyond garden-variety incompetence to reflect the lack of impulse-control evinced by many of the residents with respect to each other (e.g., being inconsiderate with noise late at night, and having a tendency to lie--failing to resist to impulse to take the easy out).  
Speaking once with a security guard whose company covered one such “ghetto complex” in addition to other, “non-ghetto” complexes, I was struck by how he distinguished the “ghetto” residents. “They think they live in houses, playing their music as if people are not on the other side of the wall. We don't have this problem at the other complexes we handle. The people in that area of town are not so inconsiderate.” I could see why uneducated poor people live together and other people avoid them; the difference is not merely monetary. People who resist the urge to play music or movies loud at night so not to disturb neighbors also resist the urge to lie when doing so would get them off the hook. In apartment complexes populated by poor, uneducated people, the mentality is exactly the opposite, and such a sordid mentality based in a convenient refusal to engage in impulse-control (for selfish reasons) is anathema to other people, who thus keep their distance and even perhaps urge public policy that hurts the poor. Regardless of how sordid the attitude is, I contend that poor people's human rights to sustenance should be respected and protected. This is particularly so because of how intractable the attitude truly is. A person who is used to dismissing impulse-control (i.e., not valuing it) is not likely to go down the other track, unless the motive comes from sustained suffering. 
In terms of not being employable, the lack of a college education again does not tell the whole story. A low-level employee interacting regularly with customers gets heat from a manager if the attitude is, "I can't be wrong about X." Lying about the customer is also not acceptable. Impulse control is vital to virtually any vocation. 
A day after Thanksgiving in 2017, I faced a middle-aged cashier who insisted that people could refuse to recognize that it was Thanksgiving and instead validly select another holiday to celebrate that day, including Christmas and even July 4th.  I countered that Thanksgiving and the other two holidays are set by the U.S. Government, and so are on determined days.  She dismissed this out of hand, which was insulting, and repeated, "It can be any holiday you select." She refused to resist her impulse that she must be right even though she was wrong. "No, yesterday was Thanksgiving and this is Thanksgiving weekend--not another holiday," I insisted, but she rigidly held on to her ignorance as if it could be right. Rather than use self-discipline even to consider that she may have been wrong, she failed to resist the impulse of the presumption of being right and being dismissive.

I submit that a culture exists in the poor America that involves not only a difference in wealth and even education-level, but and most crucially in the attitude toward and practice of impulse-control. That is, being inconsiderate, lying, and feeling entitled in being infallible about what a person thinks one knows can become salient norms where enough uneducated poor live. The attitude thinks it receives confirmation because other people in a similar way also have it. The poor are very susceptible to being rude, lying, and using drugs because of ill-used or perhaps impaired impulse-control. Viewing such restraint as of nugatory value, it is easy to be inconsiderate, rude, even highly aggressive (given the overblown or even imagined slights or provocations).
Biking in poor areas near universities, I have noticed the extreme “road-rage” that is distinct among poor drivers. Today in fact, I witnessed one driver get out of his car to shout at the driver in front of him at a red light. The aggressor showed absolutely no impulse-control; his emotions were out of control. Similarly, I've seen poor drivers much, much more than other drivers lose complete control of themselves emotionally and because apparently I had no right to bike on the side of the roads along the curbs! The sheer aggressiveness, outstripping any rational basis in the context itself, has both amazed me and formed in my mind an image of the typical poor driver. My reaction in observing such drivers has been that such people must surely live in a very different world. I couldn't imagine anyone with such pathetic impulse control being in college or holding a job. Clearly, another America exists, with its own mores and values that retain the inhabitants from entering (and being accepted in!) polite society. Being in the habit of evading impulse-control is so different than valuing such internal control that “Two Americas” can be so explained. Both in terms of wealth and, if the stats on drug and alcohol abuse are correct, impulse-control, the America that is expanding is not the one that should be.

If I am correct in my analysis here, simply providing more and better jobs, creating labor unions and other ways for poor people to “get involved” or be in a group only touch the surface, and thus cannot get the job done in eliminating poverty. Even if "ghetto" apartment complexes are "broken up," with the very poor being disbursed such that they cannot form a culture of least resistance, the internal attitude with respect to impulse-control is surely very difficult to change. So study of precisely how such a feat may be accomplished is needed. 

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[1] Gregory Korte, “U.S. Waging Tech War against Opioid Epidemic,” USA Today, November 24-26, 2017.

[2] Janet Adamy, “’Two Americas,’ Updated,” The Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2017.

A Religious Stockholder-Test for Wells Fargo: Confronting Mediocre Accountability

Orienting executive compensation to accountability is easier said than done. For example, it might be supposed that the cause of accountability was aptly served by John Stumpf’s forfeit of $41 million in unvested stock when he resigned under pressure as Wells Fargo’s CEO because of the bank’s systemic overzealousness in signing customers up for unwanted services. Unfortunately, he “realized pretax earnings of more than $83 million by exercising vested stock options, amassed over his 34 years at the bank, and receiving payouts on certain stock awards.”[1] In other words, the man who presided over unethical business practices at the expense of customers received double that which he was forfeiting. How can accountability have any meaning against $83 million? This figure connotes reward rather than punishment. Tim Sloan, who succeeded Stumpf as the bank’s CEO, received compensation in 2016 of $13, up from the $11 million in 2015. Interestingly, it may have been religion to the rescue.

The full essay is in Cases of Unethical Business, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.com.  

Biblically-Based Investment Funds: A Matter of Priorities

Is it biblical to say a Christian can serve both God and money? In the Gospels, Jesus speaks to this point directly; it is not possible. In early 2017, Inspire Investing established two new exchange-traded funds having a “biblically responsible” approach to investing—meaning that they would avoid buying shares in companies that have “any degree of participation in activities that do not align with biblical values.”[1] That such activities include even tolerance for gay employees raises the question of just how practical an evangelical investment strategy is after the U.S. Supreme Court made gay marriage legal in all of the 50 republics making up the U.S.

According to the New York Times at the end of February, 2017, 92% “of the Fortune 500 companies include ‘sexual orientation’ in their nondiscrimination policies and 82 percent include ‘gender identity.’”[2] Mark Synder of the Equality Federation pointed out that businesses “have been leading the fight for full equality over the last few years. L.G.B.T. people are part of the fabric of our nation.”[3] In short, the approach of the funds was “squarely at odds with that of nearly all of corporate America.”[4] Finding companies in which to invest in may not be so easy for the employees of the two funds. Put another way, the rate of return achieved may be compromised. Of course, an evangelical Christian would contend that compromise with sin is no virtue—certainly no Christian virtue.

Adding to the difficulties is the fact that not all evangelical Christians believe that discrimination is a biblical value, Snyder asserts. Of course, the very word discrimination is ideologically laden; it implies that the thing prohibited is salubrious rather than sordid in nature. Within evangelical Christianity, the tenet that sin explicitly listed in the Old Testament should not be supported or enabled is nothing short of an article of faith. Yet even here, that Jesus of the New Testament is silent on the matter of homosexuality may give even holders of that article some pause. At the very least, the question of priorities can be raised. Should not the funds avoid investing in companies that enable or contribute toward sins identified by Jesus? To put emphasis on a sin not mentioned by Jesus has the opportunity cost of the benefit foregone from focusing on sins that are important to Jesus in the Gospels.

In fact, that Jesus stood with the outcast might prompt an evangelical Christian to feel uncomfortable in taking on a marginalized group in society—especially the transsexuals. Yet Jesus tells the prostitute to sin no more, and gays today are not apt to view homosexuality as a sin and agree to abstain from sex. Gays would be on firmer ground in pointing out that Jesus preached love foremost—a sort of love not delimited to friends and family. Hence Jesus hangs out with the sinners, loving even the “unclean” rather than going after them or those who help them.

Hence the question: what would a biblical-oriented fund based on Jesus’s concept of love (i.e., agape) have as a metric? Companies in which people fight and insult each other, such as Uber, would presumably be off the list. So too would military contractors. But just as the traditional “sin” stocks involving tobacco, gambling, and alcohol would not necessarily be excluded, so too would the matter of a company’s HR policy on gays be of small import. In short, matching Jesus’s priorities in the Gospels would arguably be a sounder basis for a biblical-based Christian investment fund. In the end, the question is whether Christians truly understand Christ’s brand of love. I suspect that it is not as ideologically comfortable as the current practice indicates. I suspect that a truly Christian investment fund would not line up on one side of a general ideological division in society, for religion transcends ideology—otherwise faith reduces to self-idolatry.

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[1] Liz Moyer, “Alongside Faith in Investing, Funds Offer Investment Rooted in Faith,” The New York Times, February 28, 2017.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

Religion and Business Clash at a Church’s Food Pantry

The sacred and the profane are like oil and water—oil for anointing and water for cleaning. The viability or value of the sacred does not depend on denigrating that which is exogenous to it. In other words, praising the sacred does not require trashing the world. Being in the world but not of it does not imply that the world is necessarily bad. From this perspective, the sacred and profane can both be viewed as viable in their own rights, respectively. The inevitable distance that distinguishes them so starkly is breached only with great difficulty, even if pressed out of sheer practicality. For example, a theological interpretation undergirding a religious organization’s food pantry can clash with a business calculus such as would be held by an auditor pouring over the numbers and procedures. As theology and business enjoy their own, sui generis (i.e., of its own genus or type) bases of justifications or rationales, unraveling a clash can be notoriously difficult for want of a common denominator.

One pantry, which I will call here “Food Pantry of the Church of the Ossifier,” faced a challenge when the local food bank, which distributes meat to the local pantries, informed the pantry’s director, Sue, that the amount allotted would decrease on account of supplier issues. Specifically, as the price of meat increased, grocers had more of a financial incentive to more efficiently manage their respective inventories—with less left over nearing expiration dates. Translated into the Ossified Pantry’s terms, only 80 out of 430 families would get meat on the first and third Wednesdays of each month. In Sue’s words, “Meat is in short supply as donations to the food bank.  Walmart, . . . etc are not putting as much meat out in hopes to not have as much given away.  It cuts into their profit margins and everyone is being for frugile.”

The gap can be narrowed on both the demand and supply sides of the equation. On the supply side, one of the pantry’s volunteers, a former certified public accountant (CPA), contacted Sam’s Club for funding. The company had been instrumental in setting up an infrastructure locally for getting food from grocery stores to the food bank for further distribution to the pantries. Furthermore, each Sam’s Club store gave out gift cards to local charities, which could apply for the limited funds every other month. Charities could also apply to the corporation for grants ranging from $250 to $2,500 annually. The volunteer provided Sue with the information and she applied for both programs in the hope of being able to buy meat to supplement that which the food bank could supply. In addition, she asked the store manager about a possible discounted price. She could offer incentives such as free advertising in the church bulletin and at the pantry itself, as well as inclusion among the list of donors featured on a wall in the church lobby. From this side of the equation, business and religion look like country cousins—not marriage material but close enough to help each other out on a regular basis.

The intractable distance becomes apparent on the demand side. Sue allowed food recipients to pick up for other families too, under the assumption that some families cannot get to the pantry. Some recipients picked up for four or five families. From a CPA’s standpoint, the 430 families served figure—which the food bank uses as a basis for determining the pantry’s allocation (government funders would also use the figure)—would be a highlighted item for sampling and procedure-assessment. That is to say, the potential for cheating under such an arrangement was such that an auditor would want to test its validity rigorously. In fact, such a policy might have to go for the figure of families served to be said to be accurate enough for third-party reliance. Even with a record of the families in absentia, those families may not actually have received any of the food said to be picked up for them.

Sue’s theological basis for the policy is eons away from an auditor’s foundation. Compounding the difficulty in reconciling Sue’s perspective with that of an auditor, Sue held some non-theological assumptions regarding business that are vulnerable to criticism from a business standpoint. Even so, because her theological assumptions are beyond a business critique may have given her a misplaced confidence that her business assumptions too are beyond such a basis of critique. Her theological and business assumptions in her own words come in five points.

1.  People will scam us - that is a given and something that I can't control - if they really want to cheat they will.  Thieves are so smart and creative.

2 If they cheat they will have to explain it to God, I won't.  I hope that God is merciful.

3.  I do have a paper trail.  There have been a few times when I find out someone is cheating and when I confront them about it, I tell them they are not welcome to come back.  

4.  Occasionally I will make a phone call and spot check on the ones who pick up multiple families.  Most of them have asked me for permission to do so and I believe a lot of them do it to save on gas.  I have to trust that it is true or else God will take care of it.  God often tells me not to worry as He will take care of things and so I do just that.  

5.  Lastly this is God's work not mine.  It is never about the volume but about the one who needs us most.

Regarding Sue’s first point, just because theft cannot be completely eradicated does not mean that managers cannot do anything to reduce it. Sue’s assumption that a thief’s desire to steal necessarily means the thefts will occur is fallacious. Even if thieves are smart and creative, managers can be too. The passivity in Sue’s assumption likely comes from her theological tenets.

The theology surges in on the second point. Sue is saying that she is not obliged to provide a defense for the cheaters when God judges them.[1] Her assumption itself takes it as a given that the stealing will take place. Furthermore, her passivity or noninvolvement in the divine judgment may be a reflection (or projection) of her assumed passivity in her first point. Put another way, her assumption that the lying will take place may be based on her more foundational assumption that she has no involvement in God’s judging the cheaters.

A business practice may thus stem from a theological interpretation. Problematically, that the latter is beyond critique from a business standpoint may be used to assert that the resulting business practice is also beyond critique (and thus control) from a business basis. In cases in which the person has substantial power in the business, the business practice may go uncontrolled even though business principles have jurisdiction. Should the person’s boss have the wherewithal to stop the offending practice, the theological auspices could legitimately stand in the way if the business is part of or sponsored by a religious organization.

In her third point, Sue defends her practice of multiple-family pick-ups on the basis of business principles. She points to a paper trail, yet having the names and contact information of the families receiving the food at home is not sufficient to prevent fraud. A recipient could simply collude with a friend willing to act as a front. Asking for permission and using gas as a rationale, which Sue cites in her fourth point, can be part of the ruse even if the proactive gestures reduce the likelihood that cheating is going on in such cases.  

Sue assumes that because she has uncovered only a few cases of fraud by making a few spot calls, a small number of stealth instances remain among the 430 families being served. Of course, a colluding friend of an in-person recipient would naturally lie, though speaking with kids could uncover problems. Even so, a CPA would advise more than a few spot calls. Considering Sue’s passivity toward the matter of cheaters in general, the assumption that she has actively caught most if not all of the outstanding cases is vulnerable. In fact, the opposite assumption has more support. That her passivity is informed by her assumption of God’s agency makes her assumption of infrequent fraud particularly shaky.

In her fourth point, Sue bases her assumptions that a paper trail and a few spot calls are sufficient and that only a few cases are actually fraudulent anyway on her more fundamental (to her) theological assumption that God would take care of any problematic cases unknown to her. From a theological standpoint, this assumption is problematic, for if God would eradicate any cheating then wouldn’t God stop evil from happening? If not, then God is not omnipotent (i.e., all powerful). That injustices do in fact happen in the world is typically explained theological as an unavoidable consequence of God giving us free will.

Sue’s claim that God tells her not to worry (i.e., to passively accept that God will stop the cheating) opens the proverbial can of worms. In her fifth point, she concludes that taking care of any cheating is God’s work, presumably because God has told her this. From a religious standpoint, verifying Sue’s claim that God as “spoken” to her is fraught with intractable difficulties. However, that Sue does not question the “fact” that God has spoken to her may itself undermine her claim. Put another way, her unwillingness to question what she perceives to be the case flies in the face of the human experience, which is based in human nature itself. 

Given the conditionality inherent in Creation, Sue overplays the certainty card. Abraham struggles with God’s command that he sacrifice his only son even as God promises that his seed will populate the world. In Kierkegaard’s terminology, Abraham embraces the absurd in the realm of the finite.[2] Sue’s certainty belies her broader claim of being a person of faith. It is possible, even likely, that she had unconsciously chosen her theological assumptions to mollify her managerial challenges in formulating and implementing a system of accountability. 

Her compromised system can indeed be subjected to a business critique and correction, even if such oversight is hampered by the religious auspices of the pantry—being that it is part of a religious institution. To be sure, the business oversight can make use of the problematic elements in Sue’s theological basis, yet this presumes that managerial oversight is vigorous among religious functionaries.

Therefore, even though the gap in supply and demand occasioned by decreased supply at the local food bank could be narrowed by corporate giving and greatly reducing the instances of multiple-family pick-ups—such as by reducing the number of families a recipient can cover to one and asking volunteers to make the deliveries on their way home to cover as many cases as possible (especially the hitherto multiple-family pick-ups!)—the role of Sue’s theology on the demand side of the equation could keep the gap unnecessarily large. 

Moreover, both the pantry and the church’s administration could develop a reputation locally for ineptness in being disorganized. A boat with many leaks does not inspire much confidence. The rigidity alone with respect to plugging the leaks is easily offensive and naturally frustrating. Even though theology and business are worlds apart in their respective rationales, the flash-points need not be so intense and harmful. 

To the extent that some recipients get more meat than others, the shortfall hurts the people in need while enabling the gluttony of others; this is not exactly about the ones who need the pantry most. Hence Sue’s theological approach to caritas seu benevolentia universalis (i.e., higher-aimed human love, that is, universal benevolence) is vulnerable to her own criterion. Regarding the nexus of business and religion more generally, using the criteria of each on its own domain can work wonders in reducing otherwise inexorable difficulties from the interaction of the two domains.

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[1] Notice that Sue assumes that God will judge them. This assumption has historically given confidence to people that unjust people leading a happy life would nonetheless “get theirs” eventually. Nietzsche interprets this desire of after-life retribution as being sourced on the urge of some of the weak to dominate even the strong out of resentment and for the pleasure that can be extracted even from such wan power.

[2] See Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (London: Penguin, 1985), pp. 65, 75.

Hobby Lobby: On the Significance of the Case

For all the controversy stirred up by the case of Hobby Lobby v. Sibelius(2014) on whether an employer must comply with the mandate for contraceptives coverage in the Affordable Care Act, the significance of the decision handed down in a 5-4 majority opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court may be less than some commentators were predicting. 

The full essay is at "Hobby Lobby"

E.U. Presses Italy to Tax Church Businesses

One of the chief benefits of federalism is the ability of one system of government to check another within the overall federal system. In the European Union, the state governments have so much power at the federal level—in the E.U. institutions—that it is difficult for the E.U. Government to check excesses and abuses in the state governments. E.U. law, regulation and directives rely on the state governments, albeit to varying extents. In the United States, the case is the reverse. The U.S. Government holds so many of the cards that the state governments cannot act to check abuses in the federal government. Actually, for all of the power that the U.S. Government has amassed, it does a horrible job in aiding citizens against abuses in their own state governments. Fortunately, we can look to Europe for a bright spot: the E.U. Commission and Italy, á grace de Mario Monti who is both governor of the state of Italy and a former commissioner in the E.U. Commission (the E.U.’s executive branch).

The full essay is at "Essays on the E.U. Political Economy," available at Amazon.