Justice, Not Profit

God says if you do business His way, He’ll take care of you.
We are headed for some really bad times. Most everyone will suffer some; the plutocrats who think they are safe will eventually be crushed by God. That’s His way. However, this is not the end of all things — not yet. It is entirely possible for you to profit when the whole world is going broke. The starting place for your decisions is what you can do or make as compared to what people want and need. If you can find a path that keeps you working at things God says are good business, you can make it. As always, we are talking generalities. If you want details and specifics for your situation, you’ll need a spiritual link for a Word from God, either your own or some other reliable source.
It won’t matter what you believe or feel; if you can get your head around the moral imperatives of His Laws, He’ll protect your business. The first thing you have to do is get rid of the profit imperative, because that’s a different god. If you are going to worship Mammon, don’t pretend you are a Christian or otherwise following the ways of Jehovah. In case you don’t get it, the entire range of Western MBA ethics and practices are a close approximation of the religion of Mammon.
The operating objective is human need. God says the ultimate human need is social stability. It is neither yours alone, nor someone else’s, but yours along with those in your market, all in one basket. If you can’t embrace the fundamental commitment to the community and social stability, you will contribute to bringing God’s curses down on yourself and everyone around you. God will set the demons loose on you. You can’t define ethics according to Post-modern Western social expectations; those are inherently evil. You can’t work off the old “be a good neighbor” American social expectations. You can start there only under the assumption you expect to learn better. Under God’s Laws, you enter business to participate in the blessings of God’s Justice.
This is not communism, either. That presupposes a very human standard that is simply the backside of other “isms” God doesn’t like. Nor should you get hung up on apparent success in any particular train of human logic. Success is measured by your sense of peace, which you can only get from embracing God’s moral imperatives as revealed over the centuries, mostly in the Bible. Read it from the Ancient Hebrew perspective in which it was written. Your market is your virtual family; treat them accordingly. You don’t have to let people mooch, but you do have to offer what you have in a way God will bless. The Apostle Paul said no loaf for the loafer, which means you don’t support bad habits, but he also said help your neighbor when his fortunes turn sour despite good faith effort. You have to develop a sense of His Justice in addressing the larger needs of social stability.
It’s personal. Don’t pretend all humanity is one single thing. Give everyone personal attention; never try to automate the human touch. There are a wide range of overlapping facts about people as people, but you are personally liable under God’s Justice for each individual encounter, including business dealings. It is perfectly justified to jack up the price for someone who egregiously violates your best understanding of God’ Justice, but it’s not okay to gouge for the sake of mere profit. Profit is a tool to keep you in business, not the objective. God stoutly promises you will profit if you please Him. If things turn sour, try to discern where you come up short and fix it. Accounting and market technology is all well and good, so long as you keep your eye on what matters most, and it’s not profit.
Greed is not good and business failure is not evil. You don’t have to run a charity, but your actions need to be charitable in effect. If your focus is social stability, then you will avoid doing things that jerk your employees and customers around. Your employees are your personal responsibility as de facto family, even if they aren’t blood kin. They are your dependents, not some objectified resource. It’s personal; you are the shepherd and they the sheep. Take the wool in season but look out for their long term welfare, remembering you can only do what you can do. Their feelings aren’t really the issue, but you offer a clear understanding of anything they ask and don’t keep secrets.
Discriminate. With your eye on God’s Justice, treat your employees according to their general behavior. If they are useful, tolerate as much idiocy as you can and help the other employees do the same. Don’t make anyone suffer for the stupidity of another. Then again, the world is generally stupid and some things can’t be helped. Your job is to balance things as best you can. Reward faithfulness in those who embrace your interests; encourage that. Don’t be mercenary and don’t tolerate it from anyone else. It’s not a question of mere results, but the broader functioning of the micro-society of your business and the broader society in which you operate. Social stability is fundamental to God’s Justice.
If you do this, your business might still fail, but not on your account. If you seek His approval, one business failure is the gateway to another better one. He truly is looking out for your best interest, but you have to make the effort to understand what He thinks that is. What you look for is not all the things your MBA classes and marketing thugs tell you. You look for a modicum of prosperity, reduced threats to human welfare and a general resilience of the entire operation as a whole.
If you learn to want these things and chase them as a reflection of God’s Justice, He’ll send His angels to ensure it comes out that way.