Good Business
My uncle Willard passed away several years ago, and I was unable to attend his funeral. That failure to reach closure has been nibbling away at my peace of mind ever since, because Willard was an important person in my life. When I was a younger man, we would while away the hours yelling at each other quietly about politics. (Civility is essential for any worthwhile discussion, but it doesn't mean there is no heat behind the words.) Willard was a staunch conservative, but one of the intelligent kind with whom discussions are worthwhile, because one can actually learn why they think what they do. I was a fire-breathing radical leftist, but (I believe) one of the kind who questioned everything, including my own beliefs. So we argued well together.
But the memories that return now, during the greatest global economic crisis since the one he was born into, aren't his opinions about wars, patriotism, religion or other "pure politics", but rather his values as a businessman.
Willard was a farmer, in the sense that he was in the citrus business, and worked daily in his groves; he knew his business right down to the roots, as it were, and took great satisfaction in that fact. But growing and marketing oranges, grapefruit and tangerines was just the vehicle for his business principles, which I suspect would have manifested the same if he had been making shoes or electronics.
I remember one conversation we had many years ago, in which he explained what his life was about, in a way that I could understand and never forgot: he provided for his family and himself by producing something good that people really needed, and getting a fair price for it in a free market. He cited the importance of keeping faith with one's customers and associates: dealing shrewdly but fairly and honestly with people and keeping your word was the only way to maintain the foundation of good business -- something that no amount of public relations and advertising could ever replace.
Did he live up to this standard in his own practices? Opinions differ. It doesn't matter too much to the importance of this ideal. The "real world" of business probably demands many compromises of the real businessman or woman, and compromise often breeds cynicism; but when cynicism becomes the norm, the Tragedy of the Commons is upon us.
I would like to believe that it broke Willard's heart to see the steady decay of business ethics in America during his lifetime; if it dragged his own down with it, I'm sure the heartbreak must have been even greater. For many years pinko Boomers like me have shrugged this decay off as the inevitable corruption of a decadent society, but in my own old age I have come to believe that it didn't have to be like this. Maybe if we had saved some of our outrage for simple business ethics we could have turned it around, but instead we burned all of our indignation on the Kennedy murders, Viet Nam, Watergate and Big Oil escapades. It is always easier to be indignant at a distance.
Meanwhile cynicism replaced the rule of law, the "bottom line" became the bottom line, entertainment became manipulation and honesty became grounds for dismissal. Wall Street and Madison Avenue became one highway to hell and we all went along for the ride, shrugging our shoulders and asking, "What other choice is there?"
Well, there was another choice, but we didn't have the honor to make it. Fortunately, it has been thrust upon us again by the scandals of 2007-9 and the spreading consequences thereof. We don't have to do what we know is wrong to survive; in fact we will not survive unless we stop.
Honesty is good business, once again.
Jick 16:28, 2 April 2009 (PDT)
