Why Businesses Are The Most Virtuous Entities In The World

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines the word “virtuous” as: having or showing high moral standards. Therefore, the concept “virtuous” (and its derivative “virtuosity”) is strongly linked to the concept “morality”. And what else is morality but to devote one’s days and nights to that which one knows to be good, to consider and champion nothing but the truth.

Here are the reasons why businesses exhibit the highest moral standards:

1. Thought and, hence, action

Each business expends considerable time and energy in evaluating and fixing what its interests and goals are — where does it want to reach and how. It is the classic case of thinking before acting, and acting with thought.

The two extreme ends of the spectrum of human action are: desiring without moving, and moving without thought — on one side is dry theory cut-off from any action, and on the other is random action divorced from theoretical concepts. Both are immoral tendencies, and unfruitful in the long run.

A business theorises AND acts. A business combines the two masterfully, or it won’t be in business for long.

2. The Profit Motive

Once the interests and goals of a business are fixed, the ensuing operations are strategised and executed with only a single purpose in mind: Profits. That is, and should be, the sole concern of a business — to make money and to make it ethically. If it isn’t doing so — that is, if it isn’t turning profits, or if it is making money through wrongful means or through cheating, it isn’t a business but something else.

And profits earned that way — through hard work — is one of the noblest achievements on earth. For, what else is profit but Production minus Consumption (to speak in simple terms). The more profit one makes the more convincingly one can hold the view: “I have produced way more than I have consumed”. Nothing can be more abhorrent than the statement: “I have never made a profit in my life”. Indirectly, the entity claiming so confesses that it has consumed more than it has produced — something that isn’t virtuous but contemptuous.

3. Value Maximisation

Each day of business, each operation, each deal is enacted keeping in mind the value involved. There is no space for emotions cut off from reason, for whims, for ordinariness, and for laxity. The persons who have invested in the business, the shareholders, the officers and executives, the employees — the stakeholders — they expect and deserve value. Therefore, a business’s concern is NOT social reform, or community service, or “humanitarian” works. A business might CHOOSE to undertake such activities but that is NOT its duty.

Its duty is towards its stakeholders, and towards devising the most efficient strategies through which value of the stakeholders can be maximised.

---

Such is the discipline that a business has to embrace in order to succeed. Such is the focus and selectivity that it has to adopt and display. And in doing so, a successful business not only turns profit but also becomes a torchbearer of brilliance. Perhaps, this is the reason why, if one takes note of the most successful countries in the world and their most successful periods, it is the buisnesses that have proved to be the backbone, and unleashers of great wealth and prosperity. Countries and periods in which businesses have been given a tough time, or controlled, or interfered with have recorded a sorry state of affairs.

Virtuosity, or morality — as related at the start, isn’t just about refraining from picking pockets, or being goody and sweet-natured. It is much tougher than that. It is much more excruciating. It is more about setting a goal (because that is the crux of human endeavours, and the way forward for mankind), and establishing the value — both present and future — involved (because that is how one gets to know where one currently is and where one desires to reach), then discounting back to the present time, and budgeting the days and nights, the energy and resources, so that the gap between the present and the intended future is closed.

It is about knowing what truth is, and to live, or die, for it.

A business, you see, does exactly that.

#Man #Businessman #Business #Virtue #Morality #Value