Human Business, Humanity Profits

Today my mum and I were bemoaning the fact that business ethics seem to differ so much from human ones.

In Britain, business ethics seem set apart from human ethics, and yet are increasingly dominating our human society - for which everybody (but a very privileged few) suffers.

For a relatively mild example (compared to companies that lie cheat and kill) but an important one;   Amazon and Starbucks are not paying tax by setting up in Jersey.   It's perfectly legal, and that seems to be the end of the story.  This despite the fact that Amazon is now a market leader, surely it doesn't need to behave like this?  It could be contributing positively to society, taking a philanthropic approach which would be good for business and good for society.  Is it just thinking about the business ethic PROFIT?

Here is an idea for getting business ethics back in line with human ethics (from the film "The Challenge of Rudolf Steiner" rudolfsteinerfilm.squarespace.com)

"Customers and bankers at Triodos bank are trying to work in a different way with money:  greater tansparency, greater responsability, and greater consciousness about the way the money deposited is actually used.

Peter Blom is Chairman of the Executive Board of Triodos Bank:

"I am convinced that we need to concentrate more on what is really needed in society, and then make that into a feasible business.  There is profit of course, you cannot do without that - but you don't have to start with profit.  Profit is the result.  This relates to what Rudolf Steiner said - profit is not something to aim for but is a sign of a healthy operation, emerging from healthy transaction.  This is a much better way of looking at profit than putting it there as a goal, as an objective, making everything work for that goal.

Steiner always had the human being at the centre of his thoughts, whatever he was talking about, economics, medicine, whatever....in most of our thinking now we exclude human beings - it is about a system and we must fit into  the system.  What he did lets us take each human being as a starting point; let's design around debt for example, in a way which serves human beings.

We cannot achieve this by just repeating or copying Steiner.  Our challenge is to work with what he brought us."