On Labor & Trade: a Sacramental

A Reflection of Labor & Trade as Being Love of Neighbor, Money as Evidence of that Love, and of Our Imaging God in Said Love

By James Lewis

In the following I shall put forth a heavenly vision for our labor and commerce. One who understands his duty and loves his neighbor shall be blessed.

Baptism: a Call to Go Out Into the World

We confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sin, for the restoration of our nature to God, and the redemption of our souls. This baptism causes us to become alive and open to God's grace, so to become partakers in the divine nature, and it is this share that allows us the theological virtue of charity, or love.

This grace, this love that God bestows upon us, must not remain with us, like fresh water cannot stand and will lose it's liveliness if it does, but be shared as widely as possible, to go out. "Ite, missa est", we are told! "God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten..." and we are now His begotten, so He sends us out as well.

As laity, we then take this God-gift into the world to redeem it for Him, to sanctify it, for we are a priestly kingdom, and we do so within our families, and yes also with our friends, but yet also with those with whom we do business.

The purpose of labor is love. We love our neighbors when we labor and trade with them, because we further them in their lives. By this, it is a fulfilment of the second greatest commandment. This love is God's, that we are a conduit of His love to our neighbor, and we love God through loving neighbor, as it is written "...Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me." (Matt 25:40) Thus, when we will the good of our neighbor, we do it to our Lord, and it is also a fulfillment to the greatest commandment. Commerce, an exchange of goods and services, is simply an agreement to labor for one another, that is to love each other.

Image of God: to Perpetuate Goodness, Truth, & Beauty

We who are made in the image and likeness of God have the unique capacity among all animals to create; we may use our rational nature to increase the world in goodness, truth, and beauty. This is precisely how we are to love one another in our labor and trade: when we will the good of the other—that is to love our neighbor—we will dispose our potential to that precise end.

The plumber will put at the disposal of his neighbor his ability to build, diagnose, and maintain plumbing. The plumber builds up his neighbor's house, increasing it in goodness—that is the house's capacity to meet the needs and desires of the master of the house and his family and guests—and in doing so he has loved his neighbor.

The life coach will put at the disposal of his neighbor his ability to help his neighbor take time to properly think through his life, his decisions, to recall those decisions, and to gain and maintain new perspective. Through this he increases his neighbor in truth—the knowledge of life, understanding of circumstances, and wisdom in decision making—and through this truth the neighbor will better his life. By this the coach has loved his neighbor.

The artist, through the abilities granted him by God and honed and perfected in practice and patience, he increases his neighbor in beauty, that not only will his life be whole, not only a survival, but an abundant celebration of the goodness of God's gift of life. This gift of art is a close and personal outpouring of self, if the art is taken to be good, and so it is an intimate love of neighbor.

A merchant, or in present day one in the distribution system such as truck drivers, provides a real good to the communities which he communicates, for by his work both may prosper. He is in effect facilitating the love of neighbors, and therefore loving both parties.

This is so for all trades which can be honestly said to be good and valid, and it can be seen that they must all be aimed toward human happiness, the requisite characteristic of a good and wholesome trade.

From First Principles: We are Commercial Animals

We are physical creatures. We exist in space through time and have locale. We are animate with rational souls, or rational animals. Our lives are a series of events, points in spacetime, and by our rationality make response in subsequent events. This is called narrative, or story.

Being near to one another, and having the ability to influence the world around us and others, we are thus social animals. Because of this we may increase the good of those near to us, which is love. Through engaging one another we may come to agreement on future action, including increasing each other in good, and this we call commerce.

Thus, because of our capacity to will the good of those around us and our ability to come to agreements, we are indeed commercial animals.

A Definition of Business: Laboring and Trading for Mutual Benefit

Business, or commerce, properly understood, is an agreement between parties to benefit one another, that is to further each other's happiness and vocation. All business which can be called good will benefit all parties involved, and all business which does not is definitionally bad business in the same sense that a chair that does not support someone sitting upon it is a bad chair. Business ought to be seen as a mutual gift.

As a reflection, imagine a society in which all businesses with which you interacted you were confident had your interest in-mind? What business practices would change? How might we change as customers and clients of those businesses?

A few would be competition and cooperation. Competition would seem more like a race and less like a war, and the vendors would compete between themselves to "win the hand" of the customer, for it is the opportunity to love for which they compete.

This is different, admittedly, than almsgiving, or a gift expectedly unreciprocated, which are yet more meritorious and imaging of another facet of our Father's love for us. It must be noted that these gifts and alms are only possible when not in want. Being in want causes us to be incapable to some degree of gifts of alms. It is therefore necessary for almsgiving that we do business.

The producer of goods and services intends to create something of value. Consider a potato farmer: acquiring more of his own crop when he has already ten thousand is worthless to himself directly, for he cannot eat it and nor can his family. Its value to him comes from its value to others. The famer will trade it for other things he needs, and he will trade it because it will benefit another.

Vendors and producers of goods and services may only benefit by benefitting others. This is true of all industries.

Business as an Extension of the Family

As eluded above, the business may be analogous of marriage as mutual gift. Business, which is love of neighbor, is really the out-turning of familial love. It is the surplus of love which is exchanged and generated within the family that goes out and shares with neighbors. All love begins with our Heavenly Father, and His love of the Son and the Son's love of the Father eternally proceeds in the Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life. This love and life with which we have share as images of God within our families continuously multiplies, which is also meant to be taken literally in our bodies, and then overflows to our neighbors. This love is expressed in many ways, necessarily also as commerce.

Truly, this Theology of Business is an outpouring and outgoing of the Theology of the Body. It is the wealth of love within the family that ought to generate material wealth of other families.

Sales & Marketing as Love

When we go out into the world in search of those with whom to do business, if in doing so we are desiring to do good to them, we are in fact loving them. When we interact with those who need what we have to offer, if in doing so we intend their good, we are in fact loving them. What is it we do if it is not love? If I have the solution to a man's want and desires, and a sustenance for his home "but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." What are we to do but offer what we have?

Love being the basis of our trade, it must also be our message. If we love in our delivery, we must also love in our offer, we must pursue as a groom his bride, because he may not love her if he does not pursue, and so we may not love if we do not pursue.

What it is that the other needs is the way in which we must present. The good we have to offer is both a fulfillment to a desire in the senses as well as a need which may or may not be apparent to the rationality. Food is good for the body, but the hungry want it to satisfy their hunger, so the message is for the satiation of the sense of hunger as much as it is a fulfillment of the need for nourishment. One good is the satisfaction for the senses and for the source of need.

On Mutual Love in Employment

The man with more work than he is able to accomplish may organize and prepare this work for others to do, and when a man subjects himself to another in his work the two may accomplish more than either may have accomplished apart from one another. In this way, employment is a produced good. The relationship between the two ought always be thought of as partnership, however, for both men are free, though they are virtual unequals insofar as the one subjects himself to the other. They freely engage with one another to the benefit of both.

More goodness, truth, and beauty comes from their relationship, thus imaging the relationships within the Godhead, for by the one God in their three persons produce all the good of the universe by their mutual love, so too by their mutual love do two men by working together produce more good, regardless of one's subject to the other.

The employer has a duty to benefit his employees to the best of his ability with good pay and a just wage, not necessarily equal to his own but so that his employee is furthered in his vocation, his purpose in life, and the employee has a duty to provide more value to the employer than the cost of his pay. Said another way, from the perspective of the employer, the value that the employee provides in return must exceed the cost of the just wage, and likewise in the perspective of the employee the benefit of the wage he is paid must exceed the cost in time and effort, for in failure of either case the principle of mutual benefit is violated, thus rendering their business together is bad. To draw the classic analogy again, when the relationship fails to support either person the business is bad in the same way as a chair which fails to support one sitting upon it is a bad chair.

On Money as Thanksgiving & Witness of Love

When we exchange money for goods and services, we are in fact making a statement of thanks to the one who rendered love. Monetary value is an extension of this thanksgiving, for by it we may thank another. A wealth of money should only result as an outpouring of the wealth of love, and when one finds himself with an excess of money he should use it to love his neighbors in need, for there is no use of money if not love! Indeed, the one who loves freely and gives freely is greatly blessed. This is the great virtue of liberality.

Although the proper use of money is love, and the acquisition of money ought also be love, the poor among us are not necessarily so because of a lack of love, but it may only be inadvertent and circumstantial. Rather, we must see the poor as an opportunity of love, for it may be that they have not been loved via commerce that continues to keep them in poverty.

It is also an act of charity to help the poor not only in alms but also in employment. An employer because of his liberality may share a greater love with a worker who lacks skill but is nonetheless employed, for by this the man loves his neighbor by increasing the latter's ability to love, and this must also be seen as a form of alms. As the saying goes, "give a man a fish and feed him for a day, but teach him to fish and feed him for his life."

We have a mistaken notion within modern culture that monetary value is abstract and can be pursued on its own; this is a grave misunderstanding. It is written that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil," and this is not because of the reality of money or its pursuit but because it is pursued devoid of the love of neighbor. It is taking a lesser good and sacrificing a greater, which is one definition of evil acts. 1 Timothy 6:10 is a reminder of the purpose of money: love, the same as all things.

On the Inappropriateness of the State's Authority Over Money

If we take the purpose of commerce and money to be love of neighbor, who has authority over it other than the Author of love? It is foolish to believe that anyone else may. Granted, the purpose of the state is to facilitate the happiness and holiness of its citizenry, most especially their protection against outside attackers and enforcement of laws established to the end of the common good, and money does have a role to play in this, but it is not with the authority over money but the regulation of bad actors which the state has its business. The major issue is that love must be free and voluntary, so compulsion by the state must be negative, not positive, or else the state robs the individual of his ability to love his neighbor. The community, that is the collection of neighbors, must have a greater authority over it's affairs than the state, for it is within the community which people share their love.

This is not meant to be a thorough treatment of the role of the state, but it is important to note the state's role in a subsidiary society. This also plays into moral obligation, taking from the first principle analysis above and one's ability to love his neighbor, that is his capacity to care. One is obliged in proportion to his capacity and proximity to others in need to care for them. This meaning that one who is distant or lacks the capacity to care does not have the responsibility to do so, but one who is in proximity and has the power to care must do so, because this is the universal call to charity.

Continuing with this line of thought, it is incumbent upon the state to promote and not hinder the love of one and his neighbor.

The Necessary Rejection of Socialism/Communism and Corporatist Capitalism

As with all virtues, there are two opposing vices. Courage, the most readily understood, is the balance between recklessness and cowardice. Likewise, the virtuous economic system rejects the extremes that one's only responsibility is to benefit the whole of society (socialism) or to benefit the owner of the means of production (capitalism). Rather, the virtuous economic system puts properly responsibility to benefit the directly involved parties (vendor-customer, employer-employee, etc.). Either extreme necessarily robs the individual of his capacity to love his neighbor. This is also the root of many issues within bureaucracies, that is the responsibility of the presider of the desk (bureau, meaning desk) is his office alone, not the one across his desk. In other words, bureaucracy is the rule of the desk, which is a tool within both socialism/communism and corporatism.

A third way, neither left nor right, nor center (an amalgam or compromise of the two), is necessary. Not left, nor right, nor center, but up. Up is the direction we must go, that is to the source of goodness, truth, and beauty, the source of love. The extremes we see as our options today and all times are a corruption of minor goods perverted by placing them above the major good. Love and labor are divorced in our culture, and this divorce sows a just discontent about commerce. However, because of the lack of vision for commerce as a love of neighbor we have yet to reconcile the two as a society. This must be a concerted effort if it is to succeed.

The way forward is to cast a new vision, to which I hope to contribute here, and to pursue it as individual communities.

Objections

Some may object to one or another claim I have made. Below are a few to which I give response.

That business is not love because it is self-interested

One may object to the notion that (good) business is love, because one is acting in his own interests when he trades, but so is he when he breathes, eats, prays, and lives every other part of his life. The acting in one's own interest does not preclude love when he also acts in the interests of others, and we say this in the most intimate of human relationships: marriage. The husband and wife make a gift of themselves to one another. A husband seeks his wife not only for his but her interest as well, and we must call it love. So is business done in the interest in both parties.

That not all business that benefits both parties can be called "good"

This necessarily calls into question various obvious scenarios which may appear at once immoral yet benefit both parties. While procuring illicit adult activities which are immoral seems to benefit both in an immediate sense, but far from it because neither does it truly support the happiness of the receiver and it costs the giver more greatly than the money exchanged.

That business cannot be called "love" because the parties are bound

Because the parties have made an agreement, it can be said they are bound to render their goods and services. This forgets that the same is said of a husband and wife. If "I do" means an unbreakable agreement to live for the good of the other, yet it can be called love, so a less binding agreement between partners in commerce can also be called love.

That business ought not be pursued because it is not our ultimate happiness

God being our ultimate happiness ought to be the ultimate aim of our labors. Business, it may be claimed, distracts from our ultimate happiness because it puts another end as our aim. This is true of a few, as it written that "the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil," yet one also must see immediate happiness is a foretaste and therefore also a good aim if properly placed. It is impossible that a truly good immediate happiness will be the enemy of the ultimate happiness except by the concupiscence of the receiver of the gift so that he seeks the lower and forsakes the higher.