can a business be born again?

John Mackey, the CEO and co-founder of Whole Foods Market, writes in his blog about the idea of conscious capitalism. He believes that it's possible--and even necessary--for companies to pursue something in addition to profit. He points out that businesses almost always begin with a purpose in addition to profit. Entreprenuers, after all, don't start businesses only because they want to make money. They start businesses because they want to work for themselves, or because they want to prove something, or because they are idealists and want to improve something in the world, or because they want to do something beautiful or heroic. They are human, and they have ideas that are bigger than dollar signs.

Furthermore, Mackey believes that the most successful businesses continue throughout their existence to pursue ideals in addition to profit. And it's possible for a business to be even more successful by keeping those ideals. Whole Foods, he believes, has done that; so have Google and Starbucks.

I've heard the argument before; I met a woman at a tea shop once who started a company for the purpose of helping corporations do just that. The mission of her company, essentially, is to help corporations find a purpose beyond mere profit. Because, I guess, money can't buy happiness for corporations, either. Even businesses need some kind of meaning in life.

On the other side of the argument, I've been reading Capitalism 3.0 by Peter Barnes, who says that businesses are set up to pursue profits and can't do anything else. He suggests that the solution to the current stand-off between business and the environment is to set the environment up as an economic player in our current economic system, so that its needs will become a financial consideration for businesses. Because, he says, corporations have to pursue profit above everything else. It's in their nature; it's how they're made. If you want them to really care about something, you have to make it expensive for them to not care.

Which leaves the obvious question: who's right? Are corporations capable of pursuing parallel goals? Does a for-profit company have the ability to really care about anything other than its bottom line? Can businesses repent from their selfish, money-grabbing ways and be born again into a better way of life?

Not to be heretical or anything. But it does seem to me that asking corporations to be so, well, spiritual might be asking a bit much. I mean, they have many of the same legal rights as individuals under our political system. But that doesn't mean they have souls.

The heart of Mackey's argument is that "we don't live in a zero sum world." In a zero sum world, gain on one side--say, the environmental side--would mean loss on the other side--the profit side. But Mackey believes that "we live in an interdependent world where the flourishing of the various stakeholders creates mutual benefits for each other." Theoretically, of course, he's absolutely right. We do live in an interdependent world, and the relatedness of everything, though hard to swallow for us American individualists, is one of the truths of Christianity. But is it possible for businesses to intrinsically change their awareness of that interdependence? Is it possible for them to look beyond next quarter's profits into the interdependent needs of the future? Maybe. But based on past experience, I doubt it.