As soon as I hear these words, or similar sentiments, my hackles rise. My instant reply is "What did you steal from the community?"
People who have repented of a secret theft will want to do the right thing, make restitution, and pay back what they stole.
The other use of the term is to pay back a loan of some sort. OK, so you want to pay back a loan? Is that something remarkable with you, that we would all celebrate something you ought to do anyway? "Today I am going to help an old lady across the street!" Thus spake hero?
The words come from wordsmiths who craft buzz words to at once please the searching and warn the enlighteners. The searchers pick up the line assuming is strikes the right note. The enlighteners hear it and assume either knave or fool.
We need always a separation of charity and business. They can never mix. Age quod agis. When doing charity, do it. When doing business, do it.
"Giving back" is a sort of emotional blackmail. You are no longer testing your offering, you are confusing your product offer by adding "it's for the children." Hard buyers hear diversion and extra expense. If you want to give up some of your natural profits to charity, that is your business, but as the advice goes, don't let the left hand know what the right hand is doing. Certainly Apple will do a "red ipod" at a higher price to support aids cure in Africa, and no doubt picks up some corporate sales or who knows what, but in no way will Apple allow itself to be essentially associated with a cause. Calvin Klein was notorious for refusing to allow his company to be in any way associated with the AIDS prevention and cure movement, and as is good business practice, what support he did give was otherwise unknown. Companies whose essential offer is "giving back" all fail, as far as I can see, over the last 40 years.
Apple (Jobs) and Calvin Klein have certainly given more to the communities then their communities have ever given them, but really there is no accounting. The idea that the political economy in which they thrive fostered their success may be true, but it ignores the fact that the same political economy has robbed countless others of success. The question isn't what we are owed by those few who make it through the welfare/warfare klepto-gauntlet, but what system allows more people to succeed.
At the same time, the Catholic church recognizees small business startup as an act of charity, a teaching I am trying to figure out, but certainly putting every cent you have into business helps others at the most fundamental level. And all religions see the act of a loan (not at interest) as an act of charity. Small businesses extend credit commonly.
And customer-employed (AKA self-employed) you yourself are kept off the dole.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
People who have repented of a secret theft will want to do the right thing, make restitution, and pay back what they stole.
The other use of the term is to pay back a loan of some sort. OK, so you want to pay back a loan? Is that something remarkable with you, that we would all celebrate something you ought to do anyway? "Today I am going to help an old lady across the street!" Thus spake hero?
The words come from wordsmiths who craft buzz words to at once please the searching and warn the enlighteners. The searchers pick up the line assuming is strikes the right note. The enlighteners hear it and assume either knave or fool.
We need always a separation of charity and business. They can never mix. Age quod agis. When doing charity, do it. When doing business, do it.
"Giving back" is a sort of emotional blackmail. You are no longer testing your offering, you are confusing your product offer by adding "it's for the children." Hard buyers hear diversion and extra expense. If you want to give up some of your natural profits to charity, that is your business, but as the advice goes, don't let the left hand know what the right hand is doing. Certainly Apple will do a "red ipod" at a higher price to support aids cure in Africa, and no doubt picks up some corporate sales or who knows what, but in no way will Apple allow itself to be essentially associated with a cause. Calvin Klein was notorious for refusing to allow his company to be in any way associated with the AIDS prevention and cure movement, and as is good business practice, what support he did give was otherwise unknown. Companies whose essential offer is "giving back" all fail, as far as I can see, over the last 40 years.
Apple (Jobs) and Calvin Klein have certainly given more to the communities then their communities have ever given them, but really there is no accounting. The idea that the political economy in which they thrive fostered their success may be true, but it ignores the fact that the same political economy has robbed countless others of success. The question isn't what we are owed by those few who make it through the welfare/warfare klepto-gauntlet, but what system allows more people to succeed.
At the same time, the Catholic church recognizees small business startup as an act of charity, a teaching I am trying to figure out, but certainly putting every cent you have into business helps others at the most fundamental level. And all religions see the act of a loan (not at interest) as an act of charity. Small businesses extend credit commonly.
And customer-employed (AKA self-employed) you yourself are kept off the dole.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
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