The God's of Business
By: Krista Tippett & Prabhu Guptara


Prabhu Guptara is a business analyst who works for “The Union Banks of Switzerland” (UBS). He creates and directs executive and organizational development programs for banks throughout the world. He also writes and lectures on subjects such as: globalization, financial services, business ethics and religious values. He has always had a fascination about how the effect of people’s religious views play into the way they run and operate a business. This Speaking of Faith describes his view on how religious views play into business.

He first starts out by saying that each religion is different, they all emphasize different things. For example, the five largest religious groups can be separated into three different categories, based on their beliefs on God. The first group includes Buddhism, Confucianism and Hinduism. These three religions emphasize social order. The next group is Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. These three religions are place together on their belief in God, but each emphasizes a different aspect of God in their life. First, Judaism stressed the character of God as a model for life and work. Second, Islam stresses the will of God. Finally, Christianity promotes human transformation, even transformation of the work places.

He does say that even though each religion is different in its own way, most people do not apply religion in their business ethics. In fact, most people do not carry their religion into their businesses. He says it is very uncommon for a person to use their religion in their company. Usually most people leave their religion separate from their business not creating a conflict between the two. Most people who run a business try to be the best company they can be, but still being legal and honest. There are a few though which are not always legal and honest. Some are greedy and want as much money as they can get in as little a time span. His example was Enron. On the other side of the spectrum, are those who question whether they are doing the right thing, those who say to themselves, “Is this a good way to make money.”

One significant way religion has come into society does not really have to deal with religion. It is believed and credited to the Jewish and Christian religions, the use of a fixed payment. It is said that the Jewish and Christian people did not want to waste their time haggling because they thought time was very valuable, so in order to save time, they created “fixed prices.” A fixed price is when people agree on setting their prices of an item at a single price, and the people buy it from them at that price. The price is neither raised nor lowered, but kept the same.

One thing that Guptara stressed has to do with religion in an indirect way. He believes that we should care for the poor. He has no problem with businesses making money and even having some excess money, but he does not like it when businesses are making so much money that they do not know what to do with it, except spend it on more luxuries. Like I said, he has no problem with some excess money, but he does say there is a line between enough and too much. He believes, as well as almost all religions, that people should care for the poor. He thinks that people with so much money, (Bill Gates and Microsoft) should give some of it to fight hunger and those in poverty. Also the government does have some control that is driving the world into a “mess” as Guptara puts it. He says because some people are getting paid to not produce items, which can be a good thing because it keeps supply and demand in balance, is making this world somewhat corrupted. On one hand, people are starving and dying of hunger, but on the other hand people are throwing away food because they have an excess of it. As Guptara says, “Paying people to not produce products is not only an economical mess, but also a political mess.” He calls this way of running things, a “fiat.”Guptara says that if the government would create money and have no way of backing the money up, then a huge boom of people would be starting and huge amounts of food would be stockpiled and would be out of the people’s hands (in the governments). He uses a computer example for his explanation of this complicated way of looking at things. If there is a big demand for computers, companies will go to banks and ask for loans in order to make them. But if suddenly the demand for computers goes way down, then the companies lose business and are not able to pay back the loans they borrowed. Then you would ask yourself, “Why do the bank’s loan them money?” The bank’s loan them money because they might make a profit off of the computer’s the company sells. Guptara in short says that “we (the U.S.) is much more able to generate production at a rate that is uncontrolled because the government is making money and handing them to the banks and the banks are loaning them to businesses and sometimes the businesses are not able to pay them back. So then the government might go and make more money and because they can and this is when the power is out of the people’s hands.

Then Guptara poses the question on how do we stop this from happening? He gives one simple explanation, “put your shoulder behind something and go with it.” Whether it is conservation, poverty or corruption, you should stick with your cause and just one person can make a difference in the world of business. His example for this is “Transparency International.” This group was started by one person who was fed up with corruption in the businesses around him. The company was started about twenty years ago and is still her today, outlawing corruption in businesses.

One main thing about today’s business is that there is a growing need of individualists, especially in America. People in Europe do not really count as individuals when it comes to business, but more of a concentration on society and the community of the business. People in Europe and China and places like this are turning away from it and becoming more individual and because there is so much individualism, it has become destructive for society.

Finally Guptara comes back to how religion affects business. He says that all business men and women need to “look inside themselves and their religious traditions and see if the traditions are adequate in terms of helping you as an individual to live out ethical values individually and whether it's adequate in terms of living out your ethical values inside your company or organization that you work for or in your community and whether it's helping you to look at the big global issues like conservation and nature and poverty and all the rest of it.” He wants us all to look at ourselves as religious people first and see if what we believe in, if anything, would help us in the business world, or if it would harm not only us, your company, or the world and put it into an even more detrimental slump than it already is in.

SPEAKING OF FAITH