Corporate Language in the Church, and the Problem with Corporations in General
Much of the church today is infected with what I call “corporate” language, i.e. the language and jargon used by large organizations to describe what they do. While hard to precisely define, it is marked by words such as “paradigm”, “mission”, “vision”, “diversity”, “synergy” and other vague, inaccurate words that sound exciting to a certain mindset but in reality can mean virtually anything, and thus mean nothing. I can understand why a lot of church leaders would idolize corporations: as outsiders looking in, and thus their only experience with corporations being exposure to network television corporate propaganda (i.e. commercials), they are enamored with the quasi-tribal trappings of logos and slogans and also with the warm-fuzzy marketing images presented to outsiders. Naturally, they believe they can achieve analogous success (or at least the image of success projected by corporate marketing) by adopting corporate-looking logos, language and slogans for their congregations.
What they don’t realize is that a corporation is an amoral entity designed for economic efficiency. Those at the top are rewarded handsomely, while those in the middle and bottom are kept in the tightest possible ranges of compensation that the market will allow. Thus, corporate language and marketing is designed to maximize revenue while minimizing costs. It is inherently manipulative. Corporate language and slogans are designed internally to trade bottom-line expenses (compensation for employees) for intangible, cheaper alternatives (recognition, sense of purpose, emotional investment in work, etc). We all recognize that external corporate marketing language is manipulative, so why their internal language as well?
When a CEO talks to his employees about having “passion” for their work, what he really means is getting them emotionally invested so that they work more hours and neglect their families for the same amount of money. When a CEO speaks of “belt-tightening”, we all know whose belt he wants to tighten.
“Increasing competitiveness” is corporate-speak for pushing costs onto customers by replacing American personnel with cheaper but less competent foreigners- anyone who’s had to call tech support can attest to this.
The one common thread of corporate language is that it is deliberately vague and patronizing. It must promote an ethic of “change is good” in order to give a quasi-moral basis to the latest cost-saving initiative of the leadership.
I still remember from my corporate days the promotion of the book Who Moved My Cheese?, one from the genre of “thin business books” that appeal to the lowest common denominator of b-school pseudoscience. This particular book tells a story of two groups of mice who were used to getting their cheese in a particular place, and then suddenly the cheese isn’t there anymore. One group of mice complains about the lack of cheese, while the other mice use their sense of smell to locate the new cheese. The moral is, don’t get mad because the cheese moved, because the cheese will always move. Be a winner and get used to the cheese moving, because that’s just the way things are. That’s the whole book, $19.95 at Barnes and Noble. I’m not kidding- this bovine excrement was a business-bestseller.
I can’t believe grown men and women took that book seriously. To me, the book is high parody: the CEO’s are the masters of the universe who move the cheese, and professionals are just rats in a maze looking for where the masters put the cheese. Degradingly insulting, I couldn’t believe how many people swore by this book as some sort of breakthrough for them. But conveniently, it justifies everything a corporation does as inevitable, and thus resistance as futile.
Did your factory job move to Mexico? Looks like the cheese moved! Shutup, don’t complain, just retrain as a computer programmer! Programming job moved to India? Oops, that darn cheese moved again! Time to retrain as a mortgage broker! And people don’t see through this propaganda?!
Corporations have the potential for a great deal of evil for two chief reasons: hired management and dispersed, limited-liability ownership. Whereas the owner-manager is morally responsible for his choices, it is easier for the management of a corporation to do immoral acts on behalf of the shareholders- as the manager can simply say he is serving his masters, the shareholders. And the shareholders, who are so numerous and dispersed as to be powerless, are largely absentee members of the public who care only for the bottom-line results provided to them by management.
Thus, corporate structure defeats many of the private market incentives (an owner-manager’s sense of reputation, moral responsibility, etc) that regulate private behavior outside of the historically artificial corporate context. The idea of a corporation itself is preposterous: that someone ought to be able to act immorally through a proxy for his own benefit without the risk of liability for those immoral acts.
I have three proposals to reform American business:
1) First, kill the lawyers. No, seriously. The main practical need for corporations is the malignant lawsuit culture in our country. The best way to kill the lawyers is to adopt the ethical standards of every other Western legal tradition: make it illegal for lawyers to accept a case on speculation for damages. Let’s put all the smart parasites running whiplash ads on daytime TV into more productive endeavors. Also, we need to destroy the artificial monopoly of law practice controlled by the various state bars: anyone ought to be able to take the bar exam, law school or not (like it used to be), and offer their services to the public. I’ve been amazed how much more I know about areas of law that affect me than the average lawyer, so it can’t be that difficult. Without speculative lawsuits, would-be plaintiffs would have to foot their own legal bill upfront, destroying the culture of litigation.
2) Second, allow liability insurance to “shield” an equivalent number of personal assets. For example, if a businessperson operating as a sole proprietor carries $2 million in liability insurance, that ought to mean that the first $2 million in personal assets is off-limits for litigation. Right now, a $4 million dollar judgment against that person would wipe out the insurance and the personal assets.
3) Finally, get rid of the limited-liability corporate form. Every entity in business ought to be responsible for its own actions, and not arbitrarily shield the enablers of that action from liability. A lot of the problems we see today in the economy with large, abusive companies stem from their limited liability status, and thus eliminating any downside to unethical actions by management to increase profit.
These policies would advantage the small business (e.g. it would be relatively easy for a small business to buy liability insurance, but relatively difficult for Wal-mart due to their size) which has more desirable social effects on society, while disadvantaging large corporations. Large corporations would not be able to corner markets by pooling money from small investors and accepting a below-market rate of return on investments due to their limited liability status; who would invest in Wal-mart if that investment might mean liability for the actions of Wal-mart management? And these things should happen, since the corporation itself is an artificial affront to natural law, where people are responsible for the full effects of their actions.
Finally, the church needs to be the church. I could do without seeing another non-orthogonal cross “logo” (if you look at the average cross on a church logo these days, you’d think the Romans were very poor craftsmen of execution devices; in reality, it’s an effort to de-emphasize the reality of the cross and thus make it acceptable to the world) photoshopped in with a drop shadow and cutesy fonts, commissioned by well-meaning people who think that looking more like McDonald’s is going to help bring people to Christ.
December 20th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
I agree with you, Tom. I get so disappointed when I see the church function like an organization, instead of a living organism made up of living people. The church has an obligation to the people God has given them - their best interests ARE the best interests of the church.
Obviously, that’s not the case with McDonalds, Walmart, or Philip Morris. I’m not complaining about that necessarily - it’s just the way it is. We as consumers have to know that corporations aren’t our ‘buddies’ or our guardians any more than the govnerment is. McDonald’s CEO is looking out for himself and his family, as he should. We have to look out for ours.
The church, however…who is it looking out for? Shouldn’t it be shepherding its people? The church isn’t an organization or corporation - the church is the people that make it up. It’s a body, an ‘ecclesia’ - a called-out assembly of people. Without the people, there is no church. McDonald’s could exit (albeit, not function very well) if the majority of its employees left. Legally, it would still be a corporation. But the church, without its people, would be nothing because of the very definition of what the church IS.
It’s so much “easier”, though, to function as a corporation. Functioning as a group of people is so much messier - there are personality issues that policies can’t resolve, there are sticky moral situations that there’s no ‘procedure’ for…I can see why it’s tempting.
But we dilute the purpose of who we are when we give in and take the easier road.