Why a Corporation Without a Soul Is Just a Machine The Hobby Lobby case brings up an interesting concept: Shouldn't your company have a soul?
By Sandi Krakowski Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
The recent Hobby Lobby vs. Sebelius case has stirred up a lot of controversy. Twitter is filled with people crying out for "justice" and making snide remarks about "their body" and the "corporation has to pay for what I want if I work there."
But underneath the rhetoric lies a very grave issue that no one seems to be addressing. Arianna Huffington mentioned it very quickly in a Tweet but very few people even caught it.
Does a corporation have a soul?
In theological terms, the soul is often referred to as a the seat of our emotion and will. It's where we make decisions, uphold our value systems, create our worldview and more. With this definition in mind, what would a corporation look like if the soul completely cut off. Considering a corporation is made up of people, and people possess a soul, now we have a very important issue on our hands and no one seems to even want to mention it.
Related: Why Faith Belongs In Your Workplace
If you remove the soul from a corporation, it would be robotic and it seems to me that this is what the government desires: corporations that don't care, think or have any will or emotion. Ironically this seems to be their typical agenda for society as a whole. People who are fearful are very easy to control. Neurologists teach that the emotion of fear often leads to destructive behavior. It also leads to people "checking out." Trillions of dollars each year are made in the industry of adjusting people's behavior, emotions and will. And people "check out" everyday, refusing to take responsibility, have any form of moral conviction or values.
Is this the next attack on business?
If Arianna Huffington thinks that the best way to build a company is to create an autonomous machine that has no will, emotion, value or conviction, we have a really big problem on our hands. Is this how we should be building our economic foundation in America? Because the very core of every company started in a capitalist society is driven by passion, dreams and the pursuit of bringing value to the marketplace, change and value to our fellow human beings. If you disconnect what we can feel, value and have convictions about in our corporation, you now have full-blown communism.
Related: Supreme Court to Decide Whether Businesses Have Religion
Is the issue with Hobby Lobby controversial? Yes it is. But so is good business.
We should ALL be able to have conviction, morality and values attached to how we run a company, what we will and won't give our money to and what we'll pay for when it comes to insurance. Hobby Lobby already pays for a large amount of the contraceptives used by their employees. What they don't want any part of is paying for what is against their moral convictions and values. If the government doesn't want to pay for all contraceptives and take all moral responsibility for their results, than each corporation should be able to decide what they will and will not pay for. Employees have a free will as well, and can choose who they want to work for and not work for. THIS would require people who think, care and feel.
Ironic isn't it? When we begin to speak about soul issues, responsibly enters the picture. It is my belief that this is the real issue at question and nobody wants to talk about it. This is why faith works, at work.
