Introduction to Business and Society

This course reflects my research, and conviction, that business is so much more than what people usually think it is.  Business is society.  To be sure, it is not all of society.  However, much like it's sister course Business Ethics, the title itself seems to suggest there are two separate spheres or entities and that the purpose of this course is to see how they interact.  Journalists and debaters know that the first step in an argument is framing and I believe the very title of this course misleadingly frames the issue.

With "Business and Society"the course becomes an exercise in reconciliation, compromise, and even forced submission.  After all, the popular argument goes, society is greater than business and business should be made to serve society's ends.  Society determines the rules and business must obey.  To do otherwise would be to turn things on their head.  More sinisterly, allowing business to dominate society is allowing the rich few to dictate the lives and misery of everyone else.  So the course, under this view, becomes one of how society may tame and contain this potential monster of selfish profit maximization.

Rules are necessary.  Rules are an important part of society and we can study which rules make for the best society.  I would be more inclined to talk about the Rules of Society rather than Rules and Society.  Just because we can talk about them separately does not mean they actually exist separately.  The same goes for business.  There is no business outside of society and I would be willing to defend the proposition that there is no society without business.  On the latter proposition there are points I would definitely lose, but hopefully an honest opponent will come to realize how much of society is commerce and how much commerce is society.

This, then, is the object of the course.  To realize how much the terms business and society actually overlap.  To do this we will engage in a broad set of readings that will include literature, philosophy, science, history, economics, and business.  Think about it, all of these disciplines both study and mirror society.  They themselves are societies.  If business is society we should expect to see business mirrored in each and for each to capture some aspect of society that is business.

This is what I ask you to look for in the first set of readings.  How does literature, philosophy, and science relate to the practice of business.  Then watch the videos that are themselves about business, but notice how directly they relate to, and draw on, the non business literature you have just read.  Finally, read Adam Smith and begin to reflect that the division of labor cannot exist without society and how extensively society itself depends upon the division of labor.  To what extent could we say that society is the division of labor?

To this task we now turn.