On Budget Ethics
By David Gill
Our financial budget processes and decisions are very important to our ethics, not just to our bottom line. Our ethics are not just about delivering on our promises, treating our customers with respect, caring for God’s creation, and obeying the law. The ways we allocate and manage our money are full of ethical importance. Would God would say our budget practices are “good” and “right” in his eyes?
Three obvious standards we need to uphold are these: Honesty and accuracy—emphasized over and over again in Proverbs and throughout the Bible. Fairness is also a major theme: fair prices for customers, fair wages for workers, fair performance by employees. Generosity, especially to those in need, is a core Christian value.
But here is something else to think about. Someone once said, “show me your budget and I will tell you what your real values are.” Do our budgets and financial plans suggest that our priority is to pay our workers as little as possible . . . and our upper executives as much as possible, irrespective of merit? Do we minimize investments in safety or environmental care in order to maximize profits? Of course, such choices are not as simple as that. But we need to think them through and recognize that our ethics and values (not just market efficiencies or requirements) are at stake. I remember when I was a public school teacher (1968-72) that the downtown administrative staff budget in Oakland increased by 80% in a couple years—while class sizes grew and teacher salaries stayed low. Priorities! Values!
Budget ethics is not just about how we and our company operate, it is about the suppliers and business partners we patronize. Do we (or our firm or church) really want to give our banking business to a bank known to overcharge its poorer customers, discriminate in lending or hiring, engage in reckless investment practices, and underpay entry level employees while vastly overpaying top executives? If those kinds of behaviors and business practices are wrong, we should not only avoid them ourselves but refuse to patronize businesses that operate that way. It is not a neutral choice to decide where to do our banking (or what airline to fly on or what fast food place to patronize). There are significant differences in the ways different competitor companies operate. Let’s fire up our ethics antennae, do some research, and find admirable, ethical business partners. Let’s not give our business (our money, our support) to unethical businesses. Let’s “vote with our pocketbooks.”
—David W. Gill www.davidwgill.org