Something I\u2019ve heard most of my life is a sentiment along the lines of, \u201cGovernment should be run like a business, with balanced budgets, a savings or reserve, and efficiently\/cost effectively.\u201d\u00a0 The idea is that a \u201cbottom-line\u201d mentality should prevail.\u00a0 We look around at, say, Microsoft, or Starbucks, and we say, \u201cSee how successful they have been\u2014we should run our governments like that!\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve even heard church people say the \u201cbusiness\u201d side of a church\u2019s ministry should be run like a business.\u00a0 When it is pointed out that even the \u201cbusiness\u201d side is not really about \u201cbusiness\u201d or money, or profits, or cost effectiveness, such ideas are often lost on those who have been discipled more by Forbes than the Bible or Christian tradition and teaching.<\/p>\n
None of this is to say that governments or churches shouldn\u2019t be wise and thoughtful in how they handle money or their other more mundane and practical affairs, economic or otherwise.\u00a0 We are caretakers and stewards only, God being the true owner of everything as creator, but caretakers and stewards none the less.<\/p>\n
What I do mean to say is we are making a category mistake when we say governments (or churches) should be run like businesses.\u00a0 While these all may be organizations, not all organizations are the same, exist for the same reasons, or have the same purpose or goals.<\/p>\n
A business exists for the purposes of providing a product or service to people for a price they are willing to pay, wherein the business is able to profit, thus providing a living to the owner, employment to workers, and other benefits to the wider community.\u00a0 While there are philosophical and theological aspects to what \u201cbusiness\u201d means and how it should be understood, both now and historically, it is tied intrinsically to the basic need of providing for one\u2019s self and family.<\/p>\n
Governments, however, do not exist for those reasons or have those same purposes.\u00a0 Obviously, there are many forms of government.\u00a0 There are also many philosophical and theological conceptions of government.\u00a0 I am speaking out of a Christian tradition and understanding.\u00a0 Fundamentally, governments exist to make judgments, and therein resides their authority.\u00a0 Oliver O\u2019Donovan<\/a> puts it thus:<\/p>\n \u201cThe authority of secular government resides in the practice of judgment\u2026for the proposition that the authority of government resides essentially<\/em> in the act of judgment, we must turn to the New Testament, where St. Paul described the function of civil authority as to reward the just and punish the evil (Rom. 13:4).\u201d (Pgs. 1-3)<\/p>\n And O\u2019Donovan isn\u2019t using the term \u201csecular\u201d in its commonly understood sense, but in its truest sense, which is in terms of salvation history or time.\u00a0 He is speaking then to all governmental forms that exist in the time between the ascension of Christ and the summation of all things.\u00a0 Of course there is more to what government does, but in this understanding its intrinsic nature is the authority to judge.\u00a0 And making judgments entails much\u2014there is a myriad and complex web of interlocking relationships, duties, and functions bound up in that very succinct description of government and its purpose.<\/p>\n The point is that judging between good and evil is not something businesses do on behalf of the citizens, the people, of which they themselves are a part.\u00a0 Making judgments entails philosophical and theological considerations.\u00a0 It entails having a deep understanding of jurisprudence historically, socially, politically, and in many other aspects.\u00a0 It must consider how judgments affect all of its citizens, regardless of any economic aspects, or other prejudices.<\/p>\n At a national level, those judgments have to do with protecting citizens, preventing or waging war, and other lethal or life and death matters.\u00a0 It means making judgments as to the social flourishing of its citizens and neighborly relations with the rest of the world.\u00a0 None of these types of decisions can be based on some \u201cbottom line\u201d or reduced to economic considerations alone\u2014or anything purely practical<\/em>.<\/p>\n Confusing the two also leads to America\u2019s perpetual tendency to want business people (mostly men) to become political leaders.\u00a0 Or, the tendency of business leaders<\/a> to think their prowess in one area will translate to the other.\u00a0 The idea seems to be that if a person<\/a> has built a successful business, and become wealthy, he must then be a good leader.\u00a0 I think this logic rather faulty, but the greater problem is that it again confuses these two areas of endeavor and the type of leader best suited to each.<\/p>\n Further, we could add, the next best argument against this type of thinking or leader is the current occupant of the White House.\u00a0 Or course, in this case, one can\u2019t even make the argument he was a successful<\/a> business man.\u00a0 He is much closer to a con-man<\/a> than a businessman and his supposed wealth (of which we know very little) was mostly gifted and the rest built upon BS and personal promotion.\u00a0 Still, he was able to present the persona of such and it was enough for low-information or lazy voters.<\/p>\n Business leaders tend, not all, but some, to be practical, bottom-line, types of people.\u00a0 Matters of state, or government, however, are often too complex for practical, bottom-line solutions.\u00a0 It is why the wisest states or cultures have selected statesmen (statespersons) and not politicians or business people to lead their governments.\u00a0 A statesperson is more a wise philosopher, a reflective soul, a person for all seasons as they say, than a person only checking bottom lines.<\/p>\n James Freeman Clarke<\/a> noted this difference between a statesperson and a politician:<\/p>\n \u201cThe difference between a politician and a statesman is that a politician thinks about the next election while the statesman thinks about the next generation.\u201d<\/p>\n