Enclosed here is a fabulous excerpt from the complete works of Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda. The excerpt highlights a conversation between John D Rockefeller and Swami Vivekananda on corporate social responsibility and the utilisation of corporate profits and corporate wealth.
This excerpt is of great social relevance in today's times as more than ever before corporations and corporate profits drive social, economic, environmental policies of nations and the world.Never before has polarisation of wealth been more evident and endemic than it is today.
John D Rockefeller as we know was America's leading industrialist with a fortune that is yet unmatched if calculated as a percentage of the United States GDP. In those terms he ranks higher than Bill Gates and others. By the end of Rockefeller's career he himself along with the Rockefeller Foundation left a great legacy of charitable contributions.
This excerpt is of great social relevance in today's times as more than ever before corporations and corporate profits drive social, economic, environmental policies of nations and the world.Never before has polarisation of wealth been more evident and endemic than it is today.
John D Rockefeller as we know was America's leading industrialist with a fortune that is yet unmatched if calculated as a percentage of the United States GDP. In those terms he ranks higher than Bill Gates and others. By the end of Rockefeller's career he himself along with the Rockefeller Foundation left a great legacy of charitable contributions.
The objective of corporations should therefore not be greed and the ever increasing obsession of increasing share holder value at the cost of everything else. This point of " corporate greed for profits" is even more relevant today than it was in the early 1900's, as today our society is even more skewed towards wealth being held by a corporate few as against everyone else.
Before we go to Swami Vivekananda's direct quote, let us also read an excerpt from R Gopalakrishnan's speech at I.I.M. Bangalore that also highlights this point of corporate social responsibility exceedingly well:
"It took another 15 years after this episode, that Rockefeller set up the Rockefeller Foundation in 1913, which has gone on to do an enormous amount of good work in society over the last several decades. The story illustrates the point of trusteeship. When you have earned a lot of money, whose money is it? Did that money come to you entirely because of yourself or is it possible that you are merely an instrument through which you should channelise it back to society? It is a very interesting question to ponder. I narrate this story, because the element of trusteeship comes out so clearly in the conversation between Swami Vivekananda and John D Rockefeller.
The ulterior motive of making the profit is not merely to declare a dividend or bonus shares. As JRD Tata said, what came from the people must go back to the people. Who does the company earn its profits from? It earns from the capital given by shareholders, from consumers, by trade with vendors, from using transport contractors and so on. If it has some surplus, who does that surplus belong to? Not just to the shareholders, it belongs to the whole community, the whole society.
In the global scenario, I suppose we could say what comes from the six and a half billion consumers of the world must in some way go back to the six and a half billion consumers of the world. The fundamental characteristic of working with the trusteeship concept concerns the real purpose of business -- to return to society what you earn from society. If you are going it to return it to society, you must work with a certain attitude described by Lord Leverhulme.
Lord Leverhulme was a founder of Unilever, the maker of Sunlight soap. We all are very familiar with the many brands of Unilever. He said that the task of a leader is to act with the humility of the mason who paves the roads. The man who paves the roads works with his toil and sweat; he knows that for decades after he has finished paving the road, millions of people will travel on those roads. They will travel with hope in their heart and ambition in their eyes, trying to seek out a fortune for themselves in whatever they are doing; but not once will they ever stop to think who it was that paved the road for them — that is the way it is for the mason, an anonymous servant of those travelers.
Being an anonymous servant of humanity is very much a part of a leader’s privilege; it is not his plight.
When that idea seizes leaders, then I think the concept of trusteeship leaps out at you, it makes leadership look effulgent, and it makes leadership meaningful. All of us must lay our head on a pillow for the last time sometime in our lives. It makes you realise that what you leave behind can make a big difference to someone. It is not your name or fame.
I would hope in the course of time that it will increase people’s commitment that business can be humane and need not be an inhuman pursuit of greed."
Quoted Text :Swami Vivekananda and Mr John Rockefeller - A conversation!
FIRST MEETING WITH JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER :(An excerpt from Madame Verdier's journal quoted in the New Discoveries, Vol. 1, pp. 487-88.)[As told by Madame Emma Calvé‚ to Madame Drinette Verdier]
Mr. X, in whose home Swamiji was staying in Chicago, was a partner or an associate in some business with John D. Rockefeller. Many times John D. heard his friends talking about this extraordinary and wonderful Hindu monk who was staying with them, and many times he had been invited to meet Swamiji but, for one reason or another, always refused. At that time Rockefeller was not yet at the peak of his fortune, but was already powerful and strong-willed, very difficult to handle and a hard man to advise.
But one day, although he did not want to meet Swamiji, he was pushed to it by an impulse and went directly to the house of his friends, brushing aside the butler who opened the door and saying that he wanted to see the Hindu monk.
The butler ushered him into the living room, and, not waiting to be announced, Rockefeller entered into Swamiji's adjoining study and was much surprised, I presume, to see Swamiji behind his writing table not even lifting his eyes to see who had entered.
After a while, as with Calvé, Swamiji told Rockefeller much of his past that was not known to any but himself, and made him understand that the money he had already accumulated was not his, that he was only a channel and that his duty was to do good to the world — that God had given him all his wealth in order that he might have an opportunity to help and do good to people.
Rockefeller was annoyed that anyone dared to talk to him that way and tell him what to do. He left the room in irritation, not even saying goodbye. But about a week after, again without being announced, he entered Swamiji's study and, finding him the same as before, threw on his desk a paper which told of his plans to donate an enormous sum of money toward the financing of a public institution.
"Well, there you are", he said. "You must be satisfied now, and you can thank me for it."
Swamiji didn't even lift his eyes, did not move. Then taking the paper, he quietly read it, saying: "It is for you to thank me". That was all. This was Rockefeller's first large donation to the public welfare.
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Source and credits:
Visit our Life Transforming Book section to read the Complete works of Swami Vivekananda.
Visit our Life Transforming Book section to read the Complete works of Swami Vivekananda.