legitimate vs illegitimate business

What distinguishes a legitimate enterprise or business from an illegitimate one? 

Being ¹service driven vs. solely profit-driven.

There is nothing wrong with profit in itself, but when profit becomes the ²sole motive, serving others becomes irrelevant or secondary at best and usually and eventually leads to ⁴harm to others. This is a disservice and the opposite of serving others.

When an enterprise is focused on ²serving others we are loving our neighbors and helping them flourish, the result is the customers' ²benefit. If we persevere, it often results in our benefit as well, i.e. profit. We "win" by helping others "win." But serving others should always be our focus, regardless. 

As believers, this is carrying out the commandment to love our neighbor as we love ourselves i.e. treating others the way we would like to be treated. If we gain (profit) in this exercise, this is a good thing, not bad i.e. it is not exploiting our fellow man or the planet, as ⁵some assert, but the possible (not guaranteed) fruit of serving them.  

The most successful enterprises are those that find a ¹legitimate ³need of others and meet it better than anyone else. The greater the need, the greater the service we can provide. The greater the service, the greater the opportunity for profit if we are diligent. 

For a discussion on sowing and reaping click here. 

For a discussion about socialism vs capitalism click here. 

For a discussion on doing things with excellence click here. 

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¹The nature of the need is also vital in determining the legitimacy of the enterprise or service e.g. providing healthy food vs junk food is a legitimate endeavor. Providing a want such as junk food (or pornography, or abortions etc) simply because there is a demand for it is not. There may be large profits in these kinds of offers but if an offer is contrary to God's design it is ultimately destructive and a disservice to others and humanity at large regardless of demand or the amount of profit.

²Even when profit becomes the primary motive, serving others becomes secondary, which also ultimately leads to people's ⁴harm and the opposite of serving others.

For both the provider and the consumer. This is a "win-win" scenario. 

³We must distinguish between needs and wants. Needs are vital to our existence and flourishing. Wants, no matter how great, are merely what we desire but will cause us to perish if we do not obtain them i.e. they are not essential to our existence but are designed to merely give us greater comfort versus greater fruitfulness i.e. productivity. 

We are called to be productive (fruitful) and anything that enables us to do so is legitimate.

This is our initial mandate in the Old Testament:

‭‭Genesis 1:28-30 

[28] And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” [29] And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. [30] And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 

And repeated in the New Testament: 

‭‭John 15:5 

[5] I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing... 

[8] By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples...

 

[16] You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, - regarding advancing God's rule (kingdom) of love - he may give it to you. 

⁴Such as using corn syrup in foods as a sweetener because it is cheaper and adds more to the bottom line even though it's harmful to us.

⁵Ayn Rand asserted capitalism and altruism are opposites and do not mix i.e. that in a true free market system we can not benefit (win) by helping others benefit (win). 

Click here for a 2-minute video of her explaining worldview. 

However, as an atheist, she didn't understand the dynamic of being empowered to love others when we know we are fully loved. 

She interpreted altruism as a giving away of - or others taking from us - our dignity and not an expression of the dignity we derive from God, the eternal overflowing fountain of love. She saw altruism only as others taking from us by force vs our freely, gladly, and willingly giving to others out of our fullness of receiving all things from our Creator. A subtle but vital distinction. 

This distinguishes God's Kingdom from communism. This also reveals how the progressive side of the church is unwittingly sympathetic to communism, which is vastly different from advancing God's kingdom. 

Givers vs takers

For a discussion on how we are designed to be givers and not takers click here.

When service is our primary focus - but profit is also desired

(though not primary) - this puts innovation front and center. It causes us to continually look for creative ways to meet the unmet needs of our fellow humans and how to also generate the necessary funding to continue to do so. 

Often, not always, the copycats of successful innovation are driven purely by profit.