Business as a Calling Work and the Examined Life
Why do we work so hard at our jobs, day after day? Why is a job well done important to us? We know there is more to a career than money and prestige, but what exactly do we mean by "fulfillment"? These are old but important questions. They belong with some newly discovered ones: Why are people in business more religious than the population as a whole? What do people of business know, and what do they do, that anchors their faith? In this ground-breaking and inspiring book, Michael Novak ties together these crucial questions by explaining the meaning of work as a vocation. Work should be more than just a job — it should be a calling.
This book explains an important part of our lives in a new way, and readers will instantly recognize themselves in its pages. A larger proportion than ever before of the world's Christians, Jews, and other peoples of faith are spending their working lives in business. Business is a profession worthy of a person's highest ideals and aspirations, fraught with moral possibilities both of great good and of great evil. Novak takes on agonizing problems, such as downsizing, the tradeoffs that must sometimes be faced between profits and human rights, and the pitfalls of philanthropy. He also examines the daily questions of how an honest day's work contributes to the good of many people, both close at hand and far away. Our work connects us with one another. It also makes possible the universal advance out of poverty, and it is an essential prerequisite of democracy and the institutions of civil society.
This book is a spiritual feast, for everyone who wants to examine how to make a life through making a living.
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars Business is a morally serious calling and Novak proves it.
Novak uses antidotial evidence to show how business can be
and often is a virtous enterprise. However his feelings
about free market capitalism and the business community
are somewhat navie and idealistic. Antidotes are used to
support the fact (often forgetten by social critics) that
business leaders contribute a great deal to society. I
believe this is a good book to read if you are taking a
college course in Economic philosophy or business
administration.
4 Stars BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER
This book was reccomended by a friend and I was fascinated by the title. The book is a quick read with many references to socio-economic theory and the Catholic way. The book was written by Mr. Novak, a distinguished author who grasps both the economic and theological apsects of modern day business activities. He does a good job of portraying work as a means to help the common good of all society.The idea that being productive as a person in business can benefit others in unseen ways is worthy. Even business can work in its' self interest while helping advance society. Business as a calling tied together many aspects of faith, work and finding meaning in a career. This book should be on the must read list of every young MBA or CEO.
4 Stars Student of Life
The view going in is very different than the view coming out. Novak's idealism helped to encourage me in my own. I read this book as an undergraduate business student struggling to find the balance that I saw in between greed and good. I so enjoyed his language, examples, and message that I recommended it to my Business Ethics professor. Last I heard, he was planning on using it as one of the textbooks. I gave it a 4 star rating because although it was a good read, it could always be better. Let's leave some room for improvement.
1 Star Bad defense of free-market
I'm writing this review to balance the far-too-positive ones above. I was forced to read this book for a college course. The book is simply not well-written nor is it a convincing defence of the free-market system.
An example of the incompetent writing: "A fourth truth about callings is also apparent: They are not usually easy to discover" (p35) You are not supposed to contradict your own sentence. This is an example of confusing, bad writing.
In much of the book, the author just repeats self-serving corporate public relations boilerplate, up to the point of unwitting self-parody. On page 22 he praises another saint of capitalism: "Kenneth Lay, chairman of. . . Enron. "I grew up the son of a Baptist minister. From this background I was fully exposed to not only legal behavior but moral and ethical. . . the most satisfying thing[] in life is to create a highly moral and ethical environment. . . ."
The worst thing is that the book contains nothing new. There is not a single new idea proposed that I saw. Novak simply rehashes trite, clich
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