This statement is most famously attributed to Jesus, but he in turn was citing one of the books of Moses from centuries earlier.

In other words, the ideal isn’t new. Neither is business.

So this shepherd swapped a certain weight of clean raw wool for a farmer’s three bags of wheat. In this deal, did the farmer and the shepherd love the other as each loved him/herself?

Ideally, yes. In fact, ideally both are better off because of the trade: the shepherd needed wheat and the farmer needed wool. The shepherd couldn’t grow wheat as well as the farmer, or at least could not do both tasks as well as one, and conversely for the farmer.

What may come to mind, however, is when the deal goes sour. The sales profession, for example, has a reputation (earned or not) for giving a little less love that is expected in return.

Whether for seller or for buyer, the saying, “Love your neighbor as yourself” assumes self-love. You already love yourself.

And marketers have uncovered the fact that you buy things for your perceived best interest, not mine.

Marketers have uncovered the fact that all buyers (and sellers) are profoundly self-loving, self-interested, self-centered. Self-love is not always a problem, but usually it is when the deal goes sour.

Of course all that is needed for a business transaction to take place is for each party (shepherd and farmer) to perceive the deal is in his or her best interest. No love needed.

But in the long run, pure self-interest in business leads … well, if you want to go there, you won’t read this, will you? Nor will you make the effort to find out what people want to buy so that you can provide it for them. You won’t care about marketing or marketing research.

In the long run it is best to love your neighbor as yourself. In the case of marketing, find a need and meet it, with the customer’s best interests sincerely in mind. In the long run, even loving your neighbor may be in your own best interest … though it is a risk.

Such business ethics have helped the world go ’round for a very long time.

Peter Rubel

It is less clear that each party must benefit exactly equally in all respects, or that equal benefit is even possible most of the time, although without a pattern of relative equivalence, most such transactions would likely trail off or cease in the long run. People would haggle or vote with their feet (i.e., leave).

This introduces business ethics. Under this heading falls such unpleasant concepts as jealousy, coveting, greed, malevolence, deceit, manipulation, and coercion–all of which serve to distort both the relative equivalence of the transaction and even our perceptions of fairness.

My limited ambition for the present is to remind myself and you, the reader, to strive for the ideal. Since we must engage is business transactions to live and function, let us aim for “doing unto others what we would have them do unto us.” In its vague and cliche form, think positively.

Especially in the current economic climate.

Peter Rubel