Social Entrepreneurship

Undergraduate / Graduate

This course is an experiment. We will explore the possibility or reality of the following. Doing good requires capital and capital can do good. This is a major debate. Even before the 2008 financial crisis, most Divinity Schools, seminaries, and theological schools probably held the view that money is the root of all evil. Specifically, at the University of Chicago business school, Milton Friedman, one of its noted Nobel Prize winning thinkers, argued that the purpose of business is to maximize profits for its shareholders. And, for business to engage in the social is tantamount to dabbling in socialism. So, on one side of the campus, we find a legacy of bottom line profit for the wealthy. On the other side of the campus, we find a tradition of transcendent values for the people and notions of the common good. Is it God verses Mammon? The Divinity School verses the Business School? Can profit and purpose and cause and commercialization work together in harmony toward the same transcendent goals?