Can Business be Good?

By Alexandra McLaughlin ’16 

“We’ve had venture capitalists and entrepreneurs running major businesses come in and share honestly what they know and understand.”
—Kate Ryan Reiling ’00

 Professor Kate Ryan Reiling ’00 tells her students to reach for the moon. It’s a Wednesday in November, and students join class from dorm rooms, kitchen tables, and living rooms around the world. “Take a deep breath and reach up high,” Ryan Reiling says, stretching her arms. “Reach high to the moon.”

Students say the question mark in the course title intrigued them. Can Business be Good? In her syllabus, Ryan Reiling explains: “I am teaching this course not because I know the answers to the question, but rather because I am curious about how we might go about answering the question away from the fierce rhetoric of the campaign trail and pithy tweets.” 

Along with teaching, Ryan Reiling directs entrepreneurial programs within the Macalester community. When she pitched the class, her main goals were to examine the difference between shareholders and stakeholders, explore what Milton Friedman wrote 50 years ago that so drastically shaped U.S. capitalism, and look at alternative models that have emerged, like B Corps, public benefit corps, and the circular economy.

“Then Covid hit and George Floyd was murdered,” says Ryan Reiling. “Those were new things that I thought were important to look at in part because of their impact on small business. That’s sometimes not considered when we talk about capitalism. We’re often talking about big, multinational companies and not about the entrepreneur on the corner who runs the little convenience store.”

Circular economy

“Guest speakers were probably my favorite part of the class.”
— Aaliyah Dick ’23

Today’s class focuses on the circular economy. In contrast to the traditional approach of “take, make, waste,” the circular economy aims to eliminate waste through the continual use of resources. Mac alum Kim van der Weerd ’09 logs onto Zoom to discuss circular fashion and her experience as a garment factory manager in Cambodia.

“Every time a guest speaker comes in, you can tell the energy of the classroom is different because everyone is so eager to hear from these speakers,” says Hufsa Ahmed ’24 (St. Paul). 

“Guest speakers were probably my favorite part of the class,” says Aaliyah Dick ’23 (Georgetown, Guyana). “One way or another, they all believe something needs to shift around capitalism. They themselves are the ones making the change.” 

Ryan Reiling was stunned by the generosity of guest speakers, many of them Mac alumni (see below). “We’ve had venture capitalists and entrepreneurs running major businesses come in and share honestly what they know and understand,” she says. “I thought that would be harder because people are so busy and lives are so complicated. The ‘yes’ response from guest speakers has been astounding.”

Letters to a young capitalist

Another highlight was the Letters to a Young Capitalist assignment, in which students wrote letters back and forth. One student played the role of Milton Friedman, an economist who wrote the seminal work on shareholder capitalism and shaped the way U.S. capitalism has been formed since the 1970s. 

“They had to write in his voice, as though he had reemerged and learned how to use Google Docs,” says Ryan Reiling. The other student played the role of the young capitalist, who supported stakeholder capitalism and issues such as the environment and worker rights. 

“They had to engage in essentially a debate about shareholder versus stakeholder capitalism, but with kindness and curiosity,” says Ryan Reiling. 

“I had a fun time with my partner,” says Ahmed. “We got into character.” 

What about the question posed by the course title? Can business be good? For Rodrigo Ortiz ’21 (Houston, Texas), the complexities of that question arise at Macalester. 

Can every business be sustainable?

“Whenever we have this conversation of sustainability or being more environmentally friendly, we need to recognize that it’s not an option for everyone.”
—Rodrigo Ortiz ’21

What about the question posed by the course title? Can business be good? For Rodrigo Ortiz ’21 (Houston, Texas), the complexities of that question arise at Macalester. 

“At Macalester, we encourage everyone to be sustainable,” he says. “Unfortunately, that’s not a reality for all students. Some students don’t have the resources to do things the right way at home because there’s an added cost that comes with that. Whenever we have this conversation of sustainability or being more environmentally friendly, we need to recognize that it’s not an option for everyone.”

Especially for small businesses trying to survive financially during the pandemic, Ortiz says, “How can we make sure that our conversation that pushes individuals and small businesses to be sustainable is fair to their reality?”

“He brought up a really important issue,” says Ryan Reiling, which was part of her goal: open up the conversation and encourage students to examine issues closely. 

Above all, she hoped to “create an environment where who they were as human beings and what they were experiencing was as important as the content we were trying to learn,” she says. 

“I hope what we’re able to take forward is a way to hold the fact that we all come to the classroom from different perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences. I think Zoom forces us to reconcile with that, because when we turn on our videos, we share a very personal window into each other’s lives.”