Mitt Romney’s business career seems to dovetail neatly with his Mormon
faith
The Mormon church’s personal economic precepts sound like a mantra for
fiscal conservatives: Pay an honest tithing, live on less than you earn,
distinguish between needs and wants, develop and live within a budget, and
be honest in all financial affairs.
But as debate rages about the ethics of Republican presidential candidate
Mitt Romney’s leadership of Bain Capital — a private equity and venture
capital firm that sometimes made riches by shutting down companies and
laying off workers — it seems his business career might have dovetailed
neatly with his Mormon faith.
“There’s nothing in Mitt Romney’s record that suggests that his financial or
business decision-making have been motivated by anything other than
bottom-line considerations. To be fair: As a capital manager, that’s his
job,” said Joanna Brooks, a San Diego State literature professor who
publishes the “Ask Mormon Girl” blog.
Modern Mormon communities “have come to view financial success as an
inherent good without necessarily having the same conversations about how
money is made, as may take place in other faith traditions,” Brooks said.
It’s a more profit-oriented, value-neutral approach to financial decisions,
she said: Money is consecrated in the act of tithing and other donations to
the church, and “how that money is made is less of a religious
preoccupation,” she said. That’s been particularly true as the Mormon church
grew dramatically in the past 50 years, which required considerable
money.
Romney’s 2011 tax returns showed he and his wife, Ann, gave the church $2.6
million — more than 12 percent of the $21 million they earned — while also
giving $1.4 million in cash and stock to their family foundation, which
heavily supports the church. In 2010, they gave $1.5 million to the church —
about 7 percent of their earnings — plus $900,000 to their family
foundation.
Patrick Mason, chairman of Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University
in Southern California, agreed that “Romney is almost prototypical of the
majority of modern American Mormons.” The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints — which in its early years embraced communal economics and
criticized cutthroat business practices — “embraced pro-market American
capitalism” in the late 19th century as part of its attempt to assimilate
into society, he said.
The Mormon ethics of self-reliance, accountability and hard work lent
themselves well to that economic ethos, he said. “It’s a mistake to say
wealth equals God’s favor, but it’s not a surprise when God does bless you
with wealth when you’re living right.”
Yet while there’s a clear expectation that faithful Mormons must contribute
some of their assets to building God’s kingdom through their church,
“Mormonism has never developed a real social ethic as opposed to Catholic
social teaching or the social gospel that’s in Protestantism,” Mason said.
Mormons aren’t unconcerned with social welfare, and acts of individual
charity are important, he said, but “it largely is secondary; it doesn’t
define what the gospel is or how people go about their lives.
“I do think there’s a strong element of libertarianism … within Mormon
thought along these lines. It’s very much a laissez-faire approach,” he
said. “It gives Mormons and potentially Romney an added layer of confidence,
of assurance that this is not just good economics but it’s good religion,
too.”
Rick Kopf of Alamo, who directs the Latter-day Saints’ Bay Area Public
Affairs Council, said charity for the less fortunate in the community and
humanitarian projects abroad are a huge part of Mormon practice.
Mormonism teaches that “materialism can be a huge burden to a person. … It’s
how they use it that’s very important,” he said. “We encourage hard work, we
encourage people to be successful but to do it for the right means. We’re
not out there trying to be rich for the sake of being rich.”
Personally, Kopf said, “I would hope that any political candidate who’s a
member of the church would live by the values of the church would be true
and honest and virtuous and family-oriented.”
Evan Chase, a staffer at the California Election Forum website, which offers
election recommendations for Christian voters, said he would like to hear
Romney say more about how his Mormon faith informs his fiscal and economic
policies.
“I haven’t heard him communicate that very much,” he said. “That affirms my
interest in voting for Mitt Romney. In the evangelical community, those are
strengths; those are American strengths.”
