Business Ethics Paper

Professor Horton
Business Ethics
Alinsky’s Rules to Organize Alinsky has numerous rules that you could say would help guide the process of having great organizing tactics. His rules play such a role that they are still being practiced in today’s communities. Alinsky would always try to point out what people were doing wrong but always try to convince them that there was something they could do about it as well. His theory regarding this is that if people think they don’t have the power to do something about it they will eventually stop thinking about the problem. Alinsky provided many key principles that can be referred back to the bible that I will refer to later on. Some of his rules to live by may not attract some people, but it may grab others attention also depending on your view of the way he views things. But these rules all leading to what we should all strive for in life no matter what we do, “success”. First, one of Alinsky’s rules that I would have to agree with in the normative sense is his sixth rule. It states, “A good tactic is one your people enjoy”. I believe that in community organizing having a good tactic that your people will actually enjoy can boost the moral and provide teamwork in areas that you wouldn’t have otherwise. It’s good to have everyone on the same page working together in that area. Alinsky states that first an organizer has to build credibility to your people to have the participation necessary to be successful. Just like any leader would have to do, you have to establish yourself among others and prove to them that it’s worth hopping aboard. He says that next you have to start agitating situations and to sniff out controversy within the community. These problems can cause turmoil within the community and eventually ruin everything you’ve worked for. Having your people enjoy doing work within the community and figuring out what needs to be done as a team is what is the key to success. Everyone striving for success in the same direction and doing away with excess problems is a critical point. A biblical passage that I would say that fits this situation is (Isaiah 64:8). It states, “Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand”. This reference is similar to what Alinsky states in his sixth rule because as people working within in the community we should enjoy working knowing that God’s will is being done through us to show others his light. It states that our Lord is the potter and we are clay in a metaphorical sense. He molds us into what he wants us to be and this should bring joy to the community in knowing we are with good people enjoying the work we have been assigned. Second, another one of Alinsky’s rules I would agree with in a positive sense is his second rule. It states, “Never go outside the experience of your people. The result of doing so would be confusion, fear, and retreat”. This is pretty self-explanatory seeing that going beyond the experience of your people is just asking for a disaster. The sense of not knowing what’s ahead can cause, like what Alinsky says, confusion, fear, retreat, and ultimately the “death” of the community. Alinsky believes that a community who is complacent in the things it is doing and the strategies going ahead are where all the trouble is found. He says, “The first step in community organization is community disorganization”. This is very true in many ways because this gets the people’s feet moving in the right direction. A bible verse that relates to this is James 1:2-4 and it says, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4). Alinsky believes in not giving your people things they can’t handle or things they’ve never experienced but this cannot always be avoided. Even when you are

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