To do business, one has to be cunning, industrial, but also honest and straight. It is funny, often businessmen are portrayed as evil and deceptive, especially in Denmark where the socialists hold sway over vast parts of the public service and media.

But, to my experience it is often the other way around. The conservative businessmen, that is, the old and established owners of business, they are much more interested in how people fare in the local community than in China.

Now there are however the new businessmen, they are often prone to flash their wealth buying expensive clothes and jewellery. But common for all; they have to run a business. How do they actually do that? Well, they do it to their best knowledge, and, often to the traditions that are brought to them through many years of experience. Take the shipping business here in Denmark, it has its traditions, and they go all the way back to the time we were vikings.

But, we need to understand what a business really is. I stumbled upon a gem og wisdom when I read an ancient scroll of philosophy. This scroll relates the story of a certain philosopher called Bion. Bion was a Platonist, and a contemporary of Plato. He was a philosopher like Socrates; lively, intelligent and provocative. He did not write any books, but some citations are preserved in the writings of Diogenes Laertius.

Bion says, that wealth is the sinew of business.

How do we interpret that? First of all, a sinew is a part of an individual living being. In a body you have the head, and you have the sinew. The sinew is the part of the body, that will work as a motor of the body. It is the propulsion. The part that will move the body from a to b.

Looking at the body, the sinew is the constitutive part of the body. It is the mass of a body, while as the controlling unit, the head, is a small part of the body. Point is, if you look at a business the wealth (the sinew) is created by the part of the body that is actually moving and shaking things; the production. The production brings wealth to a business not the controlling part, that is management and so on.

Now, a sinew is a living thing, as all other living things, it can be in a good shape, and it can be in a bad shape. If you do not eat your cereals in the morning, and you have bad habits, you will be in a bad shape. That is why it is important to workout, have a family, have good virtues and be a kind and serious person. The (production) of a business needs constant training and caring to work smooth and effective. You can hurt the body by too much exercise, too little exercise and so on.

Now, our businesses are in a bad shape. That is the realization we have come to, we need to retrain, to lose weight, and to train our muscle.

There is, however, one problem. We have moved the muscles to China. This leaves the head in the West, and the muscles in enemy controlled territory. We need to change that. And that is the main focus we should have here in the West; get into shape again.

We need to stop our bad habits, of sending off the main parts of our businesses to far away countries, and start working out in the West, to make up for the loss of muscle we have had to endure. Quit smoking and get going.

As my great, great-grandfather said; We need to work for the “hele menneske”, the “ideal man”. That ideal man is a healthy body in a healthy soul.

G-d bless the West.