What has business ever done for us?

If you re-made this video with campaigning NGOs talking about business, what would it look like?



With apologies to the Monty Python team. Perhaps something like this*:

Reg:
          They've bled us white, the b*stards. They've taken everything we had, not just from us, from our fathers and from our fathers' fathers.

Stan:

And from our fathers' fathers' fathers.

Reg:

Yes.

Stan:

And from our fathers' fathers' fathers' fathers.

Reg:

All right, Stan. Don't labour the point. And what have they ever given us in return?

Xerxes:

Affordable and useful goods and services.

Reg:

Oh yeah, yeah they gave us that. Yeah. That's true. 

Masked Activist:

And the sanitation!

Stan:

Oh yes... sanitation, Reg, you remember what the city used to be like. 

Reg:

All right, I'll grant you that. Affordable and useful goods and services and the sanitation are two things that Business have done... 

Matthias:

And the roads...

Reg:

(sharply) Well yes obviously the roads... the roads go without saying. But apart from the aqueduct, the sanitation and the roads... 

Another Masked Activist:

Irrigation... 

Other Masked Voices:

Medicine... Food supply... Health...Affordable clothes, Transportation 

Reg:

Yes... all right, fair enough... 

Activist Near Front:

And the wine... 

Omnes:

Oh yes! True! 

Francis:

Yeah. That's something we'd really miss if Business left, Reg. 

Masked Activist at Back:

Employment!

(more general murmurs of agreement)

Reg:

All right... all right... but apart from affordable and useful goods and services, sanitation, roads, irrigation, medicine... food supply... health...affordable clothes, transportation, wine... what have Businesses done for us?

Xerxes:

Brought prosperity?

Reg:

(very angry, he's not having a good meeting at all) What!? Oh... (scornfully) Prosperity?, yes... shut up! 

If you've no idea what all this is about, go here. 

 *Don't take this too seriously: I fully, appreciate, by the way, those negative externalities inherent in business operations that have delivered the above. I'm just trying to have a little fun with the point that some NGOs might better recognise the social improvements business has delivered,  and the complexities tackled in doing so, alongside our concerns about tackling the considerable social and environmental challenges that result from all this.