The logic of business

Next to my university building there was the business school. The equivalent French term actually translates to école de commerce — school of commerce. At the time I didn’t think much of it. At the time, I just knew they partied a lot and got more opportunities to travel.

The word business wasn’t one I encountered much growing up in France. We used more specific terms to designate companies (often by size or legal structure). Business always felt a bit more abstract. A bit fluffy. American.

Business is only adjacent to commerce. The distinction struck me recently while walking through my local farmers market. In English, Business covers everything from a farmer’s market stall to a venture-backed SaaS platform.

Commerce, on the other hand, is exchange. It’s concrete, relational, and immediately accountable to reality. In the exchange there’s a small moment of recognition. Business begins when we try to make that exchange last beyond the moment. The exchange that once carried a trace of compassion becomes a transaction managed at distance.

As this structure grew more abstract and global, it became increasingly left-brained: optimized, quantified, mediated through symbols rather than felt need. If someone is willing to pay for a thing, it now has monetary value; even when, on an ethical level it has negative value.

That’s the trade we’ve made in accepting money as livelihood and quietly shoving integrity under the rug. Profit, which once confirmed that value had passed between us, becomes the aim itself. And in that shift, the work of taking care of one another risks becoming alienating.

Shopping at the farmers market feels good. Less so at the grocery store. And even less so online. Convenience seems to move in the opposite direction, even for me, living within walking distance of the market.

Business often looks bad to my eyes. Perhaps I’ve been in SaaS for too long and the above is just the proof that I need an exit. I should shop local more often. I feel a sense of angry guilt being in this business-dominated world, narrated by the LinkedIn hustle cesspool we see so often. Sabotage would be idiotic. Do with what you have says the elders, gurus, neighbors, common sense… beyond these few words business makes so little sense to me. I just want to walk around and munch. What kind of business is that?