Frank Borman, then-chairman of the Eastern Airlines, said that “capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without Hell.”
That’s one way to take Peter Heslam’s reflection on the closing of BHS in the UK, “Business with a Human Face.”
I would add that the purportedly impersonal nature of market exchange is also what attracts many of its supporters. Drones and automated checkout lines are increasingly allowing us not to see any faces at all.
And as Martin Luther would surely have also added, when we see the face of our neighbor, we are doing so before the face of God (coram Deo), and in our service to one another we are to be his agents, or “masks” (larvae Dei).