Now compare Titus Salt or Joseph Rowntree or James Reckitt or the Cadbury Brothers to any of the faceless, nameless funds that are running large businesses these days.

All of the former invested in their employees' welfare. They may have been accused of exploitation but they made sure their workforce had comfortable homes (at affordable rents), canteens supplying good food at subsidised prices and leisure & health facilities to ensure their workforce were at peak productivity.

Now the faceless corporations attempt to achieve the same result through fear and intimidation.

That's what you get when you go for a secular rather than a Christian society.

No that's what you get when you go for largely unrestrained capitalism driven solely by profit through companies who feel no allegiance or responsibility to either the society they operate in or their own workforce.

Titus Salt was far from secular in his beliefs, building a congregational church opposite his mill and donating land for a weslyan church.

He was a remarkable man though and a wander through his village is a very pleasant way to spend a sunday afternoon, but you can also say the same about many other Victorian philanthropists who saw the value in treating their workforce humanely rather than as items on a balance sheet.

I rather think that was Dally's point mate

Pity John Lewis doesn't tie in with that analysis.

Ha! Well thats what I get for contradicting everything he says without reading it first.

Rubbish.
You don't have to be a Christian to have a conscience and a secular society does not prohibit an individual's adherence to a faith.

You really do knee-jerk some bollox Dally.

Meanwhile, back in the real world inter-personal relationships, business ethics, etc, etc have all mardedly improved with the decline in religious observance haven't they. That's at a stage when most people in influence still grew up with a degree of religion in their childhood. That won't be the case in a few years time.

The ethics of (some) big businesses have got worse in part because, with so many of said big businesses now having no real home base and no concomitant sense of loyalty to any place, they have no sense of ethical obligation to anything other than the company bank account/shareholders/owners. And with both their increased size and deregulation, they can better get away with such behaviour.

Your point about religion is irrelevant.

If religion ensured good behaviour, we'd have had thousands of years of peace and no crime.