Ethics in Gothic Form: John Ruskin and Ethics of Entrepreneurship

In this paper we introduce John Ruskin’s writings on the value of gothic architecture, using his study of mediaeval gothic craftwork as a means to reflect on the ethical potential of new organizational form. Ruskin understood gothic architecture emerging from the co-operative, on-going and expressive activity of workers explicitly committed to cultivating growth that sustains community life, functionally, intellectually and emotionally. As such ‘gothic’ served as a template for ethical organization. In this paper we examine these ideas in the context of entrepreneurship, often viewed as individualistic, self-serving and opportunistic, so the antithesis of Ruskin’s gothic. In line with Ruskin’s call to examine ethics as lived human experience, we employ a phenomenological approach to understand entrepreneurship as a ‘gothic’ condition, focusing on the everyday activity of twenty entrepreneurs. Our findings suggest that whilst the entrepreneurs were alive to the importance of commercial return, they demonstrated further concern for, and commitment to, collective production and consumption activities that enabled them to create and judge the conditions for “good labour”. We argue Ruskin’s work on gothic offers a means to understand what it is about entrepreneurial work that makes us human, that which ‘gives to life’.