Freedom, Capitalism and Religion
Progressive Essays and Thinking on Capitalism and Freedom and Religion
My name is Howard Schwartz (formerly Howard Eilberg-Schwartz).
People are often surprised by my unusual background and the journey I have made from Seminary to Silicon Valley. I was orginally trained as a rabbi at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America but realized I didn't want to be a practicing rabbi. I then went on to receive a Ph.D. from Brown University and taught Religious Studies for ten years at leading institutions of higher education including Stanford, Indiana, Temple and San Francisco State Universities. During that time, I published a number of books and essays on religion, anthropology of religion and Judaism (see publications).
In 1995 due to a number of personal challenges, I left academia for the world of high technology during the Internet boom. If you want to know about some of the political / religious reasons why I left academia, you can read the interesting essay by Johnathan Mahler entitled "Howard's End: Why A Leading Jewish Studies Scholar Gave Up His Academic Career" (Lingua Franca. March 1997:51-57). View here (right click to download). The essay depicts some of the tensions of trying to teach about religions/ ethnic groups in the University when that same religious/ethnic community is itself funding the academic positions and trying to promote its own agenda.
After leaving academia, I made a successful transition into the for-profit world of the software industry, first working as a technical writer and then climbing to the executive ranks.
As a business executive, I helped take a startup software company from a small $3 million entity to a $200 million dollar public company through a series of two acquisitions. From 1995-2006, I held a number of key executive leadership roles including VP of Marketing, VP of Business Consulting and VP of Professional Services. During this time, I learned that my academic and teaching skills were quite handy in the business world, where I provided executive consulting to many large global companies such as HP, Nokia, Dell, Intel, Motorola, Verisign and others that were trying to improve the efficiency of managing global content. 
The experience of working in the for-profit world of software combined with my academic religious studies background gave me an abiding interest in the intersection of business and ethics, and the larger questions of capitalism, freedom and religion. Hence my current writing.
Since then I developed and taught several courses on business ethics, spirituality and business, and corporate social responsibility at Santa Clara University, in the Religious Studies department and in the Leavey School of Business.
So leaving academia wasn't "Howard's End." I'm back. Wiser and older for sure. And my experiences shaped and changed me and gave me what I think is a somewhat unique experience, having travelled from Seminary to Silicon Valley.
Please feel free to contact me and share your experiences and interests. You can do so by emailing me: hsaccount@yahoo.com
