A COMPANY'S plan to go public has recently provoked a storm of public outcry.

The company in question, Guizhentang, sells tonics made with bear bile extracted from live bear.

These bears, known as Asiatic black bears or "moon bears," are bred and kept in captivity so that their bile can be siphoned through catheters, or permanent wounds, in their gall bladders. The bile can fetch up to 4,000 yuan (US$635) a kilogram.

Dozens of celebrities have signed a petition to the China Securities Regulatory Commission to block the company's proposed IPO on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

When reporter and concerned individuals were recently shown around the company's showcase bear farm in Fujian Province, one activist prostrated himself on the ground, asking the caged bears to forgive human cruelty.

Some also staged protests in front of Guizhentang's medicine shops.

It is reported that China has 68 licensed bear farms and more than 10,000 bears are caged for their bile. The number of unlicensed farms and the actual number of bears caged is not known.

If Guizhentang gets listed, it would rev up production by caging more bears to milk.

When the company goes public, its ownership would be diversified, and it would be difficult to blame any individuals for unsavory practices. Regulatory approval of its stock flotation also means that the legitimacy of the bile-harvesting business would be consolidated.

But the company owners are optimistic.

Responding to reports that a floated Guizhentang might be boycotted by investors, Zhang Zhijun, one of its owners, dismissed this notion as ridiculous, saying Chinese investors cannot hope to aspire to that moral high ground, at least not Zhang himself.

At least Zhang has the merit of being frank, though his candor is dictated by business expedience.

Zhang's optimism is being justified.

By February 27, Shanghai Kaibao, a listed company that is one of Guizhentang's biggest clients, had seen its share price up by 17 percent in February.

Other companies dealing in bear bile products have also registered impressive performance.

This raises the question: what's the mission of entrepreneurs?

Could a business be justified solely by its returns on investments, or should it also be subject to moral scrutiny?

George Soros once said, "Let business be business and philanthropy be philanthropy. Keep the two separate."

Soros is certainly deft at keeping the two separate. He was a mega speculator who allegedly created crises for the sake of profiting from them and is widely known as "the man who broke the bank of England." But he is also a great philanthropist.

Many clever businessmen go about charity as a means of investment, but that's no reason for being cynical.

Nonideological

In "Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know," authors David Bornstein and Susan Davis draw our attention to the countless anonymous individuals who see beyond profits and try to address the world's most intractable problems.

Across the globe, teams of dedicated individuals are focusing on and solving cases of hunger, poverty, human rights violations, disease, and environmental destruction.

"A kind of activism is emerging that is more concerned with problem solving than voicing outrage," the book observes.

In the past, these individuals were better known as "visionaries, humanitarians, philanthropists, reformers, saints or simply great leaders."

A social entrepreneur can be an "intrapreneur," someone who sparks positive activity within an existing business or organization, or a "change maker," someone who takes responsibility for constructive change.

The book asserts that "while conventional entrepreneurs can build upon well-established business models, social entrepreneurs often forge ahead without road maps."

They are passionate about their ideas and dreams, but are also "surprisingly nonideological," the authors observe.

That does not mean ideological explorations and clarifications are irrelevant.

For instance, upon maturer reflection, the practice of bear farming for medicinal bile is more complicated than it first appears.

If the lives of all animals deserve to be treated with the same dignity, should we also extend our concerns to the many kinds of animals raised for human consumption?

How about the animals used in biological and medical tests?

How should we react to the report that some rich people can pay 500,000 yuan to go to Canada to shoot black bears or polar bears, for fun ("Outrage over club for hunters to kill abroad," Shanghai Daily, February 29)?

How about the human plundering of natural resources that not only threatens virtually every species of life on earth but also the continuation of the human race?

While such reflections make us profound, they also make cowards of us all.

We feel ourselves powerless before established interests, and retire into our own cocoon of respectability.

Thus today's good citizens are generally considered to be those who do not spit in public, who pay their taxes and obey the traffic rules.

If one dares to intervene to stop a theft or assault on someone else, that is considered heroic, because common sense tells us that feigned ignorance or indifference is the best (most pragmatic) policy.

As March 5 - the day dedicated to Lei Feng, China's legendary hero soldier, selfless citizen, and dedicated Communist - the Xinmin Evening News has published several articles exhorting people to step forward to give a helping hand to elderly people who have fallen down by accident.

Act now

That's a depressing observation about the state of our society.

Good and charitable deeds are supposed to be spontaneous outflows of powerful feelings.

That same urge to act may also have prompted Du Jianguo, an "independent economist," to briefly disrupt World Bank President Robert Zoellick's press conference on Tuesday.

Du denounced World Bank policy prescriptions for privatization as "poison."

Du's theoretical underpinnings can be discussed, but his outburst does draw Chinese attention to an organization that is itself in dire need of reforms.

As Jeffrey D. Sachs points out in an article published this week, "American officials have traditionally viewed the World Bank as an extension of United States foreign policy and commercial interests. With the Bank just two blocks away from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, it has been all too easy for the US to dominate the institution."

But unlike these activists such as Du, who force changes or dramatize the need for changes, social entrepreneurs are comfortable working within the seats of power to bring about change.

Although these social entrepreneurs cannot compete with professionals in terms of compensation, their purposeful projects do offer more work-life balance and meaning.

There might be many ways to effect changes, but it is probably true that "moral arguments alone rarely change minds," say the authors.