Within days of my starting this column on business and society in September 2007, customers were queuing outside Northern Rock to withdraw their savings. This was not cause and effect, I hope.

That fateful autumn has led many to rethink the relationship between business and society. Judging by readers’ e-mails, there is a deep unease about the way companies have been run and the role they play in communities.

Many readers have asked why banks wandered so far from their mission of taking in savings and making loans. They have pointed to the chief executives who reaped huge personal rewards by agreeing to the takeover of their companies. They have asked why maximising shareholder returns became a near-sacred goal when shareholders’ transience and lack of involvement made the idea that they were the company’s stewards absurd.

Underlying these anxieties is a broader question: what is business actually for?

To some, the answer is easy: to make a profit. Profits are certainly essential. Without them, businesses cannot survive. Making money is also part of the pleasure of business. There is a buzz that comes with closing a deal and a sense of achievement in beating last year’s numbers. Money matters to individuals too. You can buy things with money: houses, holidays, financial security.

But money can’t, as we know, buy you love. Richard Layard and other researchers have also insisted it can’t buy you happiness. Lord Layard argues that while being poor makes you unhappy, once you have a reasonable amount of money, having more makes you no happier.

We can go further. The more people earn, they more they seem to want, particularly when others earn more than they do. Hence the frenzied increase in top executive pay and bank bonuses.

So what is the purpose of business if not the making of money? Peter Drucker, the great management writer, said it was to serve customers.

This is true too. Without satisfied customers, companies cannot survive either. But even that is not enough. Heroin dealers give customers what they want. So do workshops that turn replica guns into real ones and sell them to street gangs. These are effective businesses, in their own way, but not ones you would want your children joining.

Abraham Maslow, the American psychologist, set out a hierarchy of five needs. At the bottom was what we needed to survive – oxygen, food and water. Above that was the need to be safe. Once we had those, we could turn to the need for love, affection and a feeling of belonging. After that, we could go for esteem and respect. At the top of the hierarchy was self-actualisation, or self-fulfilment.

Where does business fit in? Many people are too busy scrambling for those first two needs – food and safety – to worry about the rest. Feeding the family and keeping a shelter over their heads is enough.

After that, we can chase after those other needs. Some are lucky enough to fulfil the highest of Maslow’s needs, self-actualisation, at work. All sorts of people find true fulfilment at work – software developers, recording artists, even auditors. But it is a lot to ask from a job. Others, perhaps most people, hope for work that is reasonably interesting, and indulge their true passions – singing, hiking, wine-tasting – on the weekends.

The best businesses are good at providing a sense of belonging. But belonging can be transient. Businesses succumb to competition and disappear. Or technological innovation makes them redundant. No doubt the photographic darkroom was a companionable place to work; so was a travel agency. There is less need for them now.