Ethics, honesty, and helping the community - are these compatible with business?

I recently read a book called Honest Business by Michael Phillips and Salli Rasberry. I thought the book was very good; but I haven't seen many companies that follow their advice. I'd be curious as to what others who have read the book think of it.

Most interesting for me was the chapter on "community." These authors make no distinction between working in one's business and serving a community -- in fact, they argue that the purpose of a business is to benefit some community of people. They present that idea in contrast to many of the current ideas of "marketing" -- that is, as I understood them, they advocate that instead of using demographics and psychographics to isolate potential targets, you find a community of people with a common interest, become a participant, and then work to make the community itself "advertise" for you (via word of mouth or whatever).

I don't know if that would work for every business, but I think the word of mouth idea is what some business people are trying to promote when they use lots of testimonials in a sales letter, as an example.

Thoughts?

-Phil Gomez