Dr. Gordian Gaeta: “Mankind is not very good in organising himself to do well for others”

Here is the transcript:

Emmanuel Daniel: Gordian Gaeta.

Gordian: Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Amy, thank you very much. You probably know the more positive the introduction is the more … the next speaker and ED has passed on all the work that is for me. So, unfortunately, we may have to do some work. In any case, it is great to see you here especially as part of the new year, and it’s great to be in London as I know London is the largest fund management center in the world.

So, the greatest number of financial decisions invested, and there’s no better place to actually bring some morals, ethicsfor them to base their decision. Amy spoke about China, China, arguably, is the most important economy in the world, but we don’t have to go as far as China to actually understand something that is happening in the world.

The United States tends to be at the forefront of that and seems to be having a very active discussion about wealth and the opposite of wealth. And there is a sea change and the sea change is driven by two factors, both demand-side and supply-side. On the demand side, the size of the rewards and the size of X has increased so dramatically that the concentration of wealth in smaller ends is disproportional to the population and is causing pressure on those who have wealth to think about that.

Even people who are not wealthy 10 years ago or 20 years ago are asking themselves and who are waking up is there a higher purpose and wealth, i.e., doesn’t mean enough simply to accumulate assets. And this actually goes to academia, to organisations. We are very fortunate the few organisations of the United States here that actually think about a bigger role of wealth in general and a bigger role of wealth specifically.

And the second thing is that demand-side as proliferated and professionalized. We look at some people who call the taxonomy of philanthropy which is a structure and you will find that that organisation type, by owner type, by recipient type, cause and purpose, by whatever you want to call it, you have a huge amount of pots that are well organised, that are ready to receive and ready to actually exercise their function to the benefit of others.

And we are very fortunate, as opposed to China I have to say, that the philosophical discussion about giving is over. That was sort of the twentieth century if anything, or maybe the nineteenth century and in earnest, it started with the Greeks, but we have overcome that. We all understand that occasionally we have to do something. And to me, Americans liked to toggle in short words and the concept of doing well is aligned to doing good.

And if there’s anything that summarizes wealth in society, it’s actually doing well for yourself and society is doing good for us. One of the things that struck me and I’m very pleased that will be able to introduce a speaker in this that really know something about that, as opposed to me who is only conducting this, hosting this, is that the degree to which the next generation of the millennials have lost interest in the generation of the wealth of the previous – of their parents.

In many family situations, and I experience that very often, the next generation does not want to continue the same way as the previous generation. This causes two major issues, one is, of course, how do you transfer the wealth or retain it and the second one is what do these millennial’s, which are today 40% of the important decision-makers in the population, and in ‘19 it will be 80% how do you actually service them.

Many of you in this room didn’t have the title you have today 10 years ago. Many of your organisations didn’t really exist 20 years ago. Many of the concepts we are talking about weren’t in discussion 30 years ago. That has only happened very recently. The most dramatic shift are the people who follow the old generation. And China is like an extravagant microcosm. They are dealing with that, but they have no history to look upon because as Amy said, cash revolution has destroyed the … of the country.

And they are building a new structure and always when we build a new structure a conversation and learning is very important, and we try to provide the people who can come together and actually can learn. We learn from each other either in the workshops which always seemed to be fun because we want to learn different ideas, so everybody can contribute. We have good speakers so everybody can share. This is the beginning of internalizing and developing a concept. Without communication, we are actually travelling in reverse.

The last thing we said, given the speed at which we mankind are driving the world and not necessarily in the right direction I would like to say, we are building huge gaps actually in most parts in the world. It is not only by people, but we have disenfranchised all the people of this world from accessing wealth, we have disenfranchised key areas, we have disenfranchised … from actually their existence. We probably have around too disenfranchised oceans from their normal activity because when they get too cold or too hot, they actually don’t do their job anymore.

In this huge gaps need to be regressed and as all major economies and all major philosophers have said, mankind is very good in building for himself, mankind is very good in optimising himself they are doing well for himself, but mankind is not very good in organising himself to do well for others. That is why we are here, and we seek to develop a platform where we can talk about how to organise ourselves.

I need to confess that I am a clinical rationalist as a philosopher, I’m not a romantic at all, I don’t think the real wealth has any romantic notion whatsoever. I don’t think that … romanticize I think we must act on arguments. Over the course of the day and also teach at the University, I tell people do not believe you are doing good, it’s too weak, unconvincing. There are compelling and also important threats.

There are compelling quantitative arguments why doing good is smarter and more rewarding than not doing good. And to me, part of the reason of being here is because I really don’t like the romantic concept, it is a rational concept. If we can share this rational concept with other people, I think we’re all part of progress which might actually reverse some of the damage that we have done over the last 50 years.

I’m running out of time, but Amy is here. However, I have the really great pleasure of introducing the speaker who’s going to of course put to shame everything that I’ve said because he may know what he’s talking about, we have Rhodri Davies here, and he has written a book and unfortunately, he didn’t bring it along but actually promised to give me a copy and it’s calledPublic Good by Private Mean: How Philanthropy Shapes Britainand he has been educated in the UK.

He has a degree in mathematics and philosophy, and he is also a calm person and I think that really helps in discussing philanthropy at the University of Oxford and he was initially an academic and then he was in a think tank called The Policy Exchange, and today he is with Charity Aid Foundation, The Charity Aid Foundation where he is the policy leader. So, he actually spends his days thinking about some of the points that I’ve made, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing all he has written.

Let’s not forget that not only today Britain is the center of financial capital as I’ve said, but Britain in the 19^th century has been the center of accumulation of wealth, and it has, thanks to certain governments, lost a little bit of the last in a taxation program. But still, Britain is sort of at the forefront of doing good. So, we are very fortunate to have you here, and we invite you to come up and please join me in giving a warm welcome to Rhodri.

Rhodri: Well, thank –