Liberty and Justice for All…How Do We Get There?
As a financial innovator and capital entrepreneur, the most fundamentally important aspect of my work is Equity.
Now, you might read that first sentence and pick up on the words “financial,” “capital,” and “equity” and jump to the conclusion that I’m going to launch into a dry, pedagogical essay on the practice of pricing, selling, or trading shares of stock, then maybe comparing that with the inclusion of debt or other financial instruments toward the construction of a diversified portfolio.
I’m giggling inside because I structured that first sentence specifically to satisfy my secret delight in the irony that results from using the word Equity in close proximity with other financial terms. Pardon my word-trickery, I’m writing this on Halloween, after all. The truth is, the Equity I’m talking about is so much bigger.
I’m talking about Equity defined as: the quality of being fair and impartial.
What do “fair and impartial” have to do with financial innovation, you might ask? Well…everything, if we truly want to address the growing concentration of wealth that underlies most, if not all, of the economic and social woes of the world today.
Blogs and other media abound with articles and essays on the ever-increasing wealth divide, to the point where we seem to be on an inexorable path toward a very few controlling vastly more wealth than all the rest of us combined. Are we headed toward a renaissance of serfdom? Are we going back to a future where a privileged few control all the resources and the rest of us are at their mercy?
It’s easy to feel powerless in such a scenario, precisely because, for far too long, we’ve allowed money to be equated with power. Those who have the most money have the most power, right? We see it in politics where wealthy individuals and corporations spend bajillions of dollars on lobbyists to drive elections and legislative outcomes in their favor. We see it in our banking system where the biggest, richest banks are deemed “too big to fail” and receive bailouts for their negligent, even nefarious, actions — all paid for, or course, by taxpayers, the majority of whom live on the wrong side of the wealth divide.
It’s also easy to start believing the title of a 2010 book of historical fiction by Ralph Nader that bemoans, “Only the Super-Rich can Save Us!” I was compelled to buy this book because Ralph Nader is a pretty smart, if eccentric, guy and I wanted to know if he really believed that the only way out of our economic mess was through the benevolent actions of the super-rich. I ordered the book from my local, independent bookseller and when I went to pick it up I saw straightaway I was not going to get a quick answer to my query. It’s a hefty tome of over 500 densely-packed pages — a bit daunting even for a rabid reader like myself.
The book is a fictional portrayal of Warren Buffet visiting the 9th ward of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina where he’s confronted by a now-homeless, elderly Black woman who exhorts, “only the super-rich can save us!” Warren takes this to heart and gathers together a bunch of his richest buddies; guys like Ted Turner, Warren Beatty, Bill Cosby, and several late 20th century Captains of Industry. (Curiously, Yoko Ono is the token woman invited to the party. Why not Oprah?) This group of hyper-wealthy do-gooders meets several times — in a luxury suite on Maui, no less — to plan how they can turn the economic tide in favor of the 99% in America.
I slogged through the first 100-ish pages and had to walk away from the book for a while. It goes into excruciating detail on the fairly mundane plots and schemes they dream up, and besides, I think I already know the answer to my question: the super-rich could save us if they chose to do so…but the likelihood of it happening is about as slim as the possibility of my ever finishing this book. I’m just not patient enough to wait it out.
I’m not the only one who’s impatient. Look at Bernie Sanders and what he’s done to change the way political campaigns can be funded by raising millions of dollars from thousands of small donations from everyday folks. He might not ever be president, but he’s already leaving a valuable legacy of change for a more equitable system to fund political campaigns. This is the Equity I’m talking about. This is the fundamental driver of my work: to create greater Equity in our economic system, because without it, any progress toward social, racial, gender, or other forms of justice will only go so far.
Economic equity must become the foundation that supports the base of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Until everyone has a fair and impartial ability to fulfill their basic needs of food, shelter, safety, and security, our society as a whole cannot begin to move up the pyramid that promises a sense of belonging, community, self-worth, and self-actualization.
Equity, specifically, economic equity is the first imperative step on the path toward liberty and justice for all.
Watch this space for more on how we achieve it.
