I need to tell you a story I’m getting
older and as I’m aging I’m realizing
then I’m becoming more and more like my
dad dr. Melissa an academic of sorts
when he tell stories he rambles on and
on and on and on before getting into his
actual point and as I get older I’m
learning to actually you know take a
moment to just be patient to listen and
appreciate and I’m finding that at the
end he’s got a really good point a
thoughtful poignant point so here is my
long and rambling story I am by training
a childhood content / auditor but by
profession a writer these two might seem
you know worlds apart writing and
accounting but they really aren’t
accounting traces its origins to miss
Abbott Omiya with the discovery of
mathematics but the work of an
accountant as we know it today came into
its own in feudal societies with hours a
person designated the task of
calculating and reporting to the feudal
lord how much in labor and tribute his
vessels had extracted from the serfs on
the on his land and of course patents
and Lords the Lords covers this person
would report the news facts and figures
gathered to his audience being the lord
of the lands and would empower him to
make decisions much like reporters at
newspapers do don’t you think not much
has changed in the intervening years
accounting became professional lives and
accountants especially auditors still
report to the owners of capital like
land – in our capitalist society
shareholders what I’m saying though is
that accounting isn’t contrary to
popular belief
crunching numbers it is about finding
and telling the story behind the numbers
I still use the knowledge and techniques
I learned in my practice when I write
today I conduct and transcribe
interviews I examine evidence laws
policies and regulations I factor in the
effects of culture and systems of
control obvious now at a societal rather
than in an organizational level I pour
over data and research and yes much to
my chagrin I still even crunch numbers
most of all I write at the end a story a
report that informs my audience the
difference being that my audience now is
society at large rather than
shareholders the readers of publications
when my writing has appeared such as the
New York Times City press and most
recently Marin Guardian this background
gives me a view of our society from two
perspectives one as a reporter to
shareholders and another as a reporter
to society at large from this vantage
point one thing has become clear to me
capitalism like feudalism like sexism is
a system of distributing power in
society power to make decisions and give
effect to them power to influence and
control the use of resources and the
lives of people power to influence
policy making and laws and just like the
other two you capitalism is inherently
unjust because it distributes power and
equally or an unfair and hereditary
basis however instead of unfairly
skewing power in favor of Lords as
feudalism did or men as sexism does
capitalism skews power in favor of
shareholders and not just any
shareholders those with inertia share
capital to influence or control the
decisions of the company many they I say
most of these shareholders
the ones towards whom capitalism skews
power and fairly and equally did not
come into their wealth through their own
labor most inherited it or a strata did
through exploitation exploitation of
people and the exploitation of the
environment that’s I say the odd size
power capitalism gives them is unfair
and is passed on from one generation to
the next
through inheritances and isn’t earned
through hard work in accounting these
shareholders are easy to identify in
fact identifying them is a part of the
job a shareholder is said to exert
significant influence over company when
they hold at least 20% of the shake of
the share capital if they hold over 50%
they are in control they are in control
the company’s management and its board
of directors now relax
despite what you’ve heard so far I’m not
actually here to deliver a screed
against capitalism oh you know I’m quite
happy to do that to you I’m here to
point out that many of the ills that
social enterprises seek to address are
the result of decisions being made by
shareholders especially those who
exercise significant influence or
control over companies
history shows us that the decisions they
have made have not been for the greater
good they have been to enrich themselves
and their families at the expense of
others in the environment they are
focused on shorter on short-term profits
over everything else the institutions
built around shareholders and companies
such as stock exchanges incentivize this
perverse behavior the quarterly and
annual earnings reports companies file
are the primary source by which
shareholders make the decision about
whether they’re getting their return on
investment which is measured in monetary
terms only terms such as sustainability
impact investing and building long-term
value have only recently become
buzzwords and only recently has it
become popular to think about the ways
in which a company’s operations and
business model affect other capital
inputs other than financial capital
capital inputs such as the well-being of
workers the environment and the
communities in which companies operate
but much of this is still mostly for now
just talk the way companies stock
exchanges and valuation models work is
as they always have with a single-minded
focus on shareholders and delivering to
them maximum returns on the financial
capital as soon as possible at all costs
this way of thinking and being and the
unearned power to give effect to it gave
us the Dopp system which paid
farmworkers in wine a decision whose
legacy of alcohol dependence and abuse
and the social problems they caused
still plagues farmer communities today
introduced by Anthony Beck in 1658 and
formally banned in the 1960s although
the practice continued well into the
nineties the dog system is according to
researchers the root cause of the
disproportionately high levels of babies
born with fetal alcohol syndrome
disorder in the West in the cape
Winelands this lifelong incurable
condition impairs the cognitive and
physical functioning of babies born with
it in South Africa about 30 in every
thousand babies is born with fetal
alcohol syndrome and a cape Winelands in
communities such as the Berlin region
the rate is 10 times higher as high as
300 in every thousand babies this way of
thinking also gave us the migrant labor
system which broke up black families as
men left their homes to break their
backs in the mines for slave wages for
just enough for them to survive but not
enough to educate their children and
break the supply of cheap labor that
mines depended on this asked in chamber
of Mines an organization of mining
company owners founded in the 1890s had
it’s primary tasks one reducing the
wages of black man workers to recruiting
cheap labor which saw it Lobby the
colonial administration to introduce hot
taxes to force natives off the land and
into laboring in the mines this way of
thinking also gave us the acid mine
drainage problem where once that extract
had what they wanted from the earth
mining company simply moved on to the
next mineral deposit leaving polluted
water from these old disused mines to
flow into the rivers that people drink
from and swim in I could go on forever
with more examples now some might say oh
this was just a party capitalism pure
capitalism whatever that is can and has
been good but in fact there are legion
examples from every corner of the earth
of the negative environmental social and
political impacts on people in societies
that I a direct result of the incentives
that companies and shareholders have and
the capsule ISM that said it is no
coincidence that Thomas Piketty started
his book capital in twenty-first century
with the Marikana Massacre where the
shareholders that exercise significant
influence or control over Lonmin decided
through the expectations that they
placed on the Magnus management’s read
live delivered to deliver to them return
on investment to renege on the company’s
commitments in its social and labor plan
to build decent housing for workers the
farm Commission found in its report that
Norman’s failure to fulfill its
obligations under its social and labor
plan was a contributing factor to the
conditions that gave rise to the
grievances that striking miners were
trying to address piketty’s book isn’t
about South Africa it is about global
capitalism and how it has come to
concentrate power in the hands of a few
in this regard
apartheid capitalism makes South Africa
an extreme of a global trend but in no
means exceptional so this reality
the often direct causal relationship
between the decisions of shareholders
and many of the ills the social
enterprise model seeks to address ask
serious questions of us as social
entrepreneurs social enterprises do
operate after all with a profit motive
I’ll be to bring about social value as
we do so with that being the case what
are we actually doing are we in our work
and where it’s responding to the social
ills and dependent social enterprise as
symptoms of and I might even say caused
by unjust system such as capitalism
sexism and racism and working to
dismantle these unjust systems of
distributing power in society or are we
profiting from the ill of the cause and
feeling good about ourselves as we do
and not really dealing with their
origins in these unjust systems during
the former could make social enterprise
a force for good the latter would make
it a parasite what I’m saying is social
enterprises should be dismantling and
replacing unjust social systems
otherwise they’re merely profiting off
of the undeserved hardship of others a
good way to tell which of the two it is
is to consider whether the in social
enterprise in its ownership structure
business model and work is responding to
issues in five key areas let’s start
with the easy one first socio-economic
rights which is where the work of most
enterprises social enterprise is
concentrated so a few questions do the
owners and management of the social
enterprise put themselves at risk with
the communities they serve when the
corporation when corporations and the
state conspire to silence dissent and
protest against injustice does the
social enterprise working on for example
the rights to education recognize and
respond to the dangers of the
corporatization and privatization of
this human rights
the second area ownership influence
control and decision-making so more
questions have the owners and management
of the social enterprise considered and
respond in some kind of a way to
what tangible and intangible world they
themselves inherited from their parents
were from the fruits of unjust systems
that’s a social enterprise bring the
community it serves on board as
equitable partners in its
decision-making and operations does the
social enterprise in its work do its
parts to attempt to redistribute the
ownership of capital in our society more
equitably number three decent work do
this do the social enterprises own
employees earn a living wage enjoy
freedom equity dignity and security at
work there’s a social enterprise and
agitate for this throughout our society
number four the environment that’s a
social enterprise consider and respond
to the adverse environmental impacts of
its own work and the tensions that exist
between human development on one hand
and on the other the sanctity of the
environments in which we and other
beings live the fifth and final area is
the one I consider the most important
societal values does the social
enterprise in its operations contribute
to the very necessary shift in society
from an individualistic focus on the
self to the realization that each of our
being is bound up in the others the
decisions we take and actions we make
have an effect on other people so we as
humans have an ethical duty to consider
this and to be accountable to them if
the answer to these questions is a no
then the social enterprise is sadly
likely a parasite
you
[Music]
[Applause]
older and as I’m aging I’m realizing
then I’m becoming more and more like my
dad dr. Melissa an academic of sorts
when he tell stories he rambles on and
on and on and on before getting into his
actual point and as I get older I’m
learning to actually you know take a
moment to just be patient to listen and
appreciate and I’m finding that at the
end he’s got a really good point a
thoughtful poignant point so here is my
long and rambling story I am by training
a childhood content / auditor but by
profession a writer these two might seem
you know worlds apart writing and
accounting but they really aren’t
accounting traces its origins to miss
Abbott Omiya with the discovery of
mathematics but the work of an
accountant as we know it today came into
its own in feudal societies with hours a
person designated the task of
calculating and reporting to the feudal
lord how much in labor and tribute his
vessels had extracted from the serfs on
the on his land and of course patents
and Lords the Lords covers this person
would report the news facts and figures
gathered to his audience being the lord
of the lands and would empower him to
make decisions much like reporters at
newspapers do don’t you think not much
has changed in the intervening years
accounting became professional lives and
accountants especially auditors still
report to the owners of capital like
land – in our capitalist society
shareholders what I’m saying though is
that accounting isn’t contrary to
popular belief
crunching numbers it is about finding
and telling the story behind the numbers
I still use the knowledge and techniques
I learned in my practice when I write
today I conduct and transcribe
interviews I examine evidence laws
policies and regulations I factor in the
effects of culture and systems of
control obvious now at a societal rather
than in an organizational level I pour
over data and research and yes much to
my chagrin I still even crunch numbers
most of all I write at the end a story a
report that informs my audience the
difference being that my audience now is
society at large rather than
shareholders the readers of publications
when my writing has appeared such as the
New York Times City press and most
recently Marin Guardian this background
gives me a view of our society from two
perspectives one as a reporter to
shareholders and another as a reporter
to society at large from this vantage
point one thing has become clear to me
capitalism like feudalism like sexism is
a system of distributing power in
society power to make decisions and give
effect to them power to influence and
control the use of resources and the
lives of people power to influence
policy making and laws and just like the
other two you capitalism is inherently
unjust because it distributes power and
equally or an unfair and hereditary
basis however instead of unfairly
skewing power in favor of Lords as
feudalism did or men as sexism does
capitalism skews power in favor of
shareholders and not just any
shareholders those with inertia share
capital to influence or control the
decisions of the company many they I say
most of these shareholders
the ones towards whom capitalism skews
power and fairly and equally did not
come into their wealth through their own
labor most inherited it or a strata did
through exploitation exploitation of
people and the exploitation of the
environment that’s I say the odd size
power capitalism gives them is unfair
and is passed on from one generation to
the next
through inheritances and isn’t earned
through hard work in accounting these
shareholders are easy to identify in
fact identifying them is a part of the
job a shareholder is said to exert
significant influence over company when
they hold at least 20% of the shake of
the share capital if they hold over 50%
they are in control they are in control
the company’s management and its board
of directors now relax
despite what you’ve heard so far I’m not
actually here to deliver a screed
against capitalism oh you know I’m quite
happy to do that to you I’m here to
point out that many of the ills that
social enterprises seek to address are
the result of decisions being made by
shareholders especially those who
exercise significant influence or
control over companies
history shows us that the decisions they
have made have not been for the greater
good they have been to enrich themselves
and their families at the expense of
others in the environment they are
focused on shorter on short-term profits
over everything else the institutions
built around shareholders and companies
such as stock exchanges incentivize this
perverse behavior the quarterly and
annual earnings reports companies file
are the primary source by which
shareholders make the decision about
whether they’re getting their return on
investment which is measured in monetary
terms only terms such as sustainability
impact investing and building long-term
value have only recently become
buzzwords and only recently has it
become popular to think about the ways
in which a company’s operations and
business model affect other capital
inputs other than financial capital
capital inputs such as the well-being of
workers the environment and the
communities in which companies operate
but much of this is still mostly for now
just talk the way companies stock
exchanges and valuation models work is
as they always have with a single-minded
focus on shareholders and delivering to
them maximum returns on the financial
capital as soon as possible at all costs
this way of thinking and being and the
unearned power to give effect to it gave
us the Dopp system which paid
farmworkers in wine a decision whose
legacy of alcohol dependence and abuse
and the social problems they caused
still plagues farmer communities today
introduced by Anthony Beck in 1658 and
formally banned in the 1960s although
the practice continued well into the
nineties the dog system is according to
researchers the root cause of the
disproportionately high levels of babies
born with fetal alcohol syndrome
disorder in the West in the cape
Winelands this lifelong incurable
condition impairs the cognitive and
physical functioning of babies born with
it in South Africa about 30 in every
thousand babies is born with fetal
alcohol syndrome and a cape Winelands in
communities such as the Berlin region
the rate is 10 times higher as high as
300 in every thousand babies this way of
thinking also gave us the migrant labor
system which broke up black families as
men left their homes to break their
backs in the mines for slave wages for
just enough for them to survive but not
enough to educate their children and
break the supply of cheap labor that
mines depended on this asked in chamber
of Mines an organization of mining
company owners founded in the 1890s had
it’s primary tasks one reducing the
wages of black man workers to recruiting
cheap labor which saw it Lobby the
colonial administration to introduce hot
taxes to force natives off the land and
into laboring in the mines this way of
thinking also gave us the acid mine
drainage problem where once that extract
had what they wanted from the earth
mining company simply moved on to the
next mineral deposit leaving polluted
water from these old disused mines to
flow into the rivers that people drink
from and swim in I could go on forever
with more examples now some might say oh
this was just a party capitalism pure
capitalism whatever that is can and has
been good but in fact there are legion
examples from every corner of the earth
of the negative environmental social and
political impacts on people in societies
that I a direct result of the incentives
that companies and shareholders have and
the capsule ISM that said it is no
coincidence that Thomas Piketty started
his book capital in twenty-first century
with the Marikana Massacre where the
shareholders that exercise significant
influence or control over Lonmin decided
through the expectations that they
placed on the Magnus management’s read
live delivered to deliver to them return
on investment to renege on the company’s
commitments in its social and labor plan
to build decent housing for workers the
farm Commission found in its report that
Norman’s failure to fulfill its
obligations under its social and labor
plan was a contributing factor to the
conditions that gave rise to the
grievances that striking miners were
trying to address piketty’s book isn’t
about South Africa it is about global
capitalism and how it has come to
concentrate power in the hands of a few
in this regard
apartheid capitalism makes South Africa
an extreme of a global trend but in no
means exceptional so this reality
the often direct causal relationship
between the decisions of shareholders
and many of the ills the social
enterprise model seeks to address ask
serious questions of us as social
entrepreneurs social enterprises do
operate after all with a profit motive
I’ll be to bring about social value as
we do so with that being the case what
are we actually doing are we in our work
and where it’s responding to the social
ills and dependent social enterprise as
symptoms of and I might even say caused
by unjust system such as capitalism
sexism and racism and working to
dismantle these unjust systems of
distributing power in society or are we
profiting from the ill of the cause and
feeling good about ourselves as we do
and not really dealing with their
origins in these unjust systems during
the former could make social enterprise
a force for good the latter would make
it a parasite what I’m saying is social
enterprises should be dismantling and
replacing unjust social systems
otherwise they’re merely profiting off
of the undeserved hardship of others a
good way to tell which of the two it is
is to consider whether the in social
enterprise in its ownership structure
business model and work is responding to
issues in five key areas let’s start
with the easy one first socio-economic
rights which is where the work of most
enterprises social enterprise is
concentrated so a few questions do the
owners and management of the social
enterprise put themselves at risk with
the communities they serve when the
corporation when corporations and the
state conspire to silence dissent and
protest against injustice does the
social enterprise working on for example
the rights to education recognize and
respond to the dangers of the
corporatization and privatization of
this human rights
the second area ownership influence
control and decision-making so more
questions have the owners and management
of the social enterprise considered and
respond in some kind of a way to
what tangible and intangible world they
themselves inherited from their parents
were from the fruits of unjust systems
that’s a social enterprise bring the
community it serves on board as
equitable partners in its
decision-making and operations does the
social enterprise in its work do its
parts to attempt to redistribute the
ownership of capital in our society more
equitably number three decent work do
this do the social enterprises own
employees earn a living wage enjoy
freedom equity dignity and security at
work there’s a social enterprise and
agitate for this throughout our society
number four the environment that’s a
social enterprise consider and respond
to the adverse environmental impacts of
its own work and the tensions that exist
between human development on one hand
and on the other the sanctity of the
environments in which we and other
beings live the fifth and final area is
the one I consider the most important
societal values does the social
enterprise in its operations contribute
to the very necessary shift in society
from an individualistic focus on the
self to the realization that each of our
being is bound up in the others the
decisions we take and actions we make
have an effect on other people so we as
humans have an ethical duty to consider
this and to be accountable to them if
the answer to these questions is a no
then the social enterprise is sadly
likely a parasite
you
[Music]
[Applause]
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