Transcriber: Yu Wadi Khin Reviewer: Simona Donda
(Tune)
So, many of you in the audience today are in your middle or high school years.
And I remember when I was your age, I started to ask the questions,
“Who am I and what am I capable of?”
And as I got older and I went to college,
was started to become more collaborative,
those questions never really went away.
But they started to become: “Who are we and what are we capable of?”
Well, we are Generation Z,
a multifaceted, driven group of individuals
who have used technology,
hyperconnectivity and instant access to information
to accomplish two really unique things.
First, innovative thoughts sparked by teenagers
no longer have to be filtered through another generation’s prism
in order to serve the public interest.
And second, we’ve been exposed to a multitude of identities,
attitudes and perspectives.
And our generation has taken these two things:
the ability to have and execute our own ideas
and the inclusion of thoughts and cultures;
and combine them to create diverse frameworks,
in which we can problem solve within
and find unique solutions to complex issues.
And today, I want to talk about one of those issues,
Capitalism and how our generation
is not only at the forefront of calling out this flawed system,
but has already begun to implement creative solutions,
addressing the massive inequality caused by it.
Now, the problem of rising inequality around the globe
is really due to wealth concentration.
In 2017, it was announced
that eight people own more wealth
than the bottom half of the entire world’s population.
- Eight people -
Now, it doesn’t matter what you believe with regard to rewarding hard work.
This is simply not sustainable.
But, contrary to popular belief,
we didn’t end up here
because all rich people are evil manipulators of a rigged system.
In reality,
it’s said our economic system just works on their behalf.
What do I mean by that?
Well, wealth acts like a magnet and the bigger the magnet,
the greater the pool.
And that’s how our economic system is built.
But for poor people, people with no magnet,
it’s really hard to attract anything.
And if you could somehow get a magnet,
it's really hard to hold on to it.
Two hundred and fifty years ago, when modern capitalism was formed,
we all started to preach that free markets would regulate wealth
and this invisible force, this invisible hand
would guarantee we had competition in the economy
and we’d find this equilibrium
that would pay out social benefits to everybody.
And many of us grew up hearing that economic growth
is the rising tide that lifts all boats.
But that saying ignores the plight of millions who are clinging on
to leaky rafts or have no boats at all.
This antiquated view of capitalism offers no solutions
to the current economic problems we face.
Sure, capitalism has produced rapid technological advancements,
but at the cost of massive inequality.
And if we really want to solve this,
we can't just rely on philanthropic initiatives and government programs.
We need to change the system itself. So, how do we do that?
Well, first, we need to change our understanding of human behavior.
Because right now we act like everyone is personal gain seeking
and making the most money possible is your ultimate goal.
And, we’ve structured incentives and the system around accomplishing this goal.
And these incentives and the system is enforcing behavior like greed,
exploitation and selfishness.
But we all know we would never raise our kids to be intentionally selfish
because we aren’t capitalistic people by nature.
We’re just real people.
And real people enjoy relationships with other people.
And yes, sometimes we’re selfish, but we’re just as often trusting,
caring and selfless, and yes, we do work to make money for ourselves.
But also to help others and better our society,
protect our environment and spread happiness in the world.
But even though this is our reality, we’re constantly told by business leaders,
government officials and economists that the capitalistic person reigns supreme
and being selfish is your most rational purpose.
And structure is purpose expressed through design.
But with a flawed understanding of our purpose,
we’re getting a flawed design and structure,
we're actually making it harder for people to practice
the intrinsic selflessness we inherently prefer.
So, we need a whole new way of thinking.
And, that’s where our generation comes in.
Because our generation has combined our belief that our own well-being
is integrally related to the well-being of others
with our unique problem solving skills,
and pretty much figured out that instead of starting with capitalism
and asking, how do I redesign this thing?
We should start with human life and all life on planet Earth.
And ask, how do we generate the conditions for life's flourishing?
And when we look at it from this perspective,
two fundamental changes are necessary.
First, we need to embrace the concept of social business.
A type of business that is literally based off of selflessness.
A type of business that isn't trying to maximize profit in the short term.
But be self-sustaining over the long term.
A type of business that doesn’t fit
in the traditional categories of for profit or non-profit.
But stands alone in its own category for more than profit.
And second, we need to replace our assumption that humans are job seekers.
With the truth that humans are entrepreneurs.
That is, we want to follow our hearts,
passions in the creators of our future and make money doing it.
Or individual pursuits of happiness should not be thwarted by capitalism,
but rather augmented by the possibilities our economic system provides.
And when we look at it from this framework,
and our generation is combining these two things;
social business and entrepreneurship,
and are becoming the leaders of a new field,
social entrepreneurship, a type of field in which you do try
and win a large piece of the pie. But you should ensure
the winnings you collect are distributed fairly and
the resources you collect are used for a greater good.
Because traditional capitalism is good
for winning ideas to collect resources, like startup capital.
But the way these resources are dispersed into society
must have an element that is socially conscious
and socially aware.
And when we look at it from this framework,
we see a whole new world of possibility.
A world in which Gen Z entrepreneurs
on university campuses are advancing renewable energies and technologies,
and forcing investors to pay attention.
Social impact investing is rapidly growing.
And by doing this, we’re making capital automatically flow
into the right direction. As a social entrepreneur myself,
I am genuinely inspired every day of what our generation is doing.
It’s a massive movement that for now seems to be working discreetly
in the background, but soon enough will be the revolution that capitalism
so desperately needs.
Instead of growing up fantasizing about making our first million,
our generation is growing up dreaming about how we’re going to help
a million people and social entrepreneurship is proving that
if you can execute that, you make millions doing it.
Because in the world of social entrepreneurship,
money and numbers don’t lead. They follow.
We need to go back to our intrinsic desire to serve the community
as a way to feed the self. And when we do that,
we will create a fair system.
And a fair system is a more resilient system.
And guess what? Thousands of people from around the world
have started to build this new version of capitalism, for example,
in Bangladesh, there’s a bank called Grameen Bank.
And, they operate entirely off of trust.
No collateral is needed.
You gotta prove credit worthiness.
You have to show them any documents.
And most of the borrowers are completely illiterate or have no assets.
These borrowers are the women of Bangladesh who previously
couldn’t participate and compete in the financial markets,
the idea of lending money to these women is ludicrous
and by conventional business standards, impossible to sustain.
But today, Grameen Bank lends out
over two and a half billion dollars per year
to nine million women
and enjoys a repayment rate of 98.96%.
This proves that we can’t put all the blame on free markets.
It needs to go to something beyond that,
to the way we’ve interpreted human behavior in capitalistic theory,
that’s the root cause. Because right now
we’ve designed a system that restricts who can compete to selfish people.
But if we can redesign it and allow selflessness driven individuals as well,
the situation changes completely.
The old ways of addressing inequality through charitable donations
and welfare programs will not adequately address
the current economic disparities we face.
Our generation will solve it by breaking away
from the traditional capitalistic mindset
and embracing selflessness driven businesses.
And when we do that together as a generation,
we actually will change this world.
And, if we all take the lead in solving human problems, we won’t just slow down.
But this Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Muhammad Yunus, says
“We will ultimately reverse the whole process of wealth concentration.
And businesses are going to be forced to allocate time,
money and resources into harnessing
the power of our selflessness driven businesses.
And governments are going to be forced to pass policies that facilitate
the creation and expansion of our initiatives.
And as a result, the momentum for change, led by Gen Z, will become unstoppable.
We will create a system that provides equal opportunity for all.”
Thank you.