The Story Told (Mostly) In Text...
The Fiduciary Way is a new ecosystem of Fiduciary Finance for popular participation in shaping the economy through Finance as a social structure for social decision making,and within Finance, through Fiduciary Money as a new 21st Century Global Commons, accountable to a new 21st Century Global Citizenry through the fiduciary laws of fiduciary duty of prudence and loyalty
Fiduciary Money is
- ~30 Trillion, collectively, worldwide
- of society’s shared savings
- aggregated into social superfunds
- to programmatically provide certainty against certain of life’s future financial uncertainties
- future income security for workers in a dignified retirement (pensions)
- a moneyed ally for civil society in the articulation, curation, innovation and perpetuation of social norms and social narratives (endowments)
- invested with the powers of size, purpose and time to use technology to negotiate with enterprise of any size, anywhere in the global economy
- burdened with the fiduciary duty to negotiate for at least minimally sufficient fiduciary cash flows through fiduciary-grade financings for fiduciary-grade enterprises, to shape a fiduciary economy
The law of fiduciary duty requires prudence in the exercise of fiduciary power, in undivided loyalty to fiduciary purpose, which is to be there, now and in the future, both equally, forever
Minimally sufficient fiduciary cash flows are the amounts assumed by the actuaries in their design of an actuarial risk pool for a defined benefit pension plan (or the Endowments equivalent) as sufficient to keep that risk pool correctly full and reliably flowing qualified benefits to qualifying individuals now, and in the future, both equally: every month, forever.
Fiduciary-grade financings are created by design to deliver minimally sufficient cash flows from fiduciary-grade enterprises.
Fiduciary-grade enterprises are businesses that prioritize cash flow for:
- Popularity in their social contract with popular choice;
- Sufficiency of cash flows to their business purposes, including their contracts of finance, fiduciary or otherwise;
- Fair Trade in all supply chains;
- Fair Engagement with the Law and Community;
- Fair Reckoning for impacts on Nature and Society;
- Fair Working conditions and compensation;
- Fair Dealing with customers and competitors in all distribution channels;
- Fair Sharing between the enterprising visionaries and their financiers, fiduciary or otherwise.
A fiduciary economy is an economy populated primarily with fiduciary-grade enterprises.
The economy is a network of connections between individuals and enterprises for completing transactions in the technology surpluses through which society creates, sustains and innovates, out of the world of Nature into which we all are born, an artificial world of technology choices that provides a safe home for humanity within which we can live our best lives.
Technology is learning about the way the world about us works, and how we can change the way the world works, to make it work more a way we choose to make it, applied through enterprise as a physical coming-together of people for putting learning into action collaboratively co-creating surpluses for sharing with others, transactionally, in exchange for a price paid in money or other value.
New technologies, and the new enterprises that get organized to make those new technologies available to others, transactionally, become more popular, as better fit to changing times, and previously popular technologies, and enterprises, fade into history as a good fit at an earlier time, through social contracts between enterprise and popular choice that flourish for a time, and fade in the fulness of time, as times change, and humanity innovates prosperous adaptations to life’s constant changes, choosing new beginnings to fit the changing times.
People complete transactions in technology choices across distances of time, space and social/cultural connection using money. Money is a legal construct, a negotiable instrument, that can be transferred through simple physical delivery and represents the power to purchase “stuff”, to rent or own, from others who participate in the same or interrelated economies.
Enterprise needs money to organize its work in anticipation of completing transactions that will generate more money, as a reward for the work already done, and to finance the reiteration of that work to generate more money and create wealth for the enterprise and its collaborators.
When enterprise needs money, Finance provides it.
Finance is a social structure for social decision making through which a society curates the choices that will be made available to popular choice in the economy by aggregating surpluses saved by individuals for a purpose and deploying those aggregations as financing for enterprise to shape the economy in accordance with that purpose.
There are six different kinds of money that are deployed as financing for enterprise in society today.
Each selects enterprises for financing according to its own unique decision-making logic.
These consist of:
- IMPACT MONEY deployed according to the logic of patronage by Family & Friends;
- MISSION MONEY deployed according to the logic of grant making by Church & Philanthropy;
- POLICY MONEY deployed according to the logic of subsidies through governmental Taxing & Spending;
- CREDIT MONEY deployed according to the logic of temporary monetization of non-monetary property through Banking & Lending;
- SCALE MONEY deployed according to the logic of securitization for speculation on PROGRESS [that Neoliberalism has reduced to GROWTH] through Exchanges & Funds; and
- FIDUCIARY MONEY deployed according to the logic of prudent stewardship exercised through negotiation by Pensions & Endowments
This gives us a new Continuum of Capital theory of Finance compromised of six different logical structures for aggregating surpluses saved by individuals and deploying those aggregations as financing for enterprise: six different “logic gates” through which money can be made to flow into enterprise to shape the economy.
That gives a new theory for financing the flourish and fade of fiduciary-grade social contracts between enterprise and popular choice”, to shape a fiduciary economy.
“Popular choice” is essentially markets in common parlance, but in the social narrative of Neoliberalism, markets are assumed to be able to grow forever, so that enterprise also can grow forever, and share prices can also grow forever. This, of course, defies common sense and common experience, which is one of the many reasons living within the Neoliberal social narrative leaves many of us feeling just a little bit crazy!
In the new social narrative of The Fiduciary Way, we see that every enterprise flourishes for a time, but then fades in popularity in the fullness of time, as times change and humanity innovates new technology choices that become more popular as better fit to changing times, as previously popular choices fade into history as good fit at an earlier time,
Family &
Friends
patronage
IMPACT
Church &
Philanthropy
grants
MISSION
Taxing &
Spending
subsidies
POLICY
Banking &
Lending
monetization
PROPERTY
Exchanges
& Funds
securitization
PROGRESS
Pensions &
Endowments
negotiation
SUFFICIENCY
everyone must stay in their own lane
This new theory of the Continuum of Capital that maps onto the flourish and fade of the social contract between enterprise and popular choice on its path from innovation to stabilized cash flows also shows us the importance of holding each of the different architectures of finance accountability for authenticity and integrity to its own unique logic when making decisions about where the money can, should and will be made to go, and how it will be made to get there/