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Social Return on Investment - For pennies, he saved the life of a poor child....

Then, he selflessly mentored her through school, She went on to become a Five Star General, became a double agent, betrayed her county, and was the downfall of an entire civilization. Tens of millions died in agony. What was his Social Return on Investment?

Answer: The problem cannot be solved as given. We would have to know what good or harm, net, the civilization would have done, had she not destroyed it. Also, we would need a univocal measure of "Good" in a world that seems, shall we say, divided over the simplest issues of right and wrong. Just because a prisoner wears an orange jumpsuit does not make him or her a bad person. How can we as Social Entrepreneurs, with limited self-understanding, no knowledge of moral theory, no curiosity about the nature of the good, who cannot in many cases, tell right from wrong, compute the net SROI of any strategy or tactic? What we can do is cherry pick what we measure - and that is wrong, conceptually and ethically. It is who we are, and it is a shame.

 

Diogenes Plays the The Values Cards at Davos

You have seen him with the lamp looking in broad daylight for the honest man? That is so last millennium before last. Today, as a bogus Secular Priest, in search of brand identity, and product differentiation, and what he calls "modest Patronage," he roams the halls at Davos with a deck of Values Cards, asking potential UNHW clients to sort them. Actually, this is my mentor, The Happy Tutor Dungeon Master to the Stars in Wealth Bondage, but same difference, both do their work stark naked and are beaten in lieu of payment. I asked Tutor if he ever has found an honest client this way, and he said, "No clients, of course, my work is strictly pro bono publico, but I did find an honest man once. He took the Values Cards, laid them all face down, then gave me his business card, after writing on it, 'Guile, mendacity, hypocrisy.' When I flipped the card over it said his name, and title, 'President, Integrity Financial.' I knew then I had found a Trusted Advisor I could trust with my money, if I had any." So, did Tutor find an Honest Patron? O Yes! but the check bounced.

When we dance with the devil who steps on whose hooves?

What are your client's core values? What is the self they wish to enact, the legacy they wish to leave, the impact they wish to have on the world? All around the WB Ballroom, clomp, clomp, clomp, and the cries of pain. Integrity - ouch.  Spirituality - ouch, OMG.  A good Mission Statement for a Dynastic Family, can put a team of  Taxi Dancers in the Hospital with smashed toes, and broken arches. But it is worth it in the end if those kind of Governing Instruments can preserve a Dynasty for 100 years, or more. Best to wear combat boots, though, or work boots, with steel capped toes. Those are your Values, Sir. Who am I to judge?, as the Pope once said.

If a church for the deeply depressed....

....for those without any money or any prospect of it, with a statue at the door, of our Lady of Sorrows, facing a cross in the nave, on which her son died, were to have a liturgy, I wonder how that would differ from the Gospels? To which feckless query, my Tutor replied, Who should we ask, Phil, who would know? Someone wise, probably, don't you, think?

Tutor is getting more difficult, more intransigent, and less coherent, as he gets older. He is wrestling with his own mortality, the mess he made of his life, and long-term effects of alcoholism and academic study. What we, as Wise and Virtuous Counsellors to The World's Wealthiest Families need, I think, is a middle way between the Scylla of Ethical Theory and the Charybdis of Personal Poverty. Speaking for myself, I would like to think that Wealth and Will of God will add up to a bed for the night, and a hot meal.

In Service to what?

Lear, I opined to my mentor, The Happy Tutor, Dungeon Master to the Stars in Wealth Bondage, is a play about family, governance, and about loyal service. Cordelia, who cannot heave her heart into her mouth, is faithful to herself, and her father, the King, but her father. The Fool? To what is he in service? To the King, Cordelia's father, but the King as King, whose body is the body politic, and whose rule is divine by right. In serving what is kingly in the King, he serves God and man, the raggediest among us. Wealth in Families, Flourishing Families, but who will plausibly connect that with a flourishing community, ecosystem, cosmos? Wise Counsel?

 

Tutor, who is retired from active Professional Service to the rich, now caging what he calls "gratuities," with the squeegee men at the crossroads, said, If that is supposed to be a question, Phil, you really are morally insane. The Fool was funny, and he could sing and dance, in the cold rain. The play is about Machiavels, blind men, and liars, as you well know, and have not got the courage to say, lest you offend.

 

Tutor may be right, but I try to be tactful. I don't want to end up like him, on the street.  

Wisdom Comes to Market

Very hard, even for one as wise as I am, to make a rational market in Wisdom.  The need is there, but not much demand. The ones who need it most value it least. And when it comes to rating a Wisdom Provider, how can a Fool rate Wisdom wisely? Even "liking" a proffered wisdom nugget, even Tweeting it, does not necessarily translate into mastering it. Generally, in sales, step one is translating a Need into a Want, but when I try to get Fools to acknowlege the need for wisdom, I get called an impudent fool, and beaten in my turn. It ever has been thus in our noble trade.

In Wealth Bondage, I constantly hear my fellow professionals bitching....

Having prostituted all that is holy, they still can't pay the bills. I tell them to develop expertise in something unusual, such as Wisdom or Virtue. Nun, Priest, Swami. If you are an Ultra High Net Worth (UNHW) client whose planning calls for Wisdom and Virtue, just pucker up and blow. I will be in the next room reading War and Peace.

A new Classroom sealed Hermetically

Reading my own words in the river of "notable" ephemera flowing through Twitter, Facebook, Flipboard, and Linked-in, I realize that contesting the frame of the discourse (Wealth Bondage) is impossible. Social Media is a trillion dollar corporate effort with a clear business model. I am an unpaid content provider, supposedly motivated by a desire for banal self-representation and need for "friends," "likes," and "followers," to soothe my anomie and sense of despair. Few glancing at this will know it was written by a naked man, in a Dumpster, sitting on a pile of rotting books and dreaming of a New Classroom, sealed hermetically from the elements in which we now live and have our being. Without that context, you probably think I am normal. Like you?

Freegan.info

Readers have told me that you find it hard to relate to my endless posts about the world of dynastic wealth, and the Trusted Advisors, who in return for Patronage, provide their best Clients with bespoke truth, wisdom, virtue, and beauty. (Without patronage these highest human goods would be in short supply. Who would advance them without a healthy subvention? The whole process of finding truth, achieving wisdom, or creating beauty is tedious. Virtue is a pain in the ass. Even for high wages, I am not sure it would be worth it.)  For the rest of you, then, at no charge, here is access to your next meal.