The Will to Make Capitalism Fairer; The Means to Do It

LONDON, May 27, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

The men and women who control a third of the world's liquid assets come together to make inclusion and fairness the bedrock of global business

Equality, opportunity & responsibility lie at the heart of a unique London conference addressed by Clinton, Lagarde & Carney

- The Conference on Inclusive Capitalism provides a pathway to putting business and investors in the vanguard of society's recalibration post financial crisis

- Speakers: H.R.H. The Prince of Wales - Bill Clinton - Christine Lagarde - Mark Carney - Lawrence H. Summers - Paul Polman - Sir Charlie Mayfield - Jin Liqun - Eric Schmidt - Lord David Sainsbury

- 250 global delegates from 37 countries and 35 business sectors represent assets under management worth approximately $30 trillion - a third of the world's investable income

An unprecedented conference bringing together leaders from the top institutional investors, asset managers, corporations, sovereign wealth funds and financial institutions from around the world will convene here today. The delegates of the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism share one purpose: to find practical ways to renew the capitalist system, making it an inclusive engine of economic opportunity and shared prosperity.

Since the financial crisis, a well-documented debate about the role and purpose of business has emerged. Leaders have questioned whether the public will continue to support a system which nurtures growing inequality, permits and even rewards unethical behaviour, and suppresses the importance of social purposes in favour of a primary focus on the next quarter's results.  

Bold and co-operative responses are urgently needed from those with the power to make capitalism and free markets inclusive of society as a whole. The effects of rapid technological innovation, growing globalization of business and ideas, and increasingly constrained resources makes a unified response more imperative than ever.

Because of the stature of the individuals present and the scale of the resources they represent, the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism represents an epoch when business can step up to commit to collaborative action that transforms the status quo.

The Conference on Inclusive Capitalism supports all efforts to increase the social and economic benefits of all areas of commercial activity. However, there are three areas where the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism believes business can have significant and profound impact, and on which the Conference will focus:

- Promoting responsible behavior that underpins the integrity and fairness of the system and safeguards the interests of people and companies working within it

- Building ladders of economic opportunity through enhanced education, skills training, job creation and innovation

- Investing for the long term by focusing on the greatest return for all those with a stake in capitalism's stability, instead of just the quickest return for shareholders.

"The Conference on Inclusive Capitalism seeks to respond to the serious dislocations caused by developments in capitalism over the last 30 years: the fraying of public trust in business, worldwide increases in income inequality, increasing short-termism in capital markets, and a crisis in the integrity and values of the system. At its core, the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism is concerned with restoring capitalism's role as an engine of opportunity for all," said Lynn Forester de Rothschild, CEO, EL Rothschild and Co Host and Founder of the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism, "through the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism we will fight against the inequality of hope that exists in the system today."

Key note speaker, Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, said:  "In the past, economists have underestimated the importance of inequality. They have focused on economic growth, on the size of the pie rather than its distribution. Today, we are more keenly aware of the damage done by inequality. Put simply, a severely skewed income distribution harms the pace and sustainability of growth over the longer term. It leads to an economy of exclusion, and a wasteland of discarded potential. The recognition of this fact by the conference on inclusive capitalism is incredibly important for the long term prosperous future of all."

Conference delegate Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever commented, "The very essence of capitalism is under threat. We have to bring this world back to sanity and put the greater good ahead of self-interest. This important gathering of global business and financial leaders provides us with the opportunity to reach a tipping point where business, government and finance work together to develop a new ethical framework for growth."

Fiona Woolf, Lord Mayor of London and co-host of the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism said: "Inclusive capitalism is not just a nice idea - it's a vital turn to make if capitalism is to survive. You don't have to be an economist to be worried by the direction of travel that inequality is taking. If capitalism is to retain its moral claim to serve humankind then it must find ways of including more people, in more ways, in its returns. This is our challenge - and we must accept it."

All media 

The Conference will be held under the Chatham House Rule, with the exception of the keynote speeches, which will be on the record. 

These will be streamed live at the following times on https://www.ft-live.com/ft-events/conference-on-inclusive-capitalism/sessions/live-stream/

9:05am                 H.R.H. The Prince of Wales

9.15am                 Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund

1:35pm                 Lawrence H. Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard

5:00pm                 President Bill Clinton, Founder of the Clinton Foundation and 42^nd President of the United States

8:00 pm                Mark Carney, Governor, Bank of England

Due to the Conference being under The Chatham House Rule we will not be able to accommodate requests from media to attend the conference.

The keynote speeches listed above will be pooled by Reuters and transmitted via LiveU in standard definition. Please contact inclusivecapitalism.press@edelman.com for further information on picking up the feed.

Please contact the press office at Inclusivecapitalism.press@edelman.com if you wish to conduct any media interviews with a spokesperson for the conference.   

About the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism 

The idea for the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism originated in May 2012 in response to an invitation to E.L Rothschild by the City of London to organize an important global meeting that would provide actionable pathways for investors and businesses to take in response to many of the negative impacts of the financial crisis; such as increases in income inequality, large-scale corporate and financial scandals and the fraying of public trust in business, historically high and persistent unemployment and short-term approaches to managing and owning companies.

The conference was organized by E.L. Rothschild with assistance from the Financial Times Live, Edelman, and numerous volunteers and the generous support of the foundations listed below Tony Elumelu Foundation from Africa, the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations from the US, the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and Blavatnik Family Foundation from the UK, Sunshine Kaidi New Energy Group from China, and the Entrepreneurial Citizenship Institute (ICE) from Brazil.

Inclusive Capitalism is a term that is part of all the admirable efforts made by people who stress conscious capitalism, moral capitalism, good capitalism and all other efforts to make economies of the world more sustainable by making them work better for all of society and for the planet.  All of the efforts hold that capitalism requires broad public support to thrive, which will only be maintained if the market delivers broad-based gains in incomes and living standards. Inclusive capitalism recognises that profit motive alone cannot be counted on to prevent dangerous growth in inequality, corruption and breach of trust, or damage to public health and the global environment. At its heart is the view that businesses and investors must be conscious of their role in society in addition to their bottom line, and have a responsibility to change their behaviour when public confidence in markets falters.

As a lasting legacy for the Conference on Inclusive Capitalism a collection of essays authored by participants in the conference will be published. The essays will contain proposals by conference participants for making capitalism more inclusive. For updates and information on progress towards making capitalism more inclusive please visit http://www.conferenceoninclusivecapitalism2014.com post conference. In addition there will also be footage from the event, interviews with those that attended and highlights of the collective thought leadership produced by delegates on the subject of Inclusive Capitalism.