“ A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. ... “

–  John F. Kennedy/ Lao Tzu   

“A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passion has not overcome it...”

–  Carl J. Jung   

 “Art is object seen sub aternantis, while good life is the world seen sub aternatis — this is the connection between ethics and aesthetics.”

–  Ludwig Wittgenstein   

If what we have called the Three Pillars  — Human thoughts & deeds, Art & Aesthetics and Adam Smith — are what constitute the intellectual framework that serves as the foundation of Our Endeavours, then the execution and fulfilment of Our Endeavours are to be done by what we have described as the Three Divers which are Wealth & Happiness; Capital Markets and ESG.

We see Wealth & Happiness as one key cornerstone of what we mean by the Betterment of the Humanities. Again, we have found that Adam Smith’s thoughts has illuminated profoundly on the meaning of Wealth. Smith has once described Economics as “the Science of Wealth”, and he has made the famous remark that “A nation is not made wealthy by the childish accumulation of shiny metals, but it is enriched by the economic prosperity of its people..”

And we would further argue that to Smith, Wealth is far beyond material wealth and is intricably linked with his concept of Happiness which he sees as consisting of 3 components: “Material Provision; Social Engagement; and the Tranquility that come from Acting Virtuously. “

Building on the insights of Adam Smith, we propose to see Wealth as having three layers: Physical Health; Material Wealth; and Spiritual Wealth and Wealth is for enhancing Happiness for the entire Humanities

The Second Driver of Our Endeavours is Capital Markets which we see as its most important functions as facilitating the creation of Wealth and Happiness for the Humanities.

Following the teachings of Adam Smith, we see the Capital Markets as a place where the Seekers of Capital meets the Providers of Capital and there are essentially four main players in this market: Individuals, Companies, Governments as well as non-Government and non-Commercial entities and these four are both Seekers of Capital and Providers of Capital.

As Charlie Munger has said rather explicitly, it also does not appear to us that the global financial industry is currently working primarily for the interest of the providers of capital. Keynes has also pointed out the risk of so-called Casino-Capitalism almost 100 years ago.

We concur with Keynes that Enterprises constitute one main engine to build wealth in the modern world and we believe that the quality and effectiveness of Capital Markets should be measured by their ability to channel capital to the most productive enterprises in the world. We aspire to be part of the process and to benefit from the growing recognition of this in the market place.

Our third Driver is ESG and see it as a global trend that will be here to stay. Again, we seek to use the ideas and thoughts of Adam Smith to enhance the benefits ESG can bring to the Humanities. Based on the ideas of Adam Smith, the 1991 Nobel Prize laureate of Economics Ronald Coase and a few others, we have developed a paradigm to define what ESG means for Enterprises which we trust can help to drive a virtuous cycle between “The Market” and “the Firm”.

More importantly, Adam Smith has advanced the idea that Sympathy is our capacity to imagine ourselves in another’s situation and feel what they feel which also constitutes an important part of human nature.. It is a force running in parallel with the self-love nature of man and which “interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.” As such, the force of sympathy benefits society in a more indirect but powerful way: it creates the impartial spectator that help to discipline all human actions..

It is arguable that while this is never intended, it might turn out that the Free Market could well be the mechanism which brings the greatest “charity’ consequences to human society and the force of Sympathy could well be another force will add onto that. In our formulation of ESG principles, we seek to build on the ideas and thoughts of Adam Smith to enable it to bring the greatest happiness to the entire Humanities.