Back to the World Business Forum. Once again, I will be on stage in one of the most important global business summits. This time we head to Mexico City, at the Expo Bancomer venue in Santa Fe.
“Think about the White Rabbit of Alice in Wonderland. I often cite the excerpt that says that we choose what words mean, asking which is to be master, if them or us”.
We’re in backstage of the LH Forum of San Patrignano with Jacques Attali, founder of the Movement for a Positive Economy. After my speech on the importance of positive connections between human beings, we debate freely on the Economy of Love.
“If you think about it, it would become a best seller”, suggests Attali, who, with the punctiliousness of the intellectual fascinated by the possibilities of a concept, weighs pros and cons of my opinions on love as a force of collective change. Above us, a picture of the guys of the San Patrignano Rehabilitation Center stands out.
I am reminded of the marathon, one year ago, when, with these young people that today have greeted the Forum participants, I spoke for five hours straight, an experience I’ve been carrying with me at every event and meeting where I had the pleasure of getting on stage, by advocating that this system in which we work must be changed from the inside.
I tell Attali that the bank for which I work, Mediolanum, has decided to give back 181 million euros to its customers victims of environmental disaster and of the ripple caused by Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy. And I tell him how hard it was to do it, because the Italian Law doesn’t even contemplate such actions.
An example of which meanings can be given, pragmatically, to the words of change that hurtle in days and meetings as this one, crucial occasions for discussion and sharing of experiences. We exchange our business cards and he asks me to send him more detailed information. It’s the beginning of a dialogue that I hope will continue in the future.
Also Renzo Rosso believes that the system must be changed from the inside. With his trenchant and passionate attitude, he points his finger at the distortions of a system where the funds buy the companies and sell them shortly afterward. “Everything is sacrificed in pursuit of “making money, making business, making numbers. That’s why we need to think outside the box”.
To this, I add that we need to rely on the idea of participation and social responsibility of companies, institutions, organizations, individuals. “A logic that is emerging everywhere. In territories, companies, transnational groups of individuals”, says Letizia Moratti, a long-time friend that I meet during a coffee break.
There’s truly an ongoing change, here at the LH Forum.
