Fiduciary In All Things (FIAT): Its Origins

We have it in our power to begin the world over again. 

— Thomas Paine 

I have been concerned for some time about the state of humanity. The feeling has increased over the last 10 years. I am concerned about the things that I care about most, like how we treat each other, the vast inequalities amongst human beings, the state of Mother Earth, democracy, and perhaps most important of all I am concerned about misrepresentations of the truth by those in power, those whom we should most trust in the community we call civilization.

Coming out of the banking crisis of 2008, I suspected that although humanity seemed to be polarized, perhaps, in truth, everyone was concerned about the same things. And that we mostly wanted the same solutions. This idea launched my book, “A Golden Civilization & The Map of Mindfulness,” and a book tour to far corners of the globe. As I traveled, I was searching for how to create a vision strong enough that the whole world would act on it. To test my intuition, wherever I went I invited audiences through a structured exercise, to design their own vision of a Golden Civilization.

Sure enough, whether I went to a rich country or to a poor country, and whether I went to a democratic country or a dictatorship or somewhere in between, everywhere people wanted similar things. Everybody wanted less inequality. They wanted adequate healthcare, food, and shelter. They wanted an end to corruption. They wanted an end to racism and to bigotry. They wanted kindness and good humor. They wanted a richness of culture. They wanted to be able to trust their scientists. They wanted trustworthiness everywhere. They wanted all media to tell the truth and to be trustworthy. This discovery was quite wonderful. 

I captured the vision words, weighted by frequency of use, from the first 20 conversations into a word-cloud shaped like the Earth. 

Golden Civilization Conversations Word Cloud: Vision words weighted by the frequency that they came up n conversation during the first 20 Golden Civilization Conversations led by George Kinder around the globe.

How self-centered we have been playing one country versus another, one team versus another, one person versus another. For generations, we’ve lived with the notion that evolution is about competition, but it’s much more clearly about Gaia and the creation of expanding environments of freedom. As the world becomes smaller and more accessible to us, it becomes our responsibility to create environments where all creatures thrive. We are being called as a species to deliver a structure of kindness, freedom, innovation, compassion, resilience, and sustainability for the whole Earth, for our descendants, and for all generations to come. 

• What does that look like? 

• How do we begin? 

• What is the vision? 

As I reflected on these experiences, I began a search for the simplest of pathways to create a Golden Civilization across the world. Having minored in economics at Harvard, I made a point of taking time each year to study the theories of the latest Nobel Prize winners. I revisited some of the economic thinking I had learned.

Two hundred and fifty years ago, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, there was an explosion of innovation, of creativity, and of the production of material things that would lead humanity to create the world we are now in, enabling many of us to live longer, healthier, and richer lives and be connected to each other all over the world. 

Clearly, the combination of capitalism, democracy, and the rule of law produced something remarkable, bringing to much of humanity greater longevity, greater leisure, and greater freedoms. But if our system was really the best that there could be, why is it that at the top of every hierarchy of power after these 250 years of innovation, we don’t find the very best of humanity, our wisdom and our compassion? Wouldn’t the best system automatically deliver the very best of humanity into every aspect of our lives? 

Something at the very base of the system is awry in the design of every organizational structure, something that keeps each institution from acting automatically with wisdom and kindness, so much so that no institution anywhere models it. We are back to the model of competition, where self-interest comes first. Our institutional structures are designed for self-interest to flourish. Rather than virtuous action, it’s self-interest that’s baked in. 

Think about it. When we give the right to incorporate or the right to govern to a person or an organization, we give the potential for enormous power. And they can leverage that power through hierarchy, minimize the threat of lawsuits with limited liability protection, and get special tax rates. They can further leverage their power to astronomical levels with capital and debt and through their ability to communicate. With all this power at their fingertips, is it any wonder that the production and delivery of humanity’s innovations, although they touch every aspect of our lives, is more tainted by the self-interest of hierarchies than touched by human virtue? 

For all the power we have granted their self-interest, why don’t we require something of them in return? What if we simply required each of them as a consequence of incorporation, whether they are corporations, nonprofits, or governments, to act in a humane way? Simply require them to be humane. 

But rather than require something of them, we keep giving more to them. After thousands of years of developing what it is to have secured rights as human beings in relation to the powerful institutions that govern our lives, we’ve granted a lot of those rights back to institutions as if they were human. We have granted them the power to dominate how we think through their ownership or influence of media, including through non-profits and their own advertising. And we’ve granted them the enormous power to influence elections in ways that takes away our democratic freedom. 

Only now do we realize that in using those rights, some of the most powerful have come to threaten our deepest values, our lives, our democracies, the lives of Earth’s creatures, and the stability of the planet we live on. We feel diminished, as if civilization is not ours but our institutions’. But civilization is ours. It is meant to be a domain of freedom, not for them but for us. 

It’s time we asked new and existing institutions (corporate, non-profit, governmental) to place humanity first, to place the truth first, to place democracy first, and to place the Earth first ahead of their own self-interest, as a requirement of their existence. This is the essence of the FIAT movement. 

Here is the simple, one-sentence legislative proposal that requires just that. 

“A Fiduciary standard of obligation is required for all institutions (corporate, non-profit, and governmental) to place the interests of all stakeholders, of truth, of humanity, democracy, and the living planet that sustains us, first above their own self-interest.” 

We fought a revolution in America for democracy, to establish human rights, and to free ourselves of the hierarchy of mad King George. But now, as a consequence of our system, we have created many hierarchies as powerful and more. It is time for us as a species to free the world as well as ourselves of the hierarchies that have power over us and that can diminish our freedom and guarantee instead that each of them always works in the best interests of humanity. 

This simple piece of legislation will make sure this happens. The idea and the language are simple enough to spread across the globe. Through speaking engagements, I’ve shared these ideas, reaching many parts of the world. It’s easy to think of obstacles to the accomplishing of such a human right, but at this stage, it’s the vision that’s most important to establish. A strong enough vision will conquer all obstacles, particularly when it’s the movement of a people, a species, inspired by the same torch. 

With the richest and most powerful billionaires, companies, and media moguls likely to oppose placing the interests of truth, democracy, Mother Earth, and humanity above their own self-interest, it is imperative we create a huge grass-roots movement toward Fiduciary In All Things becoming the law of the land. 

Many who first hear the idea don’t understand what the word “fiduciary” means, and to some it can seem controversial. I chose the term “fiduciary” because of its linguistic roots and its legislative usage. Fiduciary is an obligation for trustworthy service to others. 

At present all corporations have a single fiduciary responsibility. It is to their shareholders. All the power of their hierarchy and leverage is required to maximize profit for their shareholders alone. That is the nub of our problem. For a civilization to be a domain of freedom for all, hierarchies of power must have a fiduciary responsibility to all of us, and to truth and to Gaia and democracy, as well.  

I’ve been sharing simple statements to help bridge the gap between the term fiduciary and its meaning. 

• We need a standard for humanity. 

• We need a standard for humanity that is trustworthy in all things. 

• Every institution we create must be trustworthy in all things, no exceptions. 

• Fiduciary means trustworthy. 

• Fiduciary is the legal term for trustworthy service to others, placing their interest always above one’s own. 

• A one-sentence legislative proposal could change the world. 

• A fiduciary standard of obligation is required for all institutions, corporate, nonprofit, governmental, to place the interests of all stakeholders, of truth, of humanity, democracy, and the living planet that sustains us first above their own self-interest. 

• Trustworthy institutions as fiduciaries to us all tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in all communications. 

• Trustworthy institutions as fiduciaries to us all put the health of democracy and Mother Earth above their own self-interest.

• Let’s make fiduciary and the trustworthiness of our institutions the law of the land. 

Even more accessible than words for a movement to go viral are images. 

In the United States, consumers can find a Certified Organic symbol on any organically processed food that is certified by the USDA. This simple symbol indicates to a consumer that the product has fulfilled conditions on how they are produced, processed, transported, and stored. 

For the Fiduciary In All Things movement, I’ve created easily recognizable symbols that can go on an organization’s website to symbolize that they care about the humane treatment of their employees, of democracy, and of the living planet that sustains them. 

Fiduciary In All Things Legislative Proposal: A one-sentence legislative proposal crafted by George Kinder that advocates for all institutions to place the interests of all stakeholders above their own self-interest.

Fiduciary In All Things Globe Logo: A logo that can help spread awareness of the FIAT movement by adding it to your social media posts, websites, headers, and email signatures.

Fiduciary In All Things Square Logo: A logo that can help spread awareness of the FIAT movement by adding it to your social media posts, websites, headers, and email signatures.

You can popularize these symbols by sharing them on social media and placing them on your website and in your communications to demonstrate your support of the vision of a fiduciary world. 

We have a strong vision. Let’s spread it widely. I’m optimistic that we can do this, despite those of enormous wealth and power that would prefer institutions to work solely for them. Already there are significant existing structures that can support the implementation of legislation. They come from the ESG movement, Business Roundtable, B Corps, and many organizations and corporations looking to put humanity’s interests ahead of their own self-interest. Extraordinarily helpful as each of these may be, at this point, establishing the vision is even more important than solving obstacles. It’s time to make Fiduciary In All Things the law of the land, by making its vision ubiquitous and for all people. 

Imagine all people of the Earth empowered, supported, and inspired, not diminished by the systems that surround them. Just a single sentence legislative proposal can start this and can change the world. Let’s establish the vision. We need all hands on deck. Please join us. Share what #FiduciaryInAllThings means to you. Place the symbols on your social media headers and banners, and on your website. Let’s make it happen. 

Consider these questions: 

• What is it that you can do to popularize Fiduciary In All Things across your networks, including through political and service organizations? 

• What are some possible challenges that this movement could face? How might we overcome them? 

• What are some speaking engagements, small or large, that you could arrange to help spread FIAT? 

International thought leader and author George Kinder has been at the forefront of the financial services industry for decades, spearheading the financial life planning movement that identifies clients’ dreams of freedom and then delivers them with entrepreneurial energy. Through books, workshops, and speaking engagements, George has trained thousands of professionals globally in financial life planning. After 30 years as a financial planner and tax adviser, he founded the Kinder Institute of Life Planning in 2003. In "The Three Domains of Freedom," his latest of 12 books, George advocates a universal fiduciary standard across all institutions. In 2025, he was awarded the Innovator Founder visa by the UK Home Office to bring FIAT directly into businesses globally through transformative workshops and talks.

Please note: We invite members of the greater Global Citizens Circle community to contribute to GCC Voices. The views and opinions expressed in each blog post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Global Citizens Circle. 

“A Fiduciary standard of obligation is required for all institutions (corporate, non-profit, and governmental) to place the interests of all stakeholders, of truth, of humanity, democracy, and the living planet that sustains us, first above their own self-interest.”    - George Kinder