On 16 February, the IQS Business Foundation along with the IQS Department of Christian Ethics and Thought and the “la Caixa” Foundation held the conference “Francesc Moragas: the social origin of la Caixa,” on the life and work of the founder of “la Caixa”.
On 16 February, the IQS Business Foundation along with the IQS Department of Christian Ethics and Thought and the “la Caixa” Foundation held the conference “Francesc Moragas: the social origin of la Caixa,” on the life and work of the founder of “la Caixa.” The banking entity, which has been around for over 115 years, was created through Francesc Moragas i Barret's social awareness with the aim of empowering the working class.
The conference, which was held online, was led by the vice president of the “la Caixa” Foundation, Juan José López Burniol, moderated by Dr Flavio Comim, head of the IQS Department of Christian Ethics and Thought and professor at the IQS School of Management, along with Dr Oriol Quintana, head of IQS identity and mission and professor of the subjects Social Christian Thought and Social Ethics at the IQS School of Management, and Dr Llorenç Puig SJ, Jesuit, professor of the Ethics course at the IQS School of Engineering, and was presented by Ms Rosa Curt, Director of the IQS Business Foundation, who welcomed attendees to the event.
Francesc Moragas i Barret's role is essential for understanding the trajectory of la Caixa and some of the social changes that were taking place at the beginning of the last century.
This conference forms part of the agreement between the IQS Business Foundation, la Caixa, and IQS to raise awareness about Francesc Moragas during the 2019-2020 academic year. Within this context, IQS students learned about the founder of la Caixa in classes, workshops, and even in a final degree project supervised by professors from the Department of Ethics and Christian Thought who created materials with which they will continue to teach about Moragas in upcoming years.
Social conscience as the heart of la Caixa
In his speech, López Burniol recapped the origins of “la Caixa” through its founder Francesc Moragas. The bank was founded in 1904 with the aim of encouraging saving, ensuring dignity for the elderly, and offering a better future to the working class in that era. Moragas's humanistic and Christian thought was fundamental in developing a project that aimed to protect the most vulnerable classes.
"Moragas i Barret’s greatest virtue is that he saw two solutions for problems the working class at the time faced: savings and ensuring a dignified old age through pensions," said López Burniol in his speech. He added that "Moragas's driving idea was to turn savings into a source of collective insurance. He came from a family that worked in the field of insurance, and what he aimed to do was provide collective insurance based on individual income.”
Moragas's pioneering vision meant that, at the beginning of the 1930s, 60% of Catalan savings and 25% of all Spanish savings were held by “la Caixa.” By the time of Moragas's death, the financial institution had opened around one hundred offices in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, Madrid, and Andorra. In addition, Moragas promoted the Obra Social la Caixa social project which began operating in 1918 with the aim of becoming a "social project aimed at dignity for the elderly and the neediest individuals," López Burniol recapped.
The vice president of the “la Caixa” Foundation also recalled Moragas's role in founding the National Welfare Institute (INP) in 1908. In fact, in 1910 la Caixa was given the status of a collaborating entity and carried out the work of the INP in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands in terms of collecting contributions and paying pensions.
López Burniol also spoke about Moragas as a source of "inspiration" to overcome today's challenges. With this in mind, the vice-president of the “la Caixa” Foundation stated that these challenges impact young people “who suffered most from the last financial crisis.” López Burniol gave the founder of la Caixa's principles of humanity, social justice, and intelligence as an example for how to face these problems.
