Mohammad Yunus
I found the lecture by Muhammad Yunus to be very interesting. At first I was wondering why an economist and bank owner was given the Nobel Prize for Peace and not Economics. Through the address he made, it became more apparent as to why he an industry like Grameen Bank received such recognition. By making a clear connection between poverty and the prospect of peace, Grameen Bank is fighting poverty and promoting peace. As long as people are in poverty, they suffer from anger, frustration, and hostilities that make it impossible to sustain peace in their society. With poverty all around Yunus, he couldn’t ignore it anymore, he couldn’t teach about the adverse effects of poverty in an economic system while people living within walking distance of the university knew nothing other than poverty. Since he created the Grameen Bank in 1974, it has given loans to over seven million people in over seventy three thousand Bengali villages. The bank gives out thirty thousand scholarships and approved thirteen thousand student loans, a number which increases by over seven thousand every year. An offshoot from the bank is Grameen Phone, a company committed to spreading the rise of technology and communication across all of Bangladesh. Companies like Grameen Bank and Grameen Phone are some of what Yunus likes to call social businesses. These social businesses operate much like a traditional business except they make no profit for their investors. That is not to say these companies are charities, all investors make their money back, but take no dividends. All profits are reinvested back into the company and are used to expand the business. The true purpose of these businesses would be to lift people out of poverty. These companies would grant individuals the ability to start their own businesses. These companies would form together to create a new global market with a new stock exchange. They would have their own sets of regulations and reporting agencies and publications. Taking companies to this new place of business and creating new businesses in formula will help us to eliminate poverty in the future, according to Yunus. Working together; people and social companies, we can give everyone a fair chance to unleash their energy and creativity.
Yunus implies that social businesses could transfer partial or full ownership to the poor.
He also implies that there needs to be fairness between the capitalistic markets and the social markets
Yunus implies that rich countries will be more likely to take up the cause of social businesses because of the challenge they present.