Prof. Yunus' New Capitalist Development Theory
Introduction
Professor Muhammad Yunus took the world by storm when he talked about a new capitalist development theory in his book- ‘Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism That Serves Humanity 's Most Pressing Needs’. It originally picked massive traction because of Prof Yunus’ massively impressive reputation as the Godfather of Microfinance. In this book he outlines a model of business that builds from his experience creating the Grameen Foundation and a series of related ventures. The striking point of his described work is that it employs business sector principles of organization and resource management. But the question arises how good and effective is this new concept called ‘Social Business’? Is it actually a new pathway of capitalism and a substantial route out of poverty or just another glorified academic topic? To get a holistic analytical idea of our topic we have to get deep into the core concerns of social business, how it works and its effectiveness thus far.
The term Social Business was defined by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus and is described in his books Creating a world without poverty—Social Business and the future of capitalism and Building Social Business—The new kind of capitalism that serves humanity 's most pressing needs. According to Yunus we can create a poverty-free world if we redesign our system to take out its gross faults which create poverty. He compared poor people with 'bonsai ' tree and remarked that if we could help poor people out of poverty by creating an enabling environment, then it is a matter of time only to resolve worldwide poverty problem 1.
In Yunus ' definition, a Social Business is a business:
Created and designed to address a social problem
A non-loss, non-dividend company- It is financially self-sustainable
Profits realized by the business are reinvested in the business itself (or used to start other social businesses), with the aim of increasing social impact.
Yunus
Professor Muhammad Yunus took the world by storm when he talked about a new capitalist development theory in his book- ‘Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism That Serves Humanity 's Most Pressing Needs’. It originally picked massive traction because of Prof Yunus’ massively impressive reputation as the Godfather of Microfinance. In this book he outlines a model of business that builds from his experience creating the Grameen Foundation and a series of related ventures. The striking point of his described work is that it employs business sector principles of organization and resource management. But the question arises how good and effective is this new concept called ‘Social Business’? Is it actually a new pathway of capitalism and a substantial route out of poverty or just another glorified academic topic? To get a holistic analytical idea of our topic we have to get deep into the core concerns of social business, how it works and its effectiveness thus far.
The term Social Business was defined by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus and is described in his books Creating a world without poverty—Social Business and the future of capitalism and Building Social Business—The new kind of capitalism that serves humanity 's most pressing needs. According to Yunus we can create a poverty-free world if we redesign our system to take out its gross faults which create poverty. He compared poor people with 'bonsai ' tree and remarked that if we could help poor people out of poverty by creating an enabling environment, then it is a matter of time only to resolve worldwide poverty problem 1.
In Yunus ' definition, a Social Business is a business:
Created and designed to address a social problem
A non-loss, non-dividend company- It is financially self-sustainable
Profits realized by the business are reinvested in the business itself (or used to start other social businesses), with the aim of increasing social impact.
Yunus
Bibliography: 1. Grameen Creative lab. (2010). 7 principles of social business. Retrieved August 18, 2013, from Grameen Creative lab: http://www.grameencreativelab.com/a-concept-to-eradicate-poverty/7-principles.html 2. Kiron, D., D, P., Phillips, A., & Berkman, R. (2013). Social Business: Shifting Out of First Gear. MIT Sload management Review. 3. Latifee, A. (2013, 6 30). Social business: A new window of poverty alleviation. The Financial Express. 4. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. (n.d.). Social Business. Retrieved 8 13, 2013, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_business 5. Yunus, M. (2010). Bulding Social Business. Dhaka: The University Press Limited.