Creating A World Without Poverty by Muhammad Yunus
May 1st, 2008Title: Creating A World Without Poverty
Author: Muhammad Yunus
Publisher: PublicAffairs (2008)
This is the second book by Muhammad Yunus that I have reviewed for Letters on Pages. I reviewed his first book, Banker to the Poor, which was basically a biography of Grameen Bank. Yunus founded the Grameen Bank, which provides microcredit to the poor people of Bengladesh and the rest of the world. But you should remember that anyway, seeing how I just wrote that review pretty recently!
Yunus’ second book, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism, is a thesis statement on social business. Yunus believes social businesses will be the wave of the future of capitalism. The key tenets of social business is that it is a “no-risk, no-return” investment. There is no risk or return because the investors of the business get all of their initial investment back, with money that the social business made in “profit”. Eventually the business becomes self sustaining…relieving the need for investors.
Yunus certainly recognizes that these businesses will need investors who are more interested in helping underprivildged people than making a huge ROI. Of course, the basic idea of capitalism is that the company is run with one goal: maximize shareholder return. So I guess social business is capitalism-lite.
The book was pretty interesting and had a lot of cool ideas. I am sure they will take eventually, especially as people are becoming more conscious of social issues and stuff like that. Especially as they relate to business. There were some pretty slow parts of the book though…and Yunus gets a little preachy at times. But I suppose he has earned that right considering all he has done.
I like the idea of social businesses as much as charities. I think a social business could probably provide more service than a charity because they can become self sufficient. Neat stuff.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
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