Microlending

I was most impressed this week by the article "Micro-Lending: Toward a Poverty Free World" by Muhammed Yunus.  I was impressed, first of all, but his honesty and humility in realizing that the "elegant theories" he taught students were at odds with the realities of the world around them.  I'm even more impressed that he went out into that world with a desire to learn the realities, and then followed through with something concrete he could do to improve the lives of those around him.  When he said that the forty-two people he talked to needed loans totaling $27, not much more than fifty cents each, I thought of the dollar bill that's been on my closet floor for a month.  I see it every time I put my clothes away, but I haven't bothered to pick it up because it's not that critical.  I'll get to it when I get to it.  To think that that one dollar bill could be a critical difference in changing two lives.  It's hard to imagine, I'd love to hear more specific stories about how these micro-loans are used, how they actually work in people's lives.  I'm also very impressed with Yunus' idea that greed is not the only motivating factor, but we've built all of our economic systems on the assumption that it is.  That's a paradigm shifting statement, and one I will think about for a long time.

In "What's a Business For?" Charles Handy says that integrity and virtue are vital to an economy because when "the game becomes so unreliable, no one will want to play."  If people don't trust the business world, they'll keep their money to themselves, and the whole thing collapses.  He says the real purpose of a business is not just to make a profit, but to make a profit so that the business can do something more or better.  I agree with his assertion that businesses need to take the lead in issues of environmental and social sustainability.  That only makes sense if you want your business to be profitable over the long haul.  I also agree with his assertion that a business should measure success in terms of outcome for others as well as itself.  At the very least, they should care about the outcome for their customers, which again, just makes sense in terms of sustainability over time.