Professor Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Laureate
Whenever people look for ways to bring down the wealth-gap they will find social business as a very powerful tool to make it happen. Social business will slow down the process of accumulation at the top while people at the bottom will build up their asset base and retain whatever they earn.
Social Business Day
All of us present (here on the occasion of the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Daily Star) can play our role too. All of us can examine the concept to see if it makes sense. Each one of us can come up with social business ideas. Idea is the most precious thing in social business. Each one of us can decide to invest in social business directly or through others who are involved in it.
We can earmark 5% of our annual income and put it in a separate account, sort of personal social business fund, to invest in social businesses. To give a simple idea, anyone can transform 5, 10, 25 or more unemployed youth into entrepreneurs. We can show you how we are doing it. You may like it.
We hold a big event Social Business Day each year. This year it will be held on July 28-29. In addition to sessions devoted to exchanging experiences in social businesses throughout the world, we will hold Country Forums to let the delegates from each country exclusively country-wise sessions to discuss plans for social businesses in their own countries. They will bring business leaders, political leaders, academics, foundation leaders, to participate in these country forums. Of course, among other countries, there will a Bangladesh Forum on social business. You can take a lead role in organizing the Bangladesh Forum, or be an active participant in it. Bring your friends too. The Forum will conclude by announcing what social business action plan it has adopted for Bangladesh.
You may like to think about what you can do in slowing down wealth concentration. You can play a role in reducing wealth gap with some simple steps. Think about creating your own “giving pledge” or create a collective giving pledge with your friends and your business partners. You may decide to make a “will” now, to leave most of your wealth or at-least half of your wealth during your life time, to a social business fund of your own, or to a trust dedicated to solving human problems through social businesses. You may think about leaving all your companies in the hands of a trust. That way your wealth will perpetuate and grow as Bosch’s and Tata’s grew, and contribute fundamentally in changing the country, as well as the world.
I remind everyone that making money is happiness, but making other people happy is super happiness. Don’t miss the super happiness. It is better to act now, than later, so that you can see things happening and enjoy the super happiness resulting from it, rather than waiting for things to happen when you are no longer around. Invite your children to run social business funded by your trust or social business funds. You will be surprised to see how much they are enjoying doing that. Instead of just being successful second generation entrepreneurs they may become global celebrities by creating and successfully replicating social businesses globally. They will enjoy being leaders of the new global generation.
Anybody above a certain level of wealth may make a will to give away his or her wealth to social business trusts or funds. Their children may remain involved in these trusts or funds, so that they don’t feel they are left out of the control of their parents wealth. You’ll be amazed how you and your family can impact on the whole world.
If you wish to take any one of these initiatives, we at Yunus Centre would be happy to offer our services to make it happen. Don’t hesitate to contact us. In addition, to experiment with social business you can create a joint venture with your friends, or your international business partners, and see how it feels. It could be as small as you want. Size is no issue. The purpose is the issue. Bangladesh has been a pioneer in bringing down poverty by half. World has applauded it. We can be the leader in reversing the process of wealth inequality too. Instead of allowing inequality to increase each year, faster than previous year, we can make it decline each year, as the economy grows. Then we can call for a global Paris conference (may be Dhaka conference) to bring all the nations of the world to tell the story how we made it happen, who did what in the process. The conference will end by inviting the UN to convene a conference to let every nation declare a deadline when it will stop the increase in wealth gap and reverse the process. It would be similar to the global commitment to stop the increase in global temperature and hold it under 1.5 degree Celsius.
A global threat
Wealth-concentration is a global threat. It has already entered the danger zone this year with 99% of wealth going to 1% of people. Not only it is getting worse globally, it is getting worse within nations, and between nations. Wealth gap between nations is always a threat to peace. Historically some nations had accumulated more wealth than others. Some nations took unfair advantages over other nations in accumulating their wealth. There are old scores to settle and there are new scores taking shape. This leads to confrontations, conflict, and wars. If a nation feels threatened they hike up their military budget, which is shockingly huge already. Present annual global military expenditure stands at over $1.7 trillion. US alone accounts for 39% of this total. If the wealth-concentration within and among nations become acute social, political and economic compulsions for armed conflicts will become imminent.
The time is ripe for us to recognize the gravity of the situation on wealth-concentration, and take actions against it. As we learn from the process of arriving at an international consensus on global warming we can initiate a similar process to build a global consensus on bringing the speed of wealth concentration to zero in phase one, and making it negative in phase two. Both global warming and wealth concentration arise from the same root – a flawed economic framework based on human greed.
We can undo both by reinventing ourselves in the economic world as caring and sharing human beings. We may aim at creating a world of three zeros: zero poverty, zero unemployment, and zero net carbon emission. A world of diamond-shaped wealth distribution. A world of equality, harmony, peace and happiness. It can happen only if we citizens get into the action. (I humbly call upon all assembled here to) take the initiative to make Bangladesh the starting point for a global wave of actions against wealth-concentration.
Third & Concluding part of Address deliver at silver jubilee jamboree of The Daily Star.
Source: Weekly Holiday
