Social businesses, according to Dr. Yunus, are to be run as ‘non-loss’ and ‘non-dividend’ operations. Further definitions are taken from the book here. A one-page summary is here.
‘Climate Capitalism‘ is the term coined by Chris Macrae after Dr. Yunus talked about the way that Bangladesh is being affected by climate change at St. James’s.
Credit without Collateral will mean something to everybody who’s tried to borrow money from their bank.
As the organiser of the Forum for Stable Currencies at the House of Lords, I analysed the data base of the Bank of England for two reports:
- Sovereignty & Seignorage – for a lawyer who addressed the ‘Legal and Economic Challenge of Climate Change’ at the Environmental Law Foundation on October 26th, 2005
- Green Credit for Green Purposes – in response to the inquiry into the Stern report announced on December 14th, 2006 by the Treasury Select Committee. Our submission was published in its entirety as part of the Committee’s Fourth Report on February 5th, 2008.
In line with Dr. Yunus’ principles, I am defining ‘Climate Capitalism’ here.
Social Causes have traditionally been addressed by charities. But capitalism has created new social causes that need addressing and cost money:
‘Mega Poverty’ is my term for what I have heard from ‘bank victims’ on the financial level:
- repossessions by banks
- bankruptcies caused by legal and financial institutions
- over-indebtedness caused by the legal enforceability of debt.
UnJustice is the term that applies to ‘justice victims’ on the legal level:
- physical violence which I have experienced from a Sherriff as he took the keys of my mother’s car out of my hands
- fraudulent sale of houses by Lloyds who acted as Trustee and Executor of Lord Sudeley’s grandmother’s will
- unjustly increased legal costs as I heard from an employee who sued her employer.
We can’t believe in both: ‘official and authoritative institutions’ and the ‘free market’.
‘Social business’ is the only way in which we, as individuals, can make a difference in the face of institutions and their procedures.
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[...] have committed myself to ‘social business‘ as the most promising and effective model – for creative entrepreneurs and self-employed [...]
By: One Bank, One Currency, One World Government « Real and “Informational” Bombs on March 3, 2008
at 1:52 pm
“Substitute personal greed with compassion, and the balance sheets will still work out just fine. Profit/loss statements take on a whole new dimension and meaning. Greed and capitalism are not one and the same thing. “Social” capitalism, social enterprise, is perfectly doable. This is the most effective sustainable strategy available for alleviating widespread human suffering stemming from poverty and all that comes with it — up to and including terrorism.”
Terry Hallman
By: Jeff Mowatt on March 4, 2008
at 7:43 am
Many thanks, Jeff, for your quote by Terry Hallman!
I think that we are up against a few regulatory and institutionalised challenges where greed, control and other non-beneficial attitudes need to be replaced so that young people can flourish as entrepreneurs rather than commit suicide or be unemployed and violent…
Let’s join not only our good intentions but also our experiences!
Looking forward to reading more,
Sabine
By: Sabine on March 4, 2008
at 9:29 am
Sabine,
Here’s something else you may find interesting. Just after we launched in the UK in 2004 an interview about efforts and obstacles to establishing a microfinance based development initiative for the Tatars of Crimea.
TH offers his (our) view on reforming capitalism.
“Essentially, P-CED challenges conventional capitalism as an insufficient economic paradigm, as evidenced by billions of people in the world living in poverty in capitalist countries and otherwise. Under the conventional scheme, capitalism – enterprise for profit – has certainly transformed much of the world and created a new breed of people in capitalist societies, the middle class. That is a good thing. But, capitalism seems to have developed as far as it can to produce this new class of fairly comfortable people between rich and poor, at least in the West where it has flourished for quite some time.
The problem is that profit and money still tend to accumulate in the hands of comparatively few people. Money, symbolically representing wealth and ownership of material assets, is not an infinite resource. When it accumulates in enormous quantities in the hands of a few people, that means other people are going to be denied. If everyone in the world has enough to live a decent life and not in poverty, then there is no great problem with some people having far more than they need. But, that’s not the case, and there are no rules in the previous capitalist system to fix that. Profit and numbers have no conscience, and anything done in their name has been accepted as an unavoidable aspect of capitalism.
I disagree. In 1996, I simply set up a hypothetical ‘what if’ proposition. What if some businesses decided to change their practices, or institute themselves as new enterprises completely, for the sole purpose of generating massive profits as usual and then using those profits to help people who have little or nothing? That’s the way to correct and improve classic capitalism for the broadest benefit worldwide. It’s now called social capitalism, or, social enterprise. I still call it the same as I did in 1996: people-centered economic development, and that remains the name of my organization and my web site.
At first, the idea seemed heresy – but not for long, simply because it made sense and it didn’t step on the toes of any existing enterprises that were in business to enrich relatively few people. None of them were asked to change anything, but it left open the possibility of more forward-thinking people to step in and do business differently. Even now, I am astonished that the idea struck such a deep and sympathetic chord in so many people so quickly – especially in our top business schools, where one might have thought that they were all in it for the money, for personal wealth, with little regard to social benefit or the poorest of the poor.”
http://www.iccrimea.org/scholarly/economicdev.html
By: Jeff Mowatt on March 12, 2009
at 10:01 am