Muhammad Yunus was actually the commencement speaker at my graduation ceremony and even though the whole day is a bit of an emotional blur, his speech (which I'm trying desperately to find somewhere online) stuck with me. It was the first I had ever heard of microfinance- his revolutionary movement creating entrepreneurial opportunities for the impoverished by offering small loans. In A World of Three Zeros, Yunus expands on his vision for the future - one in which economics is shaped by and reliant on social and environmental policies. He imagines a world with zero poverty, zero unemployment and zero net carbon emissions and this book expands on the framework that will help get us there.

One main focus is on the concept of a "social business": the idea that businesses can exist in a realm between nonprofit and for-profit. These businesses serve the community by satisfying a present need and funnel all profits back into the business itself, allowing for expansions and improvements rather than lining the pockets of investors or executives. Social businesses rely on the principle that humans have both selfish and altruistic impulses: the self-propelled nature of this model encourages the distribution of wealth by offering employment, goods and services, and community engagement without relying on donations or charity.

This was a very interesting book to read and catch up on what Muhammad Yunus has been up to, especially since I haven't thought much about microcredit in the last decade. Yunus' passion for this mission is tangible. Though there were times where the book felt a bit like an advertisement for Grameen Bank, I don't feel that it detracts from the message since (by definition) he doesn't personally stand to gain from a more widespread adoption of this model. All in all, this book can be summed up by the age-old adage: "give a man a fish and he is fed for a day; teach a man to fish, give him a small loan to start up his own small company where he is able to hire others to work with him to sell fish to the poor at a price they can afford and you help bring a community out of poverty. Or something like that.

Feels like a long drawn-out investment portfolio for Yunus sahib's not-for-profit business ventures. I don't know whether this will spear you towards action more than Bornstein's 'How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas' (2004) or Mohammad Yunus's own remarkable work as 'Banker to the Poor: Micro-lending and the Battle Against World Poverty' (1999.)

The first chapter ('The Failures of Capitalism') is enlightening: Yunus sahib says that GDP, which measures the monetary value of all goods and services produced by a country does not measure everything that that country produces: for e.g. poverty, crime, illiteracy, unemployment, pollution (all which bear on the economy and general well-being of people in a negative light) but does count wars and other activities that are harmful and bring misery to people. Instead of leading to harmony and understanding and mutual success, global trade and integration has led to more resentment, simply because it creates a system of winners and losers. And Yunus sahib's view is that an economic system that benefits the top 1% and makes losers of the bottom 99% is rejecting the basic ideas that are important to human beings: mutual prosperity and kinship.