Introduction

While he was an economics professor at Chittagong University in Bangladesh in 1976, Muhammad Yunus talked to some impoverished villagers who lived near the school. He eventually realized that the primary reason that they were so poor was that they owed money and had to keep paying it off. The sums were small and 43 people were kept in this

Muhammad Yunus

cycle by only $27 (http://www.notablebiographies.com/newsmakers2/2007-Pu-Z/Yunus-Muhammad.html). Yunus lent the villagers enough money to pay off their debts, and they all paid him back. He realized that he could help people with small loans, and “Yunus volunteered to serve as guarantor on a larger loan from a traditional bank, kindling the idea for a village-based enterprise called the Grameen Project” (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_52/b3965024.htm).

Now a large corporation with several other charitable subcompanies, his work also inspired many people and led to the creation of the microloan industry. Yunus has continued his work to elevate the positions of the underprivileged to this day. In his book Creating a World Without Poverty, he tries to sell his idea of what he is calling “social business.” In social business, companies attempt to alleviate human suffering through some means, and “sells products at prices that make it self-sustaining … but no profit is paid to investors in the form of dividends … instead, any profit stays in the business – to finance expansion, to create new products or services, and to do more good in the world” (Creating a World Without Poverty, xvi).