UN ENCUENTRO CON EL PREMIO NOBEL MUHAMMAD YUNUS
Muhammad Yunus, el premio Nobel del 2006 conocido mundialmente como ''el banquero de los pobres'' - que le presta dinero sin pedir garantías a unos 7 millones de desposeídos- tiene un consejo para los países que están luchando contra la pobreza: establezcan ``empresas sociales''. Lee aqui lo que me dijo Yunus en una entrevista, y comenta lo que piensas al respecto.
posted by Andres Oppenheimer at 7:46 AM
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Your column on Professor Yunnus is great, Andres, from a strictly Business or Economic perspective, but the guy won the Nobel PEACE Prize, and here is why ...
In his recent visit to Miami, Professor Mohammed Yunnus –the Poor Man’s Banker who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006- spoke before a packed ball room at the Annual Gala Dinner of the Association of Bi-National Chambers of Commerce in Florida, while picking up yet another award. From looking around the tables, you could tell his message was very well received by the close to five hundred diners, many bankers, lawyers and prominent business people among them, even though quite a few of them must have felt strongly challenged by the words of this charismatic, ever smiling and strikingly humble –despite the mounting pile of rewards and recognition his work has earned him- Bangladeshi, who stopped in Miami on his way to his own new challenge back home, a political one.
Bangladesh is a small Muslim country in the Indian sub-continent, almost the exact size of Florida, inhabited by close to one hundred and fifty million people (about half the population of the United States), and seventy five percent living in a rural (mostly poor) environment. At first glance, this set of circumstances seems to set Bangladesh apart from our own circumstances, living, as we do, in the privileged (often called developed) part of the World. But Professor Yunnus’ ideas, and his valuable work, have a universal reach and appeal that make him the most deserving –and less controversial- Nobel Peace Prize winner in many years.
Mr. Yunnus re-invented the banker’s paradigm. Since its founding in 1976, his Grameen Bank has been lending, at a fair price, to those who other banks would never deem credit-worthy, without lengthy contracts, and with no other guarantee (or security) than reliance on the borrower’s willingness to re-pay. This willingness is reinforced by both, peer-pressure (as exerted by other borrowers in the same circle or group) and self-interest, since the Grameen Bank’s borrowers (a very high percentage of them women) seem to understand one of the key elements of a free market, the acknowledgement of third party rights and interests, a lot better than many big players in the business world seem to in these days and times. In so doing, Professor Yunnus is well on his way to re-inventing (or inverting) yet another paradigm, the one exemplified by Gordon Gheko, the central character in the movie “Wall-Street”, whose claim was that “greed is good”. “Social Capitalism”, as described by Mr. Yunnus in his Miami speech, is not about loosing money –his bank is a very successful enterprise. It is about re-asserting the human side of business –and of capitalism- by rescuing the essence of fellowship as a component of human nature.
There were probably some snickers also –at least some condescending smiles- among those in Mr. Yunnus’ audience in Miami, and there will always be those who will find shortcomings in what Mr. Yunnus has been doing for the past thirty years –which is also known as micro-lending, due to the small size of the loans the Grameen Bank makes. In areas of the World stricken by poverty, the urge to solve the poverty problem often leads to the pursuit of grandiose and often very expensive institutional reforms aimed at the creation –or the release- of wealth. In that context, micro-lending can be easily dismissed as the proverbial drop of water in the middle of the ocean –although, for each individual micro-borrower, it maybe a life-changing experience. But the beauty in Professor Yunnus’ scheme is that it does not require the investment of huge resources or the time it takes to implement any kind of reforms –in fact, Yunnus would be the perfect spokesman for one of our sneaker brands: “he just does it”- while it does not compete with the other anti-poverty efforts in any kind of zero-sum games. The fight against poverty is, essentially, a fight against exclusion –as Hernando de Soto, another economist in the short list of future Nobel Prize winners has shown- and there is room (and a need) for many different useful tools in that fight. Giving access to fairly priced credit to those who don’t have it is simply one very efficient tool. Besides, Professor Yunnus is probably too good natured to snicker back at the proponents of some of these grandiose plans, whose track record is very lacking when it comes to showing a return on frequently high cost -and even higher maintenance- foreign aid programs, in countries who do not have the resources –nor the required societal consensus- to sustain that kind of investment or effort.
One last lesson form Mr Yunnus’ brief sojourn amongst us. We tend to see the World through our own eyes –that is also human nature. And we tend to think that what works for us should work for every-body else -we Americans are particularly prone to fall into that trap. Lately, we are in a hard driven surge to export our political –talk about high maintenance- and economic systems to other countries. It is a gallant, honorable and fitting pursuit, since we can still claim to be one of the best examples of a society where social justice (a flag we seldom wave as much as we should) mostly prevails –egalitarianism when it comes to opportunity is the key element of social justice, and our country is still, first and foremost, the land of opportunity it has always been. But imposing our economic or political system on other societies is not the right path as yet another brilliant economist, William Easterly, argues in a recent book. We need to find what mechanisms those other societies, through their own consensual means, deem workable, before we suggest ways in which they can make those mechanisms work more efficiently. Professor Yunnus is embarking on a political career in Bangladesh, where he has his work cut out for him. Paradoxically for someone acclaimed for, among other things, empowering women, the two preeminent political figures in Bangladesh, Khaleda Zia from the Citizens’ Power Party, and Sheikh Hasina Wajed from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, are women. He will be taking on them in a political environment that few will dispute is close to being a basket-case. Some people already see the shade of collectivism behind some of Mr. Yunnus’ ideas, but I find it hard to believe that someone who shows such high esteem for the human being can subscribe to mechanisms that are grounded on belittling people’s ability to make choices. But even if that were to be the case, let us wait and see. It will be thrilling to see Professor Yunnus’ immense creativity at work in the political field, and learn from it.
For those who are anticipating and dreading a clash of civilizations, it should be refreshing to realize that the “other” civilization can yield ideas like those of Mohammed Yunnus. For those of us concerned about the World our children and grand-children will have to live in, may many future Nobel Peace Prizes find recipients as worthy as the Poor Man’s Banker, truly a peace-maker.
José Manuel Pallí
Aún creyendo en las buenas intenciones y la excelente administración del señor Muhammad Yunus, su proyecto denominado “Bank for the poor” no aliviará en nada la pobreza del Tercer Mundo y mucho menos logrará limpiarle la cara al capitalismo explotador que domina al mundo.
¿Alguien puede ser tan estúpido para creer que minúsculos prestamos de 27 0 30 dólares compensará los miles y miles de millones que las transnacionales extraen cada año de nuestros países? ¿No sería más efectivo pedirle a las potencias del Primer Mundo que dejen de esconder los capitales robados por las oligarquías de nuestras naciones, o que sus bancos no laven más dinero proveniente de las ganancias del tráfico de drogas, o que simplemente sus corporaciones se abstengan de sobornar a nuestros Estados con el propósito de evadir el pago de impuestos? Los pagos de la deuda del Tercer Mundo requieren más de 375 BILLONES DE DÓLARES al año (es decir, 20 veces la cantidad que nosotros recibimos bajo el hipócrita titulo de “ayuda extranjera”), ¿por qué no nos condonan de una ves por todas esta deuda, tendiendo en cuenta que en la práctica ya la hemos pagado cientos de veces?
El señor Yunus me hace recordar a ciertos socialistas utópicos del siglo XIX (Owen, Fourier, etc.), todos ellos también creían que las calamidades e insuficiencias que el capitalismo genera podía ser remediados con simples retoques de generosidad e idealismo financiero. Simples bobos.
Si, si, ya sé que mi comentario será calificado de demagógico o propio de un “perfecto idiota latinoamericano”. You know what? I do not care.
En este raro mundo uno puede esperar de todo: desde la conversión de un izquierdista furioso a conservador ultramontano; o, soslayando las leyes de la física, encontrar la fórmula para mezclar materia oleaginosa con acetato; o, sin ir más lejos, que el Papa Benedicto, luego de 2.000 años de miedos infantiles, terrores juveniles nocturnos o dudas adultas siempre picando el alma, haya anunciado primicialmente, con boca divina, que el diablo no existe; o que los de uno y otro lado, archienemigos poco menos que prehistóricos de Irlanda del Norte hubieran hecho las pases para conformar un gobierno sin distinciones, no son los únicos ejemplos de una infinidad de hechos casi inverosímiles que este sorprendente mundo nos obsequia día a día. Hay otros naturalmente que merecen comentarse, y con semejante interés, pero en esto de las dualidades tan complejas, la teoría acerca de las "empresas sociales" sustentada por el Sr. Yunus, representa una forma tan innovadora de tender un puente bien cimentado entre la riqueza y la pobreza, que bajo ningún punto de vista puede ser reprochable su postulado.
Es una verdad de Perogrullo que el banquero, por antonomasia, es un hombre frío, especulador, egoísta, calculador, y el más hábil tejedor de fórmulas bancarias que vayan a demoler al ocasional prestatario.
Frente a ese "ritual" bancario inhumano emerge la figura de un banquero que alzando su voz al cielo, dice: "Yo soy multimillonario. La banca ha sido la fuente de mi bonanza, pero, ¿por qué no compartir ese bienestar con los más desposeídos otorgándoles los mayores beneficios y las menores usuras posibles? Formemos entonces "empresas sociales" que no disminuyan el poder económico de la banca mundial, ni la desestabilicen, sino que la hagan más noble haciendo menos pobres a los pobres.
El Sr. Yunus no sólo que merece el Premio Nóbel, sino una tarjeta de agradecimiento del 80% de la población mundial.
Es posible que su horizonte de ser Presidente tenga algo que ver en sus propósitos.
¿Pero y si todos los que postulan a ser presidentes de países pobres o ricos tuvieran la misma humana propuesta, no sería este mundo más equilibrado?
Soy un lector que no se pierde un solo artículo suyo. Pero a propósito de esto, vanas han sido mis intenciones de poder llegar a usted con alguna nota o artículo, pues ninguno ha merecido una respuesta suya.
Entiendo que no pueda responder por sus múltiples ocupaciones a una persona a quien usted desconoce, o que no tiene la altura periodística que usted con tanto sacrificio se ha labrado hasta ser considerado uno de los mejores periodistas de la región.
Pero así como ocurre esto, y refiriéndome ya al Post Scriptum de su escrito, me parece que Chávez -hombre a quien detesto por su megalomanía, personalidad torcida y hombre de mal-, y sin pretender justificarlo, naturalmente, tal vez no quiera enfrentarse a una persona como Andrés Oppenheimer que jerárquicamente no está a su altura.
Esto se lo digo con el corazón en la mano y sin ánimo de provocarlo. Solamente, si me entiende, trato de desembozar el rostro de un hombre que detrás de sus bravuconadas, insultos, delirios de grandeza, se esconde el perfecto idiota latinoamericano (A.V.LL.), que jamás se va a rebajar a medir las armas con un periodista. Otro sería el caso si éste fuera de Gramma (todo preparado, fácil y bonito).
No me malinterprete por favor. No estoy haciendo una analogía entre una y otra cosa. Simplemente invoco a su probado sentido común para que alguna comunicación mía pueda ser objeto de su atención.
Mis respetos,
Pablo Mendieta Paz,
La Paz, Bolivia
mendipaz@hotmail.com
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