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Capitalism is Interpreted too Narrowly

Guest post by: Grameen Foundation

Article Overview: Many of the problems in the world remain unresolved because we continue to interpret capitalism too narrowly. In this narrow interpretation we create a one-dimensional human being to play the role of entrepreneur.

Capitalism is Interpreted too Narrowly

By Muhammad Yunus

Many of the problems in the world remain unresolved because we continue to interpret
capitalism too narrowly. In this narrow interpretation we create a one-dimensional human being
to play the role of entrepreneur. We insulate him from other dimensions of life, such as
religious, emotional, political dimnesions. He is dedicated to one mission in his business life ---
to maximize profit. He is supported by masses of one-dimensional human beings who back him
up with their investment money to achieve the same mission. The game of free market works
out beautifully with one-dimentional investors and entrepreneurs. We have remained so
mesmerized by the success of the free market that we never dared to express any doubt about it.
We worked extra hard to transform ourselves, as closely as possible, into the one-dimensional
human beings as conceptualized in theory to allow smooth functioning of the free market
mechanism.

Economic theory postulates that you are contributing to the society and the world in the best
possible manner if you just concentrate on squeezing out the maximum for your self. When you
get your maximum, everybody else will get their maximum.

As we devotedly follow this policy sometimes doubts appear in our mind whether we are doing
the right thing. Things don’t look so good around us. We quickly brush off our doubts by
saying all these bad things happen because of “market failures”; well-functioning markets cannot
produce unpleasant results.

I think things are going wrong not because of “market failure.” It is much deeper than that. Let
us be brave and admit that it is because of “conceptualization failure.” More specifically, it is
the failure to capture the essence of a human being in our theory. Everyday human beings are
not one-dimensional entities, they are excitingly
multi-dimensional and indeed very colourful. Their emotions, beliefs, priorities, behaviour
patterns can be more aptly described by drawing analogy with the basic colours and millions of
colours and shades they produce.

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Article Tags: entrepreneur, entrepreneurs, free market, free market, free market mechanism, human beings, human beings, human beings, market failure



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