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Muhammad Yunus, who created microcredit, invented social business, and earned a Nobel Peace Prize for his work in alleviating poverty, is one of today’s most trenchant social critics. Now he declares it’s time to admit that the capitalist engine is broken—that in its current form it inevitably leads to rampant inequality, massive unemployment, and environmental destruction. We need a new economic system that unleashes altruism as a creative force just as powerful as self-interest. Is this a pipe dream? Not at all. In the last decade, thousands of people and organizations have already embraced Yunus’s vision of a new form of capitalism, launching innovative social businesses designed to serve human needs rather than accumulate wealth. They are bringing solar energy to millions of homes in Bangladesh; turning thousands of unemployed young people into entrepreneurs through equity investments; financing female-owned businesses in cities across the United States; bringing mobility, shelter, and other services to the rural poor in France; and creating a global support network to help young entrepreneurs launch their start-ups. In A World of Three Zeros, Yunus describes the new civilization emerging from the economic experiments his work has helped inspire. He explains how global companies like McCain, Renault, Essilor, and Danone got involved with this new economic model through their own social action groups, describes the ingenious new financial tools now funding social businesses, and sketches the legal and regulatory changes needed to jump-start the next wave of socially driven innovations. And he invites young people, business and political leaders, and ordinary citizens to join the movement and help create the better world we all dream of.

Contents:

Part I: The Challenge

1. The Failures of Capitalism / 2. Creating a New Civilization: The Countereconomics of Social Business

Part II: The Three Zeros

3. Zero Poverty: Bringing an End to Income Inequality / 4. Zero Unemployment: We Are Not Job Seekers, We Are Job Creators / 5. Zero Net Carbon: Creating an Economics of Sustainability / 6. A Road Map to a Better Future

Part III: Megapowers for Transforming the World

7. Youth: Energizing and Empowering the Young People of the World / 8. Technology: Unleashing the Power of Technology to Liberate All People  / 9. Good Governance and Human Rights: Keys to Building a Society That Works for All

Part III: Stepping Stones to the Future

10. The Legal and Financial Infrastructure We Need / 11. Redesigning the World of Tomorrow

Notes

Index