CHAPTER 2

Social Business

Everywhere that societies exist there is altruism, because there is soliderity.

—Durkheim The Division of Labour in Society

2.1 What Is Social Business?

Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus has developed the concept of a new type of business, which he calls “Social Business” – a type of business that specifically aims at social development. Yunus pointed out that the present economic theory and the theory of capitalism assume that human beings are motivated only by self-interest. Thus, under these economic theories, it is assumed that human beings are only one-dimensional persons governed by narrow self-interest. Yunus argued that though most of the time human behavior is governed by self-interest, human beings also ...

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