A Shift In Thinking

The following are taken from 'Creating a World Without Poverty' by Muhammad Yunus:

"If the poor are to get the chance to lift themselves out of poverty, it's up to us to remove the institutional barriers we've created around them.  We must remove the absurd rules and laws we have made that treat the poor as nonentities.  And we must come up with new ways to recognize a person by his or her own worth, not by artificial measuring sticks imposed by a biased system."  (p.49)

"It is so tempting to blame the poor for the problems they face.  But when we look at the institutions we have created and how they fail to serve the poor, we see that those institutions and the backward thinking they represent must bear much of the blame."  (p.51)

"I think things are going wrong not because of "market failures."  The problem is much deeper than that.  Mainstream free-market theory suffers from a "conceptualization failure," a failure to capture the essence of what it is to be human." (p.18)

I think the fundamental problem I have with endorsing a system based on profit maximization is that it favors the powerful at the expense of the weak.  Let me be the first to acknowledge the benefits to society that the creativity of capitalism has wrought.  However, in a true free market, there is no room for the losers.  And if you believe there are not losers you do not have a true understanding of the free market.  I admit to not having an elegant solution to the question of the perfect system.  However, I do know the warning from Matthew 6:19-24 well.  Let us be careful who we serve...

Soli Deo Gloria