Improving a "Half-Done" Capitalism: Our Conversation with Muhammad Yunus

The way the crow flies, we're only about around 200 kilometers from Rostock. But it somehow feels like farther away than that. It's Tuesday afternoon and we're upstairs in the modern Deutsche Telekom building in central Berlin, looking down on the proceedings of the Vision Summit. As corporate executives, academics and government representatives discuss "a humane global economy," we're waiting for Muhammad Yunus to come up the elevator. When he does, he greets us warmly, even though he seems a bit tired after a few days packed with interviews and talks.

Since winning the Nobel Peace Prize last fall, Yunus has been a familiar face in the mainstream press. Journalists always ask him about microfinance - the concept he pioneered in rural, famine-stricken Bangladesh during the mid-1970s. As a young economics professor in Dhaka, Yunus had a hunch that inclusive financial instruments (small-scale loans, insurance policies, savings accounts, etc.) could help "the poorest of the poor" climb out of poverty. Thirty years later, Yunus's Grameen Bank provides microfinance to over 7 million people in Bangladesh (97 percent of whom are women). His model is now being replicated and adapted elsewhere in Asia, Africa, South America and Eastern Europe.

Since his acceptance speech at the Nobel Institute back in December, Yunus shares his views about more than microfinance: he seems eager to talk about globalization, climate change and defense spending - all themes that lie at the core of the G8 agenda.

With us, Muhammad Yunus is the patient and eloquent man that I had heard so much about over the last year or so. In our conversation, he talks to us about a introducing a missing human element of capitalism.

"Business is defined as a business to make money. That's the only kind of business today we know within the framework of capitalism. That kind of undermines human being - I would say it insults human being. Human being is much bigger than that. Human being is not an entity which spends his or her lifetime making money. This is too narrow. I know it's important to make money, I'm not undermining that. But human being is capable and willing to do much more than making money. So, that part is completely missing from capitalism."

The conditions are not ideal for filming an interview. We are often interrupted by applause from the conference downstairs (you can hear it from time to time in the conversation). When Ralf mentions it after our talk, Yunus tells him that the final cut should have a disclaimer: "Just be sure you tell everyone that the applause is not for me."

Watch the film here.

More on the Vision Summit to come.