Man and Economy as Multi-dimensional: An Anthropological Intersection between Yunus and Aquinas
In Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism (New York, Public Affairs: 2007), Muhammad Yunus attributes the persistence, even worsening, of social ills such as poverty and inequality - in spite of the brilliant promise of the capitalist free market that it will free society from such problems - not only to market failures but a deeper cause: “a conceptualization failure” built into the theory behind the mainstream free-market, which he describes as “a failure to capture the essence of what it is to be human.”
According to him, the deep-seated problem intrinsic to Capitalism is that it takes “a narrow view of human nature, assuming that people are one-dimensional beings concerned only with maximum profit.” Within such a framework, the accumulation of wealth is posited not merely as the primary objective of daily pursuit but also as the main goal in life and, whether consciously or not, as the essence of human existence. Thus, what it implicitly equates money with is not only happiness but humanity itself. In effect, this twisted anthropology, designed to breed consumerism and materialism upon which it thrives, leads human beings to base their self-worth and that of others on wealth and material possessions, thereby equating who they are with what they have - être with avoir - being with having, wherein lies it lethal deception. As he said in his Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech:
This interpretation of capitalism insulates the entrepreneurs from all political, emotional, social, spiritual, environmental dimensions of their lives. This was done perhaps as a reasonable simplification, but it stripped away the very essentials of human life.
This fundamental reduction and confusion leads to a pervasive and persistent feeling of lack, emptiness and unhappiness, even in the face of the accumulation of so much wealth, in the light of the law of diminishing returns. By fomenting greed, envy, avarice and all the other vices, it inevitably breeds selfishness and individualism and exacerbates the problems of society such as the grossly inequitable distribution of resources between the rich and the poor and the rapid degradation of the environment. People are made to buy into this theory unawares through the use of aggressive and manipulative advertisements and marketing strategies that surreptitiously latch on their deep desire to be truly happy. “Yet the reality is very different from the theory. People are not one-dimensional realities; they are excitingly multi-dimensional,” maintains Yunus, and this is where he lays down his new concept of social business.
Social business brings together the competitive and practical acumen of business with the humanitarian endeavor of building a more just and equitable society. As such, it differs from business in its orientation towards social development instead of profit. At the same time, it differs from traditional social work in that it aims at cost-recovery and even revenue that will then guarantee its self-sustainability and fuel its expansion. In the words of Yunus: “A social business is not a charity. It is business in every sense. It has to recover its full costs while achieving its social objective.”
What lies at the core, however, of the concept of social business is its notion of the human person as multi-dimensional, which in turn shapes our understanding, not only of the meaning and purpose of business or the economy but even potentially of the many other “dimensions” of human life that were not developed by Yunus himself in the book. Likewise, this underlying anthropology is the clearest point of intersection between the proposal of Yunus and the sublime thought of the Angelic Doctor. In the latter’s Treatise on Man (QQ 75-102) in the Summa Theologica, Aquinas effectively distills the Christian notion of the human person and the positive philosophical contributions available to him to come up with an integral understanding of the human person that lies at the heart of many efforts for justice and authentic human development today. From the onset of his treatise, among what we may equivalently term as “dimensions” of a human person that he posits as Yunus does, Aquinas assigns the primacy not to the material dimension but to the spiritual, calling the soul “the primary principle”:
We must assert that the intellect which is the principle of intellectual operation is the form of the human body. For that whereby primarily anything acts is a form of the thing to which the act is to be attributed: for instance, that whereby a body is primarily healed is health, and that whereby the soul knows primarily is knowledge; hence health is a form of the body, and knowledge is a form of the soul. The reason is because nothing acts except so far as it is in act; wherefore a thing acts by that whereby it is in act. Now it is clear that the first thing by which the body lives is the soul. And as life appears through various operations in different degrees of living things, that whereby we primarily perform each of all these vital actions is the soul. For the soul is the primary principle of our nourishment, sensation, and local movement; and likewise of our understanding. Therefore this principle by which we primarily understand, whether it be called the intellect or the intellectual soul, is the form of the body. This is the demonstration used by Aristotle (De Anima ii, 2).
Furthermore, in ordering the powers of the soul according to their nature, i.e., according to their perfection, as opposed to their order of generation and time, Aquinas gives priority to the intellectual powers over the sensitive powers and the powers of the nutritive soul. He also does the same while discussing the genera of powers in the soul where he ranks the intellectual powers over the sensitive and the vegetative powers.
Hence, not only does Aquinas concur with Yunus on the multi-dimensionality of the human person, he also clearly orders these various dimensions of the person with a priority on what is rational and spiritual. Thus does he devote a whole question in the Summa on what are those things in which consists the happiness of the human person and there concludes that it consists not in wealth, honors, fame or power nor in corporeal goods and pleasures. Rather, he clearly asserts, the happiness of the person consists solely in God who is the Summum Bonum.
Interestingly, in the article on whether happiness comes from wealth, Aquinas quotes Boethius as saying: "wealth shines in giving rather than in hoarding: for the miser is hateful, whereas the generous man is applauded" (De Consol., ii). This is very much in line with the seminal principle of Aquinas that it belongs to the very nature of the good to give of itself – bonum est diffusivum sui.
And yet, as Aquinas himself admits, this statement appears to defy sound logic at first glance, for it would seem that “man's good consists in retaining happiness rather than in spreading it,” the very logic of hoarding that is so prevalent today. Yunus likewise raises this issue as the “fundamental doubt” on the viability of social business: “Why should anybody in his right mind invest his hard-earned money in something that yields no financial return?” Nonetheless, as was the case in Boethius and Aquinas, it is reality itself that ultimately answers and refutes this doubt for Yunus:
It seems to be a reasonable question. Yet people are even crazier than that—they give away their hard-earned money to create foundations and to support charities! People by the millions make such contributions every year, totaling billions of dollars.
Yunus himself experienced this in the inception and expansion of his life project, Grameen Bank, which rapidly grew from a simple business plan with a social mindset into a renowned social business framework, with Yunus himself and Grameen Bank being jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, no less, in 2006. Such is Yunus’ deep faith in the fundamental goodness of the human person who should never be reduced to a one-dimensional being obsessed only with maximum profit. As he puts it beautifully: “Human beings are a wonderful creation embodying limitless human qualities and capabilities. Our theoretical constructs should make room for the blossoming of those qualities, not assume them away.” His ardent hope it is that given the chance:
The existence of social businesses will offer an alternative career and life path to students and others who are hungry for a life rich in meaning beyond profit. Non-financial motivations will finally be recognized as the important drivers of human behavior that they are; the desire to do good for our fellow humans will be acknowledged as a legitimate and powerful factor in the world, rather than relegated to "charity" as it is today.
“Today's rapid pace of change makes it crucial that we, as individual citizens, have a clear idea as to where we want our world to go,” says Yunus. It is this explicit sense of purpose will decide, not only the way we do business, but also the way we live our lives. Here we glimpse yet again the entrepreneurial mind of Yunus, focused and determined about his targets. And yet not only does he set a clear target, he is likewise possessed of a firm and sound mindset, one that is founded on an integral and holistic understanding of the human person, to which he hopes to win over the narrow-minded capitalist economic framework:
What we want and how we get to it depends on our mindsets. It is extremely difficult to change mindsets once they are formed. We create the world in accordance with our mindset. We need to invent ways to change our perspective continually and reconfigure our mindset quickly as new knowledge emerges. We can reconfigure our world if we can reconfigure our mindset.
Our “mindset,” that to which we set our mind, what we adopt and espouse as our ultimate goal, our raison d'être, shapes our way of being in the world. As Aquinas responds after asking whether man can have several last ends or ultimate goals:
It is impossible for one man's will to be directed at the same time to diverse things, as last ends. Three reasons may be assigned for this. First, because, since everything desires its own perfection, a man desires for his ultimate end, that which he desires as his perfect and crowning good...
A sound anthropology helps engender a correct teleology, which forms the basis of a just praxis.