Of microfinancing schemes, morals and social responsibilities ...

A friend of mine forwarded information regarding a non-profit organization that is into microfinancing. This e-mail was doing rounds on a mailing list that we are part of. Soon, a war of mails started about how organizations doing microfinancing aren't actually hitting the real target i.e., end of poverty. Especially at the heart of the argument, were 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Winners Dr. Mohammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank.

Grameen has done phenomenal work in alleviating poverty over the last 30+ years in Bangladesh and rest of the world. Atleast, that is the claim made. However, a series of articles, such as the ones below, exposed how the microfinancing system, though theoretically extraordinary, fail to make drastic social impact and in fact, on the flipside, end up doing far more damage to societal structures.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061030/bello

http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Micro.html

The articles above would give the reader a better idea about microfinancing, which is not the purpose of discussion in this blog, which I delve into now ...

Reading these articles really made me wonder, why on earth should one care about ending poverty or making lives of people better. Of course, people have provided me with endless arguments about how poverty can never end because it defies the laws of economics or how peace can never be achieved in the world because it defies the laws of societies and economics and politics et.al. I always ignored these comments in the enthusiasm of 'making a difference' in the world. However, I now concede, yes ... it is a perfectly valid argument that poverty is never going to end and world peace will never be achieved.

This rolls me over to my favorite 'moral' conversation ... what about social responsibility? How responsible is one for the society around them? I think people living in a society can be structured into the following ....

a. People who are happy to pay their taxes and wait for the government to work wonders.

b. People who pay their taxes, are unhappy about the governments work and on top of that pay extra money to NGOs to get some good work done that is 'helpful' to the society.

c. People who contribute taxes to the government and also contribute to NGO efforts but are still left unhappy about how the world is and are seeking solutions (I probably belong to this group)

d. People who've had enough of what's being done by the government and NGOs and instead decide to give it all up and go and do something of their own.

At the end of all this long blah ... blah ... I am left in this reflective state of mind where I really would want to think that instead of pursuing seemingly impossible, utopian goals, it'd make much more sense to scale down to a much more manageable level of life than go for the moon. I am reminded of what a very good friend of mine once said ... "I want to end my own poverty. I think that's the best contribution I can make to the end of world poverty". This is very selfish, I guess, but a lot more sensible :-)

P.S.: A full 12 or so hours after writing this blog, I am at much greater ease on this topic ... my newest and favoritest advisor i.e., my wife told me to follow what Lord Krishna told Arjuna in the Bhagavadgita about doing one's duty without caring for the fruits of the effort! :-)