Muhammad Yunus warns against the negative forces of globalization.

Muhammad Yunus: Regulatory body will be important because you are creating a new institution, new framework. For all types of regulatory body, one of the fundamental things you do – the right institution versus the wrong institutions. You claim to be a social business, but the way you designed it is not really a social business. So somebody, a regulatory body, will give you certification that yes you are properly done, and then continue to monitor you. That way you do it in the right way or the wrong way. Like in regulatory body for anybody who sells food items – whether they are selling the right food. Is it healthier? Is it contaminated? That’s a regulatory body’s job. And if you are running a restaurant, if you’re running a hotel, there’s a regulatory body who comes and checks you and certifies that you are performing all the functions properly. Similarly if you are running a social business, somebody will have to certify you. Yes you are running on the right track. Your calculations are right. Your estimates, your accounting is right. So that you know people are . . . Your business is transparent. After all people are investing in your thing. So there will be ____________. There will be auditing firm. There will be regulating authority. There will be business standards, international standards, and so on and so forth. So these are the things which will have to emerge as you go into business like this. There will be local regulatory body. There will be international regulatory body, because there are lots of social businesses which will be multinational social business. Now we are . . . The moment we talk about globalization, everybody talks about the fear of multinationals coming and taking over our business and destroying our economy, destroying our livelihood. Yes, because they are powerful. Nobody is there to combat them. Nobody is there to kind of stand in front of them. “Look, you can do no such thing.” So they go wherever they want. And their governments and everybody is supportive of them because they bring so much money for them. So if you accept the social business concept, gradually you will have multinational social business who will be standing next to the profit maximizing, harmful social businesses. “Look you can’t do that.” We will take it over, and then they go and start the business on their own, try and protect the interest of poor business, poor . . . weak economies because they are dedicated to help retain the businesses, and retain their culture and art . . . economy of the country. So they will be creating those multinational companies where we will go and protect the interests of the people and the local economic interests. So that way this kind of thing has to emerge in the context of the global economy. They will have . . . The multinational social businesses will have their policy recommendations about how to make these things work in a globalization context so that we will be benefitting from their existence.

Recorded on: 1/23/08